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In the last month of Shemu I solemnly followed a host of mourners along the dusty rocky path that led from the desert plain west of the river through the hills and into the Great Place, “the interior,” at the end opposite that used by workers from Ta Set Maat. High sheer broken limestone walls rose to right and left, the path so narrow that most of the time only two people could walk abreast, squeezing past the Medjay who were guarding it. Ahead of me the body of the third Ramesses, in a lidless coffin of solid gold atop a bier being pulled by two oxen, was just passing the mud–brick guard hut at the entrance of the sacred precinct, the beasts’ feet stirring up choking dust. The coffin glinted brilliantly in Re’s light. Musicians leading the procession turned a corner a few paces in front of the coffin and began descending into the valley, the sounds of drums and sistrums echoing off rock walls.
A priest wearing a jackal mask, portraying Anubis, walked directly behind the bier. He was followed by four priests carrying a three–foot long cedar chest with a gabled lid and four short legs, its sides decorated with hieroglyphs. Inside were the instruments Pharaoh and various high priests would use in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony at the tomb’s entrance. Next came four priests carrying alabaster canopic jars containing Pharaoh’s embalmed internal organs, each stoppered with a figure representing a son of Horus. Human–headed Amset guarded Pharaoh’s stomach, baboon–headed Hapi his intestines, dog–headed Duamutef his lungs, and falcon–headed Qebesenuf his liver.
Pharaoh followed, a nemes on his head, was scepter in his hand. Usermarenakht and Meryatum and Ashakhet, the valley’s three most prominent high priests, flanked him. Duatentopet and I were a step behind. I was being accorded the honor of mourning with the royal family for having saved the fourth Ramesses’ life. Iset and Tyti, the justified pharaoh’s widows, came after us. For obvious reasons, Tiye was not participating in her husband’s funeral. She was confined along with the rest of the conspirators in a heavily guarded section of the harem in Djeme, awaiting trial. Trailing the wives were the new Falcon in the Nest – Pharaoh’s son Amenherkoshef – and his wives Henutwati and Tawerettenru. Pharaoh’s half–brothers and other relatives followed them. Every royal woman in the procession carried a bouquet or wreath in her arms and wore a floral collar around her neck, handed her at the entrance of the gorge by Beketaten or Wabkhet or Nauny. Linen mourning shawls pinned in the women’s hair cascaded over their shoulders and backs all the way to their waists.
As I reached the crest of the path beside the guard hut I glanced behind me at the procession winding up the long slope. First were high priests from various temples the length of the valley, smoke rising from the golden censers they carried, Nebmose and Setau from Nekhen and Nekhbet respectively among them. After them came lesser priests and prophets, including Ani. The last priest led a bull that would shortly be ritually sacrificed. Paid mourners – women wearing only pale blue skirts and girls wearing only girdles – trailed the priests, bending often to grab handfuls of dust from the path, throwing it on their heads, wailing, ululating, tears and makeup running down their cheeks. They were led by two women portraying the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. They wore tall white plumes in their hair. Pharaoh’s officials and friends followed the paid mourners, most carrying palm fronds. Finally came servants burdened with a few last minute grave goods and food offerings. The majority of the grave goods were already in the tomb. A multitude of porters had deposited them a few days ago in sweltering heat, watched over by a plethora of armed Medjay. They’d guarded the tomb day and night ever since. I’d heard that Pharaoh, trusting none of them, had put Kairy in charge.
The procession wound down the slope into the valley, a wasteland of broken torrid rock and no humidity. The surrounding hills rose abruptly, nearly three hundred feet higher than its floor. The sacred pyramid–shaped mountain, Qurn, towered three times that above its southern end. The valley was cut everywhere with gullies, its barren slopes littered with chunks of stone, the limestone glaringly white in the sunlight, devoid of vegetation.
Guard huts ringed the edge of the cliffs above the royal tombs. Medjay were standing beside them, small dark distant figures watching the ceremony taking place far below their feet, lances in hand. Mud–brick storehouses occupied the center of the valley, crammed with food, material and pigments for craftsmen and sculptors, oil and wicks to light the interiors of tombs, and copper chisels. Huts for workers and foremen and scribes were scattered about as well. All had seen heavy use as finishing touches were put on the third Ramesses’ final resting place.
