by Mary Deal
And heard…
…her sandals padding on smoothed stone.
Chione sighed as she heard the sounds her boots made on the granite. She longed to return to the vision to fully experience the captivating woman and live her time and culture. Once Chione acknowledged Tauret in the visions, Tauret's life began to seem as real as her own. She was seized with an idea. Perhaps she could better contact her, experience more of her life by being more like her. “Yes,” Chione said under her breath, but how she might go about it still eluded her.
The designated block of granite in the Pillared Hall floor had already been hoisted.
“Oh, no,” Chione said. “Did they have to gouge holes?” A small square hole had been cut into the floor at the north wall along both sides where the slab once laid.
“No other way,” Aaron said. “The space between the slabs wasn't wide enough to get a razor into.”
“Those Egyptians,” Clifford said, walking over. “To think we still build our modern houses where wind blows through the cracks.”
To get leverage, the engineers made the holes big enough to get a grip on the slab from underneath. Once they raised it a bit, they slid it away from the pillars and stood it on end. Chips of stone filled a large cavity beneath.
Aaron turned to Chione and gestured to the slab being lowered onto soft padding placed on the floor at the back of the chamber. “I can't tell you what this means for us,” he said. He hugged her briefly, then evidently remembering that they should not be emotional or touch in plain sight of the workers, stepped away.
If only he knew what it meant to her. Her intuition hinted that all her dreams and visions were about to be explained, from the simplest to the most incomprehensible. All the pieces of the puzzle were jostling into position. She looked at Aaron and knew that he, too, experienced the same anxiety.
Off to the side, Dr. Withers watched, blatantly smiling, with Clifford now at his side whispering something through an equally mischievous grin. Had they never seen her and Aaron hug?
Laborers began filling containers and wooden trays with the rubble and scurried in and out of the Hall. She and Aaron moved aside and watched the lines of men work the bucket brigade. After a while, Chione peeked into the passageway. Two lines of muscular laborers moved along, some paused to partake of the current of air as they passed the fans. One line of workers took rubble to be hoisted out through the portcullis; the other passed back the empty containers to be filled again.
Suddenly the men in the pit excitedly called to Dr. Withers to join them and the team followed. The smooth wall of the pit, beginning between the two pillars, slanted downward toward the north wall. More than a foot in on the angular slant, they had uncovered a niche big enough where one might place a foot. One man reached down with gloved hands and quickly brushed aside more chips. Another niche appeared a foot deeper.
Aaron closed his eyes and threw his head back, as if the tension was more than he could bear. Clifford gave a hand to Dr. Withers to steady him as he placed the toe of his boot on each rung and bounced from the knee, getting the feel of the footholds. Then he let Clifford help him out. “Yes,” he said, giving two thumbs up.
Randy simply waited, took it all in, reserved yet eager. After a usual cursory inspection, Paki Rashad went to stand beside him, his quiet demeanor intact. Though no one spoke, the atmosphere was electrified.
After more than an hour of emptying the pit, the slanted floor was found to be a ramp with a row of footholds on each side. The ramp led downward, under the north wall and beyond. No glyphs presented on the walls or ceiling, only stone chipped smooth.
Then Quaashie appeared from his post in the passageway. “Excuse, min fadlukum, excuse,” he said, bowing his head several times as he spoke. “They call you to lunch.” He tapped his wristwatch.
“My word,” Dr. Withers said as he glanced at his. “It's almost four in the afternoon.”
They went topside for a meal and rest. Sweaty laborers, relieved, did the same. Out in sunlight, other men and women sifted through the rubble brought out of the pit. No artifacts were found. After about an hour, the team returned to work.
Bebe and Kendra sat on the floor with legs dangling into the slope. Chione stood nearby, too anxious to sit. As the rubble was being removed from deeper inside the passage, the workers became excited again.
Bebe leaned way down to peer inside. “Look,” she said as she pointed into the passage. “A withered board.”
