And so I discovered that May did not tell a single lie after all.
Twelfth day of the third month of Heat
I hardly slept last night, and had to rise TWO HOURS before dawn to wash and dress for our trip to the palace this morning. Though it is only a short walk away, Father was concerned that we would get our new clothes dusty on the way, so he sent for chairs to collect us just after sunrise. Father went in one, and Tamyt and I shared the other. This ride made me feel like a prince, for it was the first time I have ever been carried anywhere in a chair.
Alas, there was hardly time to enjoy it, for we were soon at the palace gates, and then inside. The palace is a little like a temple — but as a temple courtyard is big and airy, so the palace is bigger and airier. Great trees grow in the palace garden, but the walls are so high that the trees are almost invisible from the outside. There is water everywhere — in pools and in trickling streams. The ceilings are so high that you must crane your neck to look up at them, and gold and brilliant colors cover everything. But what surprised me most of all was that — like us — the king lives in a house of mud! I had expected that the palace would be built of stone, like a tomb, but it is not. As we rode in, we saw a new wall being built, and it was made of mud bricks.
Once we were inside the palace, we stood for hours in a long line waiting to see the king, but we stayed cool under brightly colored linen tents.
While we waited, a courtier told us how to behave before the king. Nobody is allowed to speak directly to his face. Even his closest advisers must look away and talk as if he is not there at all. For instance, they do not say, “Do you want me to do this or that?” but, “Does the king wish me to do this or that?”
We learned all this as we moved slowly across an inner courtyard toward the throne. I could see little because there were so many people, but as we drew closer, I spied King Hatshepsut sitting in the shade between two great towering columns.
The first thing I noticed was how thin and small he was. Because he is all-powerful, I had expected to see a bigger man. The king’s small size made the crown he wore seem enormous, and his broad gold collar looked especially large below such a slim face.
The long line moved slower than a snail up a reed, but eventually we were close enough to see the king clearly. It was Tamyt who noticed first. . . . Her eyes grew as round as lotus pads. She turned to me and gasped, “The king is a WOMAN!”
I looked carefully, and Tamyt was right. Underneath the false beard and great crown, King Hatshepsut really is a woman!
Father whispered, “Of course! Didn’t you realize?” But before I could reply, it was our turn, and we bowed low. A servant read out what we had done, but so quickly I could hardly understand it. Then another official nudged me and muttered, “Move along now.” But as he did, the king looked straight at us and held up his — her — hand.
“Wait a minute!” she said to the official, and then to us, “You two have been very clever and brave.” She smiled. “Thank you.” She nodded and we were hurried away.
It was all over in less time than it takes an ibis to pluck a fish from the water, but the king had spoken to us, as if we were viziers, or gods!
Last day
This past half-month we spent returning to Memphis, so I have not bothered to keep up my journal. When I unroll it now to the beginning and read my words from nearly a year ago, it is hard to believe I was traveling the same river. It seemed so exciting then; this time, I longed for the journey to end. Before the boatmen laid a plank ashore at Memphis, I had leaped onto the dock, and would have run home if Father had not called me to wait for Tamyt.
Second day of the last month of Heat
When I arrived at school today, all my class threw themselves to the ground, crying, “Hail, Nakht, friend of the king.” So it went on, until our teacher told them to show more respect for Hatshepsut and threatened to beat anyone who teased me.
In class we learned how the heaviest stones of Khufu’s great pyramid were moved when it was constructed more than 1,000 years ago. It was built during the flood seasons, when work in the fields was impossible. In Khufu’s time, it still had a shiny golden top.
Eleventh day
Yesterday, to celebrate the fact that we had captured the tomb robbers, Father said he would keep his promise and take us to King Khufu’s pyramid. The journey is not a special one — we only cross the edge of the desert — but Mother is making a terrible fuss nevertheless. She wants to know if lions are a danger and whether we will have enough water. Anyone would think we were setting out on a journey to Punt.
Fourteenth day
To travel to Khufu’s pyramid, we left before dawn so that we would arrive before the sun became too hot. Idy pulled the chariot because he smells less than the other asses and does not bite.
The pyramid came into sight when we were yet far away. It is so big it is hard to believe it was built by men. Surely only a god could create something so tall and perfectly shaped. Each side is polished so that when we first glimpsed it in the moonlight, the tomb gleamed like ivory. And after dawn, it reflected the sun’s rays so brightly, it was painful to look at directly.
To study the pyramid’s surface, we had to walk around to the shaded side. Even there, we could scarcely see the joints between the stones. If I did not know better, I would have said it had been carved from a single piece of brilliant white rock.
The entrance to the tomb is high up on one side. There is a stone door that lifts up. When it closes, the doorway is completely invisible. We decided not to enter, but other visitors, who had less respect for Khufu’s spirit, bought torches from guides, climbed up, and went inside. They returned disappointed, and told us that the tunnel slopes down to a filthy cellar full of rats and flying mice.