The earliest Horizons of Eternity constructed in the Great Place had been located directly below gullies that cut the high cliffs. Over the centuries water from infrequent rains had poured down those gullies and deposited debris that had hidden the tombs from view. But the tomb entrances of the more recently buried pharaohs were purposefully visible, allowing easy access so priests could perform cult ceremonies daily inside their anterooms. Only the burial chambers and storerooms of those tombs were blocked by sealed doors. I noted many priests and armed Medjay standing next to nearby tomb entrances, watching us.
Oxen dragged the coffin across the valley floor and we followed. On the left I saw a tomb where many of the sons of Ramesses the Great lay. According to Ta Set Maat tradition, there were more than one hundred–fifty corridors and chambers inside, which wasn’t surprising; during his almost seven decades of rule Ramesses had sired more than fifty sons. It was, by far, the largest and most elaborate tomb in the valley. A little farther on, to the right, was Ramesses’ own tomb, its monumental door surmounted by a painted relief of Isis and Nepthys flanking a solar disk. Ahead, down the valley, lay the tomb of Pharaoh Amenmesse. To its left gaped our destination, the entrance of the third Ramesses’ tomb; its dark opening lay at the foot of a steep flight of stairs. I spotted Kairy standing beside the stairs along with half a dozen Medjay, his bandage white against his skin. Many empty containers were strewn about the valley floor nearby; they’d been used to carry grave goods into the tomb and hadn’t yet been cleared away. The procession came to a halt and everyone fanned out in a semicircle around the head of the stairs, some even climbing a few feet up the steep hillside because the valley floor was too narrow and cramped and small to hold all the mourners.
The funeral would begin with the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. Ramesses consisted, I knew, of three elements. His ka was his individual life force. His ba was his unique characteristics. His akh was the spirit capable of interacting with the living and interceding on behalf of live humans. Pharaoh’s ka had traveled to the Afterlife when he died. It required ongoing nourishment in years to come, which would be provided daily by the priests of his funerary cult. His ba had separated from his corpse at death. From now on, it would soar across the sky by day and return to his tomb at night to infuse his mummy with his personal qualities. Today Pharaoh and the high priests would open the third Ramesses’ mouth so his ba could return for the first time and breathe life into him.
The ritual, I knew from family stories, had first been performed in an extremely primitive fashion by my ancestress Amenia, using the talisman around my neck, upon her great–grandmother Ipu, at Nekhen, nearly two and a half millennia ago. By performing the Opening of the Mouth and burying his father the fourth Ramesses would solidify his position as rightful pharaoh. Even if Pentawere somehow escaped justice for killing his father he’d find it almost impossible to dislodge his brother as ruler after this. Ramesses and Usermarenakht, the First God’s Servant, moved to the entrance of the tomb. Meryatum and Ashakhet carefully lifted Pharaoh’s linen–wrapped mummy from his golden coffin and stood it upright on a clean mound of sand, facing it south. The priest in the Anubis mask supported the mummy from one side.
The Greatest of Craftsmen Ashakhet chanted a spell from memory:
“Hail to you, Lord of Light, preeminent in the Great Mansion, in charge of the twilight. I have come to you spiritualized and pure. Your arms are about you and y
our portion of food is before you; may you give me my mouth with which I may speak, and may my heart guide me at its hour of destroying the night.”
The ceremony began with a lustration. Usermarenakht draped a leopard skin over Pharaoh’s shoulders. Priests then handed both Pharaoh and the high priest a jar of water and, in turn, they poured the liquid over the mummy. Pharaoh was given a ball of natron from the upper valley, Usermarenakht a ball from the lower. Each traced their ball across the mummy’s mouth, purifying it.
Meryatum handed Ramesses a golden bowl of burning incense suspended from chains. Pharaoh censed the mummy, front and back, then repeated the censing with bowls containing several different types of incense. As he did Ashakhet chanted:
“My mouth is opened by Ptah,
My mouth’s bonds are loosed by my city–god.
Thoth has come fully equipped with spells,
He looses the bonds of Seth from my mouth.
Atum has given me my hands,
We are placed as guardians.
My mouth is given to me,
My mouth is opened by Ptah,
With that chisel of metal
With which he opened the mouth of the gods.
I am Sekhmet–Wadjet who dwells in the west of heaven,
I am Sahyt among the souls of Iunu.”
Ashakhet fell silent.
“I am Horus!” Ramesses cried. He traced the mummy’s mouth with his fingers.
Priests led the sacrificial bull a short distance from us and forced it to lay on its side. Then one slit its throat with a flint knife while the rest held it down. Wabkhet knelt by the beast’s neck, catching its blood in a large earthenware bowl. At least, the blood that didn’t splatter all over her chest and face and arms and skirt. When the blood stopped flowing she gave the bowl to a priest. Another censed the carcass while one sawed off a foreleg and his companion sliced out the heart. A priest carried the heart, still warm, dripping blood, to Ramesses, who took it in his cupped hands and presented it to the mummy. Then Usermarenakht pointed the bloody foreleg towards the dead pharaoh, transferring the bull’s life force to him.
Young girls with jars of water helped Ramesses and Usermarenakht clean their bloody hands. More offered linen cloths to dry them. Wabhket and the blood–splattered priests weren’t so lucky; they’d remain disgustingly sticky until the ceremony concluded.
A priest opened the cedar chest that had been set down near the mummy’s feet and handed the first of seventy–five instruments to Ramesses, a double finger made of dark stone and glass. Ramesses touched the finger to the mummy’s mouth, each eye, each ear, and finally to the nose. He handed the finger to Usermarenakht, who did the same. He passed it to Meryatum, who passed it to Ashakhet. Then the four repeated the procedure with multiple adzes, a serpent blade of red jasper inscribed with the third Ramesses’ name and titles, knives, a forked black obsidian blade, a spooned blade, chisels, a netjeri blade of metal fallen from the sky, a rod with a serpent’s head.
As instruments continued to be applied one after another I thought back over all the mornings I’d spoken with the justified pharaoh on the tower steps, of his visit to the garden I’d created for the third Thutmose, of our wild chariot ride across the desert, of how he’d changed my life. I’d been privileged to know him as a man, not a living god. I remembered him telling me that Pentawere was no good for me, that someday he’d break my heart. Pharaoh had been right, though not for the reason he’d suspected. For the thousandth time I wished I’d never told Pentawere about my dream. And I wished my warning to Ramesses had come in time to save Pharaoh that night. But wishing was useless. Pharaoh was dead. I’d never be able to atone for my role in his death.
Finally, Ramesses applied the peseshkaf, a fishtail–shaped flint knife, to his father’s mouth. Usermarenakht recited a spell to restore the dead pharaoh’s senses:
“I am lord of the flame who lives in truth, lord of eternity, maker of joy.
I am he who is in his shrine, master of action who destroys the storm.
Lord of the winds who announces the north wind.
Lord of light, maker of light, who lightens the sky with his beauty.
I am he in his name.
Make way for me, that I may see Nun and Amen.
For I am that equipped spirit who passes by the guards.
We do not speak for fear of Him–Whose–Name–is–Hidden, who is in my body.
Any person who knows this spell, he will be like Re in the eastern sky, like Osiris in the netherworld.
He will go down to the circle of fire, without the flame touching him ever.”
Priests replaced the instruments inside the cedar chest and closed it.
More priests carried forward ostrich feathers, grapes, clothing and eye paint, laying them before the dead pharaoh. Then one offered him a mace, symbolizing his dominion over the valley’s enemies and identifying him to the gods as guarantor of order in the cosmos. More incense burned.
A priest laid a long rectangular alabaster tablet, one end of the top surface indented with seven wells, on the ground next to the mummy. Each well contained either a sacred oil or ointment. As more spells were chanted, Pharaoh and the high priests dipped their fingers into the wells, one after another, and anointed the mummy.