The long board was fastened against the north end of the deep passage at the ceiling. Another board was exposed below that, then another, and another as more rubble fell away and was removed. Finally, the level floor was revealed.
“About eight feet tall by six wide,” Aaron said. Boards covered the entire back end of the pit. “Certainly those boards alone didn't hold back tons of rubble.”
Dr. Withers joined Aaron at the bottom. “Shine that light over here.”
They got up close looking into the spaces between the dry splitting timbers. Dr. Withers leaned back, cocked his head and looked again through bifocals. “A wall,” he said for all to hear. “Another wall.”
“Well, the passage leads somewhere,” Clifford said. They didn't dig this cavity to pass the time.”
“Come down here and get your close-ups,” Dr. Withers said to the photographers. “So we can get the boards off.”
Ginny and another photographer tediously eased down the footholds with aides carrying peripheral gear. Suddenly a piece of granite broke loose from the slanted ceiling, almost knocking Ginny down. It crashed to the floor, shattered and sent up a billow of dust. She stood frozen, looking up at them with eyes widened.
“Wait!” Paki Rashad said. “Come out, come out!”
The photographers scampered. “I thought I was about to enter the afterlife,” Ginny said as her lips quivered. Her aide relieved her of the camera as she sat on the floor and put her head down to steady herself.
“No one goes down there again till we shore up the ceiling,” Dr. Withers said. He looked at his watch. “It's late but we'd better do it tonight. We've worked too hard to come back in the morning and find everything in a state of collapse.”
Too excited to sleep much, the team rose early the next morning.
“I'll bet I make it down under before you,” Chione said.
“Just eat your breakfast, young lady,” Clifford said in a fatherly way. “We're going to need a lot of energy today.”
Chione went back for seconds. When excited, she could eat and she had been excited a lot lately. She had even put on a few pounds, her khaki pants fitting snuggly.
Unexpectedly early, two tall, muscular Norwegians dressed in work clothes and carrying hard hats strutted into the cook tent and helped themselves to coffee but declined breakfast.
“Today is big day,” one of them said.
“You seen anything like this before?” Clifford asked.
One of them shook his floppy sun bleached head. “We make repair, never discovery.”
“Glad you're here,” Dr. Withers said as he stood and offered his hand. “We're about to open what we hope will be the Burial Chamber.”
“Terji here,” the taller Norwegian said, shaking Dr. Withers's hand.
“I'm Finn,” the shorter man said and eagerly began shaking hands all around.
The team was introduced and Kendra beamed and offered to scoot over so they could sit beside her.
Finn sucked air through his teeth. “You make good find,” he said to everyone. “This good.”
Inside the Hall, after the photographers finished and the film was developed, the boards against the back wall of the pit were removed one by one. Care had to be taken in the now confined space to avoid banging into the support scaffolding. As each board was taken down, what greeted them was a huge opening sealed again with mud plaster containing cartouche imprints of varying sizes. Laborers speaking in Arabic could not hide their elation as their ever-sparkling eyes flashed.
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sp; Aaron studied the wall, pointing as he counted. “Thirty-three imprints,” he said loud enough for all to hear. “Five different patterns.”
“Get down here, Chione,” Dr. Withers said. “See if you can decipher.”
She eased down the footholds to the bottom and studied the marks. “Tauret's,” she said, calling up to the others. “Meskhenet and Umi's. Some are Tutankhamon's and this other one, I'm not sure.”
Then the photographers went down. The wall would have to be removed which meant possible destruction of the imprints.
“We'll go no farther,” Dr. Withers said. “Until such time as these photos are developed and we're sure we have a legible record.”
By lunchtime, the photographers had produced the photos. Several copies of each were still to be made. Two would be for the Madu Museum's records, two for Bebe, plus extras.
Though care was taken to preserve as much as possible, as the hard mud plaster was chipped away, the cartouches broke into pieces. Behind, a wall of granite blocks appeared revealing the structural soundness of the tomb.
