And so it was I joined the funeral party of Tutankhamun, once Living Image of Amun, and Lord of the Two Lands, accompanying him, as he himself had asked me to do in his final hours, to his eternity. The body lay within his chamber in the palace, wrapped in its white linen shroud, within the innermost of the coffins. He looked neat and tidy, like a large, well-made doll tied up with gold thread and decorated with amulets.
Ankhesenamun formally placed a collar of fresh flowers, blue and white and green, around his neck. A gold vulture and below it a scarab pectoral had been placed around his neck, and a gold falcon on his breast. His arms were crossed, and a pair of gold hands held the crook and flail of kingship. I remembered I had been the last person to hold the King’s real hand, as his life slipped away. Surmounting the shroud was an object of impossible glory and wonder: a death mask created with the most profound metalworkers’ skill from pure gold into the proud face of the God Osiris. But the craftsman had also accurately re-created the eyes of Tutankhamun, sly and watchful and brilliant, under the dark lapis lazuli curves of his eyebrows. Fashioned from quartz and obsidian, they stared into eternity with confidence. The vulture and the cobra flared protectively above his face. I felt it was a face such as he would have wished to possess to meet the Gods.
We processed through the palace. I was permitted to walk behind Ankhesenamun, next to Simut, who nodded, pleased to see me. Ay walked beside the Queen. He was sucking on another clove and cinnamon lozenge whose scent occasionally wafted in my direction. He had toothache again. It was hard to feel pity. When we emerged through the western gateway of the palace, the open air of midnight was cool, and the stars were shimmering lucidly in the depths of the eternal ocean of the night. The mummy in its open coffin was placed upon a gilded catafalque protected by friezes of carved cobras, and decorated with garlands; the other coffins, one inside the other, followed behind on another bier dragged by oxen, for their weight was enormous. Twelve high officials, including Khay and Pentu, were dressed in white, and wore white mourning bands upon their brows. At a signal they called out in one voice, and then heaved on the ropes to drag the first, light catafalque on its runners along the stones of the Processional Way.
We proceeded along the main Way, going west and then north. In the distance, the long low structures of the Temple of Hatshepsut were etched against the moon-silvered cliffs. It was a laborious, slow journey. Everywhere along the strategic points of the route, Simut had placed troops of guards, equipped with powerful bows. The land was silent, under the moon’s inspection. The shadows of the night fell in strange divisions. We eventually reached the Valley of the Kings’ embrace, and then proceeded west, turning left and then left again into the most secret eastern necropolis valley, and passing slowly between the vast, eroded ramparts of rock towards the entrance to the tomb.
When we finally arrived, I saw hoards and stacks of objects had already been unloaded and set under white linen sheets, as if a great household were moving palaces; these must be the funeral treasures that would furnish the tomb after the rites had been completed and the coffins had been set and sealed within the sarcophagus.
Lamps lit the sixteen carved stone steps that led down into the tomb, and while everyone prepared for the rites to take place, I descended. I was shocked by what the light of the lamps revealed: the entrance to the tomb was not yet finished, indeed the passageway seemed barely to have been tidied in time for this ceremony. Left on the steps were jars of bandages and natron, and the workers’ water skins, hastily placed to one side. I passed through the rock-cut doorway into the Hall of Waiting.
Here again, the work was unfinished. On the sloping floor and the still-rough stone of the walls were the masons’ red marks and guidelines. Flakes and chips of limestone had not been swept up from the floor. Gold glittered here and there on the walls where the movers of the royal furniture had scraped their burdens in their haste. The air smelled of burning things-candle wax, oils, incense, rushes-even the rough-hewn stone of the walls and the low roofs seemed to be permeated with the acrid history of the many chisels that had worked through the bedrock, chip by chip, blow by blow.
I turned right and entered the burial chamber itself. The walls were decorated, but only in a simple, unostentatious way. There had evidently not been enough time for anything grander and more sophisticated. The many massive sections of the golden shrine, comprising four huge boxes, one inside the other, were set against the walls, waiting to be assembled within the confined dimensions of the dark space, once the coffins had been manoeuvred into place within the sarcophagus. Each section of glorious gilded wood was marked on the ungilded inner side with instructions-which end matched which, and so on. Already occupying almost all the space in the chamber was an immense yellow stone sarcophagus. Each corner was intricately carved with the detailed, overlapping protective wings of the deities.
I turned right again and looked into the treasury. It was already furnished with many objects; the great shrine would make it impossible to carry anything beyond the burial chamber. The first thing I saw was a lifelike carving of Anubis, sleek and black, his long ears pointing up as if listening attentively, under a blanket that someone had, oddly, wrapped over his back as if to keep him warm in the endless dark of his watch. Behind him was a huge gold canopic shrine. Along one wall many black shrines and chests had been placed and sealed. On the opposite wall were more shrine boxes. Alongside Anubis was a row of ivory and wood caskets.
When no one was looking I opened one, carefully; inside was a beautiful ostrich feather fan. Its inscription read: ‘Made with ostrich feathers obtained by his majesty when hunting in the deserts east of Heliopolis.’ I thought of the fan he had promised me. On top of these boxes, several miniature boats were balanced, beautifully detailed and painted in bright colours, complete with miniature sails and rigging. I noticed a small wooden box at my feet. Tempted, I lifted the lid, and saw two tiny coffins contained within it: Ankhesenamun’s stillborn daughters, I guessed.
As I stood pondering these small remains left among the jumble of golden objects, Khay joined me.
‘If only those children had come to full term, and been born well, then we would be living in a very different world,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘There are many family heirlooms here. Objects with the family names on, and others bearing the image of the Aten,’ I said.
‘Indeed. Look at these, for instance: palettes, boxes and bangles that belonged to his half-sisters. And waiting up there, hidden under the linens, is wine from the city of Akhetaten, and thrones of state bearing the Aten symbol. They are private things, but forbidden now, and consigned to eternity here in this tomb. Which is just as well.’
‘I imagine it would be to Horemheb’s advantage to get hold of these treasures. He could use them to blackmail Ankhesenamun, accusing her of secret loyalty to the failed religion. So Ay is using this opportunity to bury the symbols of a failed past, along with the last King of that time.’
‘Exactly. Hence this unseemly haste and secrecy.’
‘And look at what it amounts to, after all: wood, gold, jewels and bones.’
We returned up the steps to the night world. I saw the stars were already beginning to fade. Dawn would soon be revealed. The moment had come to complete the last rituals. Ay was now dressed in the leopard skin of a priest, and wore on his old head the Blue Crown of kingship, adorned with gold discs. It was he who would perform the rite of the Opening of the Mouth, and in doing so establish his succession. The coffin containing the mummy was lifted into an upright position, and Ay hurriedly raised the forked pesesh kef to the King’s dead mouth, and then to the other organs of sensation-the nose, ears and eyes-to restore their powers, and allow the King’s spirit to rejoin his body so that he could Come Forth by Day in the next life. It was all done according to the Instructions, but as swiftly as possible, as if Ay feared he would be interrupted. I noticed Simut’s guards were stationed along the tops of the Valley, and near the entrance.
The coffins were carried, with a great struggle, down into the tomb. Our small group of mourners followed in our orders. Once in the Hall of Waiting, the air was hot and thick. No one spoke, but the breathing of those present sounded loud, nervous and laboured in the strange acoustic of the chamber. Over the heads of the other men I could glimpse only fragments of activity, as the rites were continued in the burial chamber: I saw the side view of the coffin being lifted up with enormous effort; the flash of an amulet; and I smelt the scent of warm resin as it was poured into the innermost coffin. Prayers and incantations drifted inscrutably in the dark air. Finally the stone lid of the sarcophagus was lifted into place; I heard the complaint of ropes and pulleys, and the grunting of men as they struggled within the tight restrictions of the space. But then there was a sudden, loud crack, and a gasp of shock from the witnesses; one of the workmen had dropped his corner, and the stone lid had cracked into two pieces as it hit the sarcophagus. But their overseer, realizing nothing could be done, clapped his hands. The broken pieces were set back together, quickly sealed with gypsum, and the crack painted yellow to disguise the flaw.
Then the construction of the four shrines around the sarcophagus continued. It took a long time. The men worked with almost comic difficulty, trying to make sense of the parts in the lamplight, struggling with each