The guides who sell torches also sell countless other things. Many sell beer, and even water; others offer to draw a quick portrait of visitors; more still sell cheap trinkets. All of them charge at least double what their goods are worth. These men crowded around us when we arrived, and clung to us like leeches until they found another visitor to pester.
We had arrived at the pyramids at dawn, and by the time we were ready to leave, the sun was scorching our backs. On our way home, we passed the vast stone head of a king. Father said that hidden beneath the sand, the statue has the body of a lion. Though he swore this is so, neither Tamyt nor I believed him.
My final treat was to drive home. Father gave me the reins, and we raced across the edge of the desert so fast that Tamyt begged me to slow down because she feared she would be thrown from the chariot.
Sixteenth day
Father announced today that I am to lose my sidelock at the next full moon. I will no longer be a child!
Twenty-third day of the last month of Heat
I found out at last what had happened to the Controller of Granaries. I thought he would be put to death, but his punishment was worse than this. His nose was cut off, he was banished to a quarry in the desert to work as a slave, and (worst of all) his name has been taken away. Without a name, he no longer exists — and never has — so no one speaks of him in Memphis anymore.
Twenty-ninth day
Yesterday I became a man! Though if I had known how much fuss there was going to be about a haircut, I think I would have chosen to remain a child for longer. First I had to lead a procession around the neighborhood, inviting everyone to our house. Then, when they were all sitting in a circle in the garden, I crouched in the middle. Father brought out a stone knife sharp enough to use as a razor. He cut my sidelock — not all at once, but a little at a time, according to the gifts that everyone gave me. If it was a large gift, like the goat my uncle promised, he cut off half a palm’s width. For the smallest gifts, such as the honey cake and fruit that my friends had brought, he trimmed just the ends of a few hairs.
When it was all cut and my head shaved, I put on a white robe with a green apron, and Tamyt led another procession. May and most of my class walked behind, car
rying palm branches. At each house, we stopped and chanted, and at each one, they brought out gifts of food. Finally we all returned home, and Mother made a meal with the gifts we had collected.
It was a great party, but everyone teased me about losing my sidelock. I soon tired of them patting my shaved head where it had hung. When musicians came and the dancing began, people no longer came to congratulate me, and I slipped away to my bed. As I fell asleep, I noticed that the music did not stop, so nobody missed me!
First day of the first month of the season of Flood
This morning, the star Sopdet reappeared at dawn, marking the start of the new year, the ninth of our great King Hatshepsut — may she live forever!
THOUGH NAKHT’S DIARY is a fictional story, his descriptions of Ancient Egypt are true to life. Hatshepsut really did rule Egypt 3,500 years ago (one of only three native female kings in Ancient Egyptian history), and corrupt officials often let tomb robbers escape justice. However, Nakht’s story touches on only a tiny part of a civilization that flourished on the banks of the Nile for more than 5,000 years.
What we know about Ancient Egypt comes from objects that archaeologists have found buried and from ancient writings on documents, monuments, and tombs.
Egypt is a desert. The air is very dry, and away from the Nile, the ground is parched. The dryness has preserved objects buried in the sand and in tombs cut into the rock or built from stone and brick.
However, the banks of the Nile were the center of most of life in Ancient Egypt. These areas flooded each year, and the water destroyed many of the objects that archaeologists would love to study.
What Survived?
The part of Ancient Egyptian life that we know a great deal about is death. The ancient Egyptians attached huge importance to it. They went to a lot of trouble to preserve the bodies of the dead and performed elaborate ceremonies in their honor. Inscriptions on tomb walls and in special Books of the Dead explain these rituals in minute detail.
Fortunately, one particular part of the Egyptian obsession with death has helped archaeologists in their struggle to re-create the past: the custom of burying along with the dead the things they might need in the afterlife (see here). Since people believed that the needs of the dead were not very different from the needs of the living, tombs were stacked with furniture, food, and many other personal objects — or with models of these things. So tombs are a major source of information about ancient everyday life.
The Rosetta Stone
The inscriptions that archaeologists study on tomb walls are mostly written in hieroglyphics — a form of picture writing. But for many years they had no idea what the pictures represented. The meaning of the hieroglyphics remained a mystery until the end of the 1700s and the discovery of a stone at the Egyptian town of Rosetta. This unique stone was inscribed with hieroglyphics and with Greek and demotic (another Egyptian script). Archaeologists could read Greek and soon realized that all three inscriptions said the same thing. They had cracked the code and could now begin to translate hieroglyphic and demotic writing accurately.
Egyptian Society
Ancient Egyptian society was organized like a pyramid. At the very tip was the king. The king was always a man — even when “he” was a woman. Hatshepsut is shown dressed in the same way as male kings, even wearing a false beard.
The Egyptians believed the king was not just their ruler but also a god. They believed that the king’s power had no limits and that he knew and controlled everything, including the natural world.
It was the king’s job to look after all Egypt’s people. He was in charge of the army, the courts and justice system, the temples and religion.
Supporting the king was a small group of officials. Many of them were relatives of the king. These people made up the Egyptian nobility.