More photographs. More developing. Finally, the first huge block at the center top was removed and exposed the sparkling gleam of a gold filigree gate.
Dr. Withers could wait no longer. Two men steadied the ladder as he climbed, clicked on his flashlight and peered into the chamber. The second his light flashed through the gate and hit the opposite wall inside, Chione, eagerly perched halfway down the incline, saw a flash of yellow brilliance and…
…a very solemn Tauret standing in the next sunny chamber, waiting.
Dr. Withers turned slightly on the ladder. He looked to be reeling in disbelief.
“Well, what do you see?” Clifford asked impatiently.
Dr. Withers smiled slowly. “Loot,” he said. “History, ol' buddy.” He glanced at everyone. “Artifacts that'll change history.”
“Is it the Burial Chamber?” Chione asked.
“It's a glorious Offering Chamber,” he said, starting down the ladder. “Howard Carter ain't got nothin' on us.” He was giddy and almost lost his footing. Once stable on the solid floor, he said, “I'll bet my boots I know exactly how Carter felt looking into Tut's chamber that first time.”
“That can only mean good stuff,” Clifford said.
“Things you'd never dream of,” he said. “Unless you're Chione. It's loaded with artifacts!” He signaled the workers to hurry and remove the rest of the barricade. The heavy blocks were dragged up the incline on sledges, probably much the same way they had been lowered. But the team's sledges were dragged on rubber wheels to avoid adding new marks to the ramp.
After removal of the first block earlier, air seeped out of the chamber. Chione again smelled the perfume that haunted her from the start of the discovery. Now the scent became stronger, more distinct, as if freshly applied. No one else seemed to notice.
The gate was fashioned of wood carved into lotus blossoms and covered with solid gold overlay. Light flashing through the gate and into the room revealed abundant treasures. More photos needed to be taken before removal of the gate. More waiting.
Hand mirrors were brought in to provide a glance at the inside wall where the gate was attached.
Aaron eased a mirror between the filigree and positioned it so he could see the way the gate was attached on the inside. “It's stuck into holes. Plastered in place.”
Rashad took a turn and poked his hand and a mirror through the filigree. Then he conversed with Dr. Withers who said, “We don't need to poke a camera through the spaces to photograph how the gate's installed. We'd risk damaging the gate. Remove it.”
While watching in a mirror held by a laborer, Quaashie reached through the gate and gingerly scraped away the plaster with a hand tool, loosening its grip in the hollows around the mounting studs. A little pressure applied, a little shaking, and the gate broke free.
Lights were set up at the doorway. After Rashad, Dr. Withers and the photographers made their inspection, the room was opened for viewing.
Chione stepped inside. The first objects beyond personal artifacts to catch her eye were the two standing golden statues of an elegant woman in full priestess attire. They faced each other about eight feet apart in front of another plaster-laden wall to the left.
“Who does she represent?” Bebe asked.
“Probably our mummy,” Chione said. “Guarding the entrance to her Burial Chamber.” She could not help but smile. The intense look of resolve on the faces of the statues seemed to have captured everyone's attention. Dr. Withers and Bebe glanced from the statues to her face and back to the statues. Was there a likeness between her and the priestess? Still, as with the golden statue in the Second Annex, no one paid attention to the convex abdomens, except Aaron. Chione breathed in eagerly accepting that the fragrance had possibly been Tauret's favorite perfume. She watched Aaron's nostrils flare as he secretly sniffed the air. Then Bebe seemed cognizant of it and sniffed, but the others still had not noticed. Was the perfume actually floating in the air or was it a manifestation of the paranormal? The fragrance was so heady, surely the others would notice. The hypnotic effect of the scent made her mind reel.
“The same cartouche imprints,” Bebe said.
Aaron stood beside her and Bebe as they examined the plaster covered wall with its border of hieroglyphs. “Finally,” he said. “Here is our point of embarkation into the Underworld.”
