“Are you sure, Mama?” Her eyes were wide.
I embraced her. “I am.”
I felt as if a great weight had lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in more than a decade I was entirely at peace. My part in the family story that had started more than four millennia ago had just ended, but I knew that story would continue on in Aya and her descendants, flowing as timeless as the river at my feet, all of them guided by and carrying out the will of the falcon god forever.
I put my arm around Aya and we set out together on the path towards Nekhen and the royal barque.
Epilogue
Ramesses VI – Nebmaatre–Meryamen – succeeded his nephew and ruled for eight years, dying in 1135 B.C. He was buried along with the fifth Ramesses in tomb KV9.
Ramesses VII – Usermaatre Setepenre Meryamun – succeeded his father and ruled for seven years, dying in 1128 B.C. He was buried in KV1.
Five more pharaohs took the throne over the next sixty–two years, all but the last named Ramesses, until the 20th Dynasty came to an end and the high priests of Amen at Waset finally exerted their wealth and power and took control of the southern half of a divided valley, styling themselves the 21st Dynasty.
During his reign, the high priest Pinudjem I ordered the royal scribe Djehutymose and his son Butehamun to open the tombs in the Great Place and collect whatever riches remained to fill his royal coffers. They removed the bodies of the pharaohs and, after stripping them of their gold and jewels, rewrapped and reburied them, though not in their original coffins or tombs. Some were stored in the tomb of Seti I (KV17), others in the tomb of Amenhotep III (KV35). Among those reburied in the latter were Amenhotep II, Amenhotep III, Merenptah, Ramesses IV, Ramesses V, Ramesses VI, Seti II, Siptah, and Thutmose IV. Eventually Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, Ramesses I, Ramesses II, Ramesses III, Ramesses IX, Seqenenre Tao II, Seti I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II and Thutmose III were moved from the Great Place to the family tomb of Pinudjem II (TT320) at the base of the cliffs south of Mentuhotep II’s temple on the west side of the river.
Nearly three thousand years later, in 1871 A.D., modern–day tomb robbers discovered TT320. Along with pharaohs, it contained the bodies of high priests and pharaoh’s wives and various royal sons and daughters – fifty mummies in all. In 1898, KV35 with its additional cache of mummies was discovered. Eventually all of the pharaohs were removed from the two tombs and sailed in state down the Nile River to Cairo. They remain to this day in the Egyptian Museum.
If not for the transcript of the trials of the harem conspirators, both Pentawere and Tiye would have disappeared from history. Their memory lives on thanks to their crimes.
Additional Publications
Predynastic Egypt
Daughter of the Falcon God
The Potter
The Women and the Boatman
Ancient Egypt
The Beadnet Dress
Beauty of Re
The Gardener and the Assassin
The Four Lakes Saga
Wingra
Madison, Wisconsin History
Forest Hill Cemetery
A Biographical Guide to the Women and Men Who Shaped Madison, Wisconsin, and the World
Bishops to Bootleggers
A Biographical Guide to Resurrection Cemetery: the Women and Men Who Shaped Madison, Wisconsin, and the World
The Gardener and the Assassin Page 88