As the last of the oil was applied Ashakhet recited:
“I have consolidated your jaws so they will never again be divided. I have opened your mouth with the peseshkaf instrument, which is used to open the mouth of every god and goddess.”
Ramesses addressed his fellow mourners. “Osiris–pharaoh Usermaatre–Meryamen can now eat, drink, see, hear, and receive cult offerings. Father will live for eternity.”
The ritual was over.
The high priests carefully placed the mummy back in the golden coffin. While priests sacrificed more animals, Pharaoh and the royals and I sat on the ground beneath a temporary sunscreen that had been erected beside the tomb to partake in a funerary banquet – bread, barley porridge, roast fish, pigeon stew, roast quail, kidneys, beef, stewed figs, fresh berries, honey cakes, cheese and wine. It was the last feast the justified pharaoh would consume with his family. We ate in total silence as the other mourners watched.
After the meal, priests lifted the golden coffin and, staggering under its weight, carefully carried it down the steps into the first corridor of the tomb where a wooden sledge waited. They placed the coffin on the sledge. A group of powerfully–built porters, straining against thick ropes attached to the sledge, dragged it down the long slanting underground corridor, the sledge’s wooden runners making an unpleasant scraping racket against the stone. More porters clutched ropes attached to the back of the sledge, acting as brakes in places where the corridor angled steeply downward. Priests placed Pharaoh’s organs inside their canopic jars atop a second sledge, It was pulled along behind the first by a single man. The high priests and most important officials and the royal family trailed the sledges into the depths of the tomb. Everyone else waited outside in the now blistering sunshine.
I walked directly behind one of the torchbearers sent to light our way. I was glad I’d had time to study the walls in detail with Hay the day I’d worked in the tomb, to read the various passages and spells; today we were moving too quickly for that. The eight storage rooms I’d seen villagers constructing were completely filled with objects now, most of them inside wooden containers or shrouded with linen. The trickiest part of the descent was dragging the coffin across the wooden bridge that spanned the well; I feared its weight might cause the bridge to collapse. But everything and everyone crossed without incident. Not far beyond the well porters dragged the sledges into the burial chamber, the House of Gold. 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. Two golden coffins already rested inside the sarcophagus, nested within each other. The inner was solid gold; the outer was cedar covered with sheets of gold and inlaid wit
h faience and jewels. Their matching gold lids, plus the lid of the coffin Pharaoh was already resting in on the sledge, were stacked atop the sarcophagus lid. Four sets of heavy oak panels of various sizes, plastered and gilded with gold, etched with images and inscriptions, leaned against several walls, the largest in back, the smallest in front. Tall wooden poles and carefully folded sheets of coarse brown linen occupied a corner. Gold glittered in the torchlight, illuminating the tomb with a thousand suns.
We mourners squeezed into the burial chamber as best we could. It was hot and stuffy so deep underground. A few had to remain in the corridor, rising on their toes to see over the people in front of them. The chamber’s walls were inscribed with the Book of Gates and the Book of the Earth. I studied the grave goods stacked around me with wonder. They alone were worth enough to feed the villagers in Ta Set Maat for centuries. And they were only a small portion of the goods Pharaoh would use in the next life; the majority were stored elsewhere in the tomb.
No wonder Ta Set Maat’s craftsmen were tempted by the tombs of justified pharaohs.
Lector priests began to chant.
Meryatum and Ashakhet censed Pharaoh’s gold coffin while porters strained to lift it off the sledge just high enough to pass sturdy ropes under its head and foot. Priests handed the ends of the ropes to porters who were standing atop the two ends of the stone sarcophagus. Struggling mightily, the men on the ground slowly lifted the coffin above the sledge until it was high enough to pass over the lip of the sarcophagus. The men with the ropes then took control. Their muscles bulged as they pulled upward with all their strength, supporting the swaying coffin while others pushed it sideways, positioning it above the nested coffins. The men with the ropes slowly lowered it into place and then jumped back down to the ground, dripping sweat. The ropes were trapped beneath the coffin, so priests cut the visible portions free. I held my breath the whole time, afraid the porters might drop the coffin and crush someone.
The Gardener and the Assassin Page 60