Yet, they turned attention back to the present chamber. “About twelve by fourteen feet is my guess,” Aaron said. “Another pyramid above.” As in the other chambers, beams of a pyramid carved as part of the ceiling rose above them. More Egyptian blue. More yellow stars.
Brilliant yellow coated the four walls from shoulder height to ceiling and pyramid edge. Below that were endless painted reliefs and hieroglyphs.
“Again, not your traditional messages,” Chione said, studying them.
“Not your traditional walls either,” Bebe said.
“This form of decor is called dado,” Clifford said. “The walls were covered with gypsum plaster then painted yellow.”
“Look at all this loot,” Kendra said. “None of it looks decayed.”
“It's the pyramid's effect,” Dr. Withers said.
He was not joking, nor smiling. He simply made a comment as if talking about the weather. Chione wondered whatever possessed him to say such a thing and why the others did not crack a joke in response. Were they finally accepting all the metaphysical implications?
The contents of the room included Tauret's personal belongings. Tall sealed jars and bronze vases stood about. Many glass objects and jewelry lay on tables and in piles on the floor.
Randy, with a professional air about him, stood away from the activity and talked in low tones with Rashad and the Norwegians. Rashad treated Randy respectfully, perhaps the first professional colleague to have done so. The burial site affected each of them in different ways. Certainly, she was not the only one undergoing metamorphosis.
“Look at these jeweled sandals,” Chione said, feeling compelled to stick a foot into one as she saw…
…sandaled feet padding on smoothed stone.
“No!” Clifford said, yanking her away. “That could fall apart at the slightest touch. You know that.”
“No touching the family jewels,” Dr. Withers said sternly. “In fact, don't even make the air move over any of these fragile items.”
Around the room, all sorts of clothing had been heaped in piles for…
…a woman who had earned the right to much finery.
Long pleated cloaks, gowns, many and varied pairs of sandals and gold jewelry lay everywhere as Chione remembered…
…amethyst earrings to wear in Pharaoh's court. A carnelian studded collar with feldspar and malachite for the rituals. A collection of blue anhydrite, gifts from Oba.
Wigs and hair adornments lay on a dressing table along with perfume bottles, jars of kohl, and other items for applying makeup. Chione breathed again.
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sp; Scents for all occasions, and one, Pharaoh's favorite.
“Whatever Tauret owned was evidently dumped in here,” Kendra said.
“Dumped like in the other chambers,” Bebe said.
Chione heard their comments but was unable to contribute. She floated in and out of ancient scenes, pulled far away from the voices around her.
“Chione?” Aaron asked. “Chione, what's up?”
“What's the matter?” Bebe asked, appearing in front of her.
Chione wilted against Aaron. “I-I guess it's just stuffy in here,” she said weakly. Her knees threatened to buckle.
“She's right,” Dr. Withers said. “Let's leave this chamber. We won't be going through that next passage till this room is cleared.”
The decision was right. Besides, Chione felt her energy draining.
Aaron volunteered to take the Norwegians on a tour of the tomb and Kendra invited herself along. Chione no longer felt concern about Kendra shadowing Aaron.
Due to most items being fragile, many days would be required for the preservation and removal of the Offering Chamber contents. The Norwegians returned to Dier el-Bahri. The Forbeses and the Philipses took off sightseeing at Elephantine, Philae, Abu Simbel and regions to the south. Surprisingly, they invited Randy and Tarik.
Bebe announced that the unidentified cartouche imprint on the doorway of the Offering Chamber belonged to Queen Tyi.
“Bebe, Chione,” Dr. Withers said. “Get busy. I want to know what Queen Tyi has to do with all this.”
He needed to have patience. Chione knew it would take time to sort out.
40
A message arrived stating Egyptian high government officials and other dignitaries from England and South Africa were scheduled for tours.
Dr. Withers looked frustrated. “Look how long it took them to recognize that we're real,” he said over dinner.
“As far as I'm concerned,” Clifford said, “I wished they still believed we're just hocus-pocus.”