Below these noblemen were scribes, like Nakht’s father. Scribes weren’t as wealthy as the nobles, but they were well off.
Scribes did everything needed to keep the country running, including collecting taxes, enforcing the law, and arranging for food handouts when there was a famine. Each scribe was a specialist who took care of one specific kind of task.
At these two high levels in the pyramid of power, there were also religious officials — priests and high priests — who organized the many temple rituals and ceremonies.
Lower in status than the scribes and priests were Egypt’s craftsmen. These skilled workers created the fine ornaments and luxury goods that the king and those around him used. There were more craftsmen than scribes, but the craftsmen were hugely outnumbered by those beneath them — Egypt’s peasant farmers.
Much of what the farmers produced was paid to the king in taxes — so their grain or livestock went to feed the scribes, priests, and nobility.
At the very bottom of the pyramid were the slaves. They acted as household servants or farm laborers. Many slaves were foreigners, captured in battle by Egypt’s armies. Others were Egyptians who had sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts. It wasn’t just rich scribes or nobles who owned slaves — even common Egyptians could afford them.
The Gods
Egyptians worshipped many gods, but not all had equal status. The least important were house gods, some of whom had special responsibilities or guarded against particular dangers.
More important state gods had temples dedicated to them, where priests performed rituals in their honor. These gods kept disorder and chaos at bay. The Egyptians were so concerned about leading proper, well-ordered lives that they even had a word for it: maat. Though it’s impossible to translate into a single English word, maat means the right way to do things; order, freedom from chaos; truth and balance. Egyptian people valued maat very highly, and it was important to respect the gods in order to preserve maat.
AMUN-RE
Before Hatshepsut’s time, the sun god, Re, merged with another god, Amun. The new god, Amun-Re, was the king of Egypt’s gods.
ANUBIS
The god of the dead, Anubis guarded mummies.
HAPY
Egyptians believed Hapy was responsible for the Nile’s annual floods.
ISIS
The goddess Isis was worshipped for her protective power, particularly her ability to guard children.
KHNUM
The guardian of the source of the Nile.
NUT
The sky goddess, Nut was usually shown stretching over the world, with her hands and feet touching the earth.
OSIRIS
The god of death, but also of fertility and rebirth. His death and resurrection came to stand for the annual cycle of crop growth.
PTAH
The local guardian god of Memphis, he was believed to have shaped all living beings on a potter’s wheel and was the protector of craftspeople.
SOBEK
In Egyptian myth, the Nile’s waters were made from the sweat of this crocodile god.
THOTH
Shown as either a baboon or an ibis, Thoth was the god of writing and knowledge.
Life after Death
The need for maat did not end with death, for Egyptians believed in an afterlife. The afterlife could last forever, but only if the dead person’s family performed all the right rituals, filled the tomb with the correct equipment, and, most important of all, took care to preserve the body.
Tombs
After elaborate funeral ceremonies, Egyptian people buried the mummified corpse. Those who could afford it dug an underground tomb big enough to contain the coffin and other equipment needed on the journey to the afterlife. Above it, they constructed a kind of chapel, where living relatives could pray and make offerings to the dead.
Pyramids
The grandest of all memorials to the dead were the pyramids. Pyramid building began about 4,700 years ago. By the time it ended, 1,000 years later (around 200 years before Nakht was born), there were eighty or so pyramids on the desert’s edge on the west bank of the Nile.
Robbers
Pyramids protecte
d the precious objects entombed with the kings inside but weren’t as secure as modern safes and strong rooms. All were robbed eventually.
Tomb robbers forced Egypt’s rulers to look for better ways of protecting their dead, and they eventually decided that secrecy was the answer. By about 1500 BC they had begun cutting tombs into rock cliffs in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes, and then building funeral chapels some distance away.
Even these hidden graves were often robbed, but one, the tomb of Tutankhamun (1336–1327 BC) escaped complete destruction. When it was opened in the early twentieth century, the fabulous gold treasures found inside astonished the world.
BARTERING When goods are traded by swapping one object for another, rather than by buying them with money.
CARTOUCHES Hieroglyphics encased in an oval shape that show royal or divine names.
CITY OF THE DEAD A piece of ground set aside for burial, like a cemetery.
CUBITS A unit of measurement that matched the length of the king’s arm from his elbow to the tip of his middle finger.
ENTOURAGE A group of attendants.
IBIS A wading bird.
IRRIGATION The process of watering fields.
KEMIT A schoolbook from which student scribes memorized and copied out stories and rhymes.
LINEN Cloth woven from flax.
OVERSEER OF FIELDS A scribe who measured the size of farmers’ fields to calculate how much grain they should pay in taxes.
Writers and illustrators owe a debt of gratitude to the authors and artists whose works inspire them. Richard Platt and David Parkins are especially grateful, because they searched in more than forty books for details that would make the text and pictures authentic. There isn’t room to list them all, but the following are among the more recently published books.
Egyptian Diary Page 4