We paused yet again.
“See the three memorial temples clustered at our feet?” Hay asked. “Mentuhotep’s is the most ancient in the valley. The third Thutmose’s is in ruins because part of this cliff fell on it during an earthquake. Hatshepsut’s is clearly modeled on Mentuhotep’s, but is far more magnificent. It’s a shame Thutmose tore it apart in his spite and jealousy after she died. If not for stories handed down in Ta Set Maat her very name would be forgotten today.” Hay sighed. “Imagine what they were like when they were new, Neset – each surrounded by lush gardens and trees and pools, their scarlet banners waving in the breeze, painted statues beyond counting on their terraces, gold and copper glittering everywhere.”
“Much like Ipet–Isut and Ipet–Resyt today,” I said.
“Kings have been building in honor of Amen for a very long time,” Hay said.
“What are these?” I asked.
Small stone shrines dotted both sides of the path, rectangular, only a foot or so high, each containing a tiny statuette or stela.
“Left by workers. Prayers to Meretseger,” Hay replied. “Some date to the craftsmen who constructed the very first tomb in the valley.”
We continued on. Not far ahead the path moved away from the edge of the cliff. Before long the workmen ahead of us reached the valley’s entrance and began to descend.
“Does every tomb require so many craftsmen?” I asked.
Hay laughed. “Usually over a hundred – quarrymen, stonemasons, painters, boys to haul away chips, metalsmiths to sharpen chisels, overseers, scribes, foremen, water carriers. This is a half–crew, since the tomb’s only being modified. The rest of Ta Set Maat’s craftsmen are currently working on part of Khonsu’s temple inside Ipet–Isut. Another of Pharaoh’s projects.”
We reached three steps at the edge of the cliff, bounded on one side by a stone wall and on the other by a guard post staffed by three unsmiling armed Medjay.
“These three steps are the boundary between the living and the dead,” Hay told me solemnly. “We call the valley beyond this point ‘the interior.’ See the sealed doors set into the hills on both sides of the valley, all with guards? Those are the royal tombs, the ‘horizons of eternity.’ The valley has its own police force, drawn from the Medjay. You can see their huts, ringing the heights overlooking the valley. Sounds carry at night, so they can hear anyone moving about the tombs without authorization, even if they can’t see them.”
“Unless, apparently, men are digging into the hillside near tombs,” I said.
“Or if the Medjay lose their hearing, thanks to a bribe or two,” Hay retorted.
“What are those structures on the valley floor?” I asked.
“Huts where scribes get out of the sun to make their records. Storehouses for food, and material and pigments for painters and sculptors, and oil and wicks and bowls to light the interior of the tomb being worked on, and copper chisels and wooden mallets and hammer stones.”
I helped Hay down the steep hillside path. Men were already going into Ramesses’ tomb. A metalsmith was fanning a fire to life at its side.
“They’ve already lit bowls of oil inside to light their work,” Hay told me. “Wicks burn for four hours. When they go out it’s time to eat and take the midday break. When the craftsmen return to work they’ll light a second bowl. When it flames out they’ll be done for the day.”
We reached the bottom of the path. I reported to a scribe stationed there. He recorded my name on a sheet of papyrus.
“Never had a woman in the interior before,” he said. He looked me up and down appreciatively.
I pushed past.
The valley floor was hard and narrow and dusty, its stone burning my feet. I stepped mincingly. The sides of the wadi rose steeply, white, completely barren. Its eastern face was in shadow, its west in bright sunlight. Hay led me to several massive water jars, shaded by a sunscreen, their porous clay dripping, cooling their contents.
“You’ll spend the day filling waterskins from these jars and carrying them into the tomb,” Hay told me. “It’s a non–stop job. By nightfall your legs will ache from going up and down the path so many times. But you’ll have it easier than the workmen. Conditions inside the tomb are brutal. The heat’s unbearable. When the rock is cut it comes away in large flat slabs following the grain, generating choking dust. Did you know? When rock’s freshly cut you can mark it with a fingernail, but not long after it’s exposed to the desert air it shrinks and becomes hard and brittle.”
“How do they get water into the valley to fill these jars?”
“It’s hauled in on donkeys. There’s a second entrance at the far end of the valley along a winding track up a wadi cut by ancient rains. The crevice there is so narrow only one or two people can pass at a time. Getting a sarcophagus and grave goods through is challenging. It’s guarded, of course.”
Several village boys appeared, lugging reed baskets full of chips from inside the tomb. They dumped them atop a large pile and headed back up the path for their next loads.
“I’ll be up there,” Hay told me, pointing to a shaded spot halfway up a nearby hill. “Kenhirkhopeshef carved a seat for himself there when he was overseeing construction of Merenptah’s tomb. It’s labeled with his name. Don’t forget to bring me water occasionally.”
“I won’t, My Lord.”
I filled two waterskins and strode briskly up the path to the tomb entrance, dodging more boys carrying chips downhill. I went inside. The corridor angled downward towards the rear of the tomb, disappearing into darkness. The first section was steep and fairly bright, illuminated by reflected sunlight. I heard voices farther on and the pounding and ringing of copper chisels against stone. That section was darker, more level, lit by flickering bowls of oil. Five of the required additional rooms were currently being worked on. Three had been finished, their interiors plastered, images painted. They were labeled – The Treasury, The Hall, House of Food. Each looked as if it was filled with the paraphernalia of a per’aa. I wondered if the representations of goods were all Pharaoh intended in them, or if they’d store real objects too. Some of the walls also contained images of Osiris and river gods and agricultural deities and the Field of Reeds, the rim of the night sky where the circumpolar stars never set.
Every man laboring in the tomb was wearing a coarse linen kilt and heavy leather sandals to protect his feet from sharp stone chips. No one had mentioned that to me. I was barefoot, as always. I picked my way carefully. I stepped inside one of the rooms being excavated. Anhirkawi was supervising. Father was striking a copper chisel with a wooden mallet, slicing off sections of rock. Space was restricted; only six men were working in the room. All were covered with dust from head to toe. I waited while the men passed the skin around.
“My chisel’s worn out,” Father said, tossing it to me. “Take it to the metalsmith and have him reforge it.”
Anhirkawi pulled a new chisel from a leather pouch and gave it to Father. A scribe noted the transaction on a sheet of papyrus, and that I’d been given Father’s dulled chisel.
“Bring a new one when you come back,” Anhirkawi ordered.
I was hot and tired and sweat had turned the dust to mud all over my back and chest and arms and legs by the time the morning wicks burned out. My skirt was thick with dust and ruined. My feet hurt; despite my care I’d stepped on many sharp stones. My only break from the sweltering heat had been several trips carrying water to Hay; a breeze was blowing high up.
Hay was waiting at the tomb’s entrance when I followed the last of the workers out, my waterskins empty. He was carrying a lighted torch. “I’m going to look around,” Hay told me. “Been a long time since I was inside. Would you like to join me?”
I’d been wondering all morning what lay beyond the light cast by the bowls of oil. “I would, My Lord.”
“Two gangs of a dozen stonemasons excavated this tomb, Neset,” Hay said as we headed into the tomb. “My gang was responsible for the left side and P
aneb’s the right. Our men chipped the stone from inside the mountain using copper chisels and wooden hammers, only one or two men in each gang at a time doing the cutting because, as you can see, the space between the walls is narrow. Those chisels wore out quickly, so, like today, metalsmiths were on hand to constantly resmelt them. Anyway, the men who weren’t wielding chisels formed a basket brigade to carry debris from the tomb. Having these boys do the carrying today is a luxury, and only because rooms are being excavated instead of an entire tomb.”
“I assume there were many more water carriers too.”
Hay smiled. “Stonemasons are never sure what they’re going to find as they dig, Neset. If the rock is good they excavate swiftly. But sometimes they encounter flint seams. Those wear chisels out quickly. Sharp limestone edges cut and bruise workers’ arms and legs. Sometimes ceilings collapse. Sometimes workers break through rock into an adjacent tomb, since there are no maps of the horizons of eternity and their corridors and chambers angle and twist in many directions.”
“Thieves like my husband take advantage of those accidental breakthroughs.”
Hay nodded. “Even though every worker in Ta Set Maat has taken an oath to protect the Osiris–pharaohs and are bound to report any crime.”
“This corridor is straight as an arrow,” I observed.
“Masons take great pride in that,” Hay concurred. “Overseers paint control marks on walls and ceilings to keep masons on track. They constantly use carpenters’ squares to check for right angles, plumb bobs for verticality, and strings to measure length. The men who make the initial rough cut are followed by more who accurately align and smooth the walls and ceiling with sandstone abrasives. They fill cracks with clay and plaster. Then more craftsmen apply a thin coat of plaster to the walls to make them perfectly flat for painting and carving. When it’s time to place images on the wall the painters begin by making register lines. They dip a long string in red ocher. One holds each end and a third pulls it back from its center like a bowstring and when he lets it loose it snaps a straight red line onto the wall. Junior craftsmen draw scenes and images in red ink, copying them from the Book of Gates and other texts. Senior craftsmen and master scribes make corrections in black ink. Then the stone and plaster are carved away from the drawings with fine thin–bladed copper chisels the width of a finger or smaller. Finally, the images are painted.”
“Did Mesedptah really paint this tomb?” I asked.
“He did. For all his faults he was a talented craftsman. Fairly young when he started work here. He was promoted over more senior men.”
“No wonder he held such a high opinion of himself.”
“It usually takes years to complete a tomb, Neset, depending on its size and complexity,” Hay continued. “Unlike Ramesses’, sometimes tombs in the Great Place are unfinished when a pharaoh dies, and then there’s a flurry of activity to finish before the seventy days of mummification are over. And sometimes tombs are modified or increased in size during a pharaoh’s lifetime, as is being done to this one.”
“Now I understand why it takes so many men, and why they need to be so skilled.”
“A chief scribe and several assistants track everything – the number of baskets of rubble carried from the tomb, how many wicks were handed out to light the oil lamps, who was given the expensive copper tools, who returned them. They track wear and tear of copper chisels as well – did you know that ten of them are worth as much as a worker’s annual grain ration?”
“They’re a temptation.”
“A very great temptation. Scribes also keep records of the presence and absence of each worker.”
“Like the one who recorded me this morning.”
Pharaoh’s tomb was spectacular, its drawings superb, the colors bright and vivid, every angle sharp, nearly every inch of every wall decorated.
“The images and texts must be perfect,” Hay said, studying the walls in the first section of the corridor. “Otherwise, Pharaoh may not achieve eternal life.”
“Pharaoh will need food and drink and clothing and unguents. These images ensure he’ll receive them daily forever,” I said. “Naunakht explained it to me once.”
“This section contains scenes of Ramesses with Re–Horakhty,” Hay said. “Do you recognize the texts?”
“The Litany of Re?”
“That’s right.”
Masons had excavated a room in each side of the corridor; the one on the right showed food being prepared, the one on the left boats embarking on a pilgrimage to Abdju, the burial place of Osiris and the first kings who’d ruled the valley after its unification. Hay moved into the next section of the corridor, its walls also etched with the Litany of Re. This was where I’d been lugging water to all morning. The floors of the two rooms currently being excavated were littered with chips; reed baskets were strewn about where boys had dropped them before going to eat.
Hay led me farther into the darkness, the tomb’s walls and ceiling illuminated by his torch. I wiped sweat from my brow with my forearm; it got hotter and stuffier the deeper we went. Scenes of Ramesses with various gods decorated two rooms in the next section. A little farther on texts from Amduat – The Book of What is in the Underworld – covered the corridor walls, narrating Pharaoh’s passage through the hours of the night.
Flickering torchlight revealed a deep rectangular well, excavated in the bedrock, spanned by a substantial wooden bridge.
“What’s the well for?” I asked.
“It’s intended to keep rainwater from flowing into the burial chamber, and serves as an obstacle to hinder tomb robbers. Once the grave goods and Pharaoh’s body have been carried into the tomb and the mourners leave, this bridge will be removed, cutting off access.”
Paintings of gods covered the well’s walls.
Many inscribed pillars supported the ceiling of the next room. Scenes from The Book of Gates decorated its walls. Interspersed among the texts were images of pharaohs and gods. The same decorations continued on the walls of a small room to the right.
“This fourth section of the corridor contains images of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony,” Hay said. “Ramesses’ ceremony will be conducted just outside the entrance of this tomb before his body’s brought inside.”
We exited the corridor and stepped into a wide room.
“The burial chamber, the house of gold,” Hay announced grandly.
A fine pink sarcophagus occupied the center of the room, its thick heavy lid lying on the floor nearby. An image of Nephthys with outstretched wings was at its head. I peered inside the empty sarcophagus, then studied the walls. The Book of Gates and The Book of the Earth.
“This chamber doesn’t look like much now,” Hay said. “But when Pharaoh’s buried he’ll be resting inside three nested coffins in the sarcophagus, some solid gold, some cedar covered with sheets of gold and inlaid with faience and jewels. The sarcophagus will in turn be surrounded by four gold–covered wooden shrines of increasing size. The rest of the room will be crammed with grave goods.” Hay raised his torch high. “Past this burial chamber are three large rooms, all etched with images of gods and The Book of Gates. Most of Pharaoh’s treasure will be stored there.” Hay took a last look around the burial chamber, spoke as if to himself – “As remarkable as I remembered.” He sighed. “The men will return to work soon. They’ll need your water.”
I followed Hay up the long corridor to the outside, the distant pinprick of sunlight through the tomb’s entrance becoming ever larger and brighter as we neared the opening. We were just in time; we met Anhirkawi and Father and the rest entering as we exited. I filled my lungs with fresh air, then headed towards the nearest water jar and filled my waterskins and headed back into the tomb. Hay made his way to his seat high up on the side of the valley.
Four hours later I trudged up the winding path to the three steps at the entrance of the Great Place, helping Hay scale the steep slope. We paused on the crest. Now the west side of the valley was in shadow and the e
ast sunlit. Whistling wind had replaced overseers’ shouts and workmen’s curses and the banging of chisels against rock and the crunch of rock chips being dumped. A couple of guards walked about on the path overlooking the valley. Aside from that it was desolate, empty, magnificent.
Women were waiting with food when we arrived back at the rest house. After my day of carrying water, I understood why workmen preferred not to walk all the way back to the village after spending eight hours laboring in a tomb. One of Naunakht’s granddaughters had brought Hay’s and her father’s and her uncles’ meals. I’d planned to continue directly to Naunakht’s but Hay insisted I stay and eat with him. I was grateful; my arms and back and legs ached and I was footsore.
Not long after the women and girls departed for Ta Set Maat with empty bowls and jars and platters, and the men settled into their leisure, and darkness descended over the heights, another group of women appeared. All were carrying jars of beer or wine balanced on head or shoulder. A few carried torches to light their way.
“Drinking party tonight!” a craftsman exclaimed.
He and others took the torches from the women and set their ends in the ground near the campfires.
I shook my head in disgust. “This is why Sitmut insisted on bringing Mesedptah’s meals to him, isn’t it.”
“Sorry to say, but yes,” Hay replied. “She and Mesedptah lost their inhibitions after a few hours of drinking.”
The Gardener and the Assassin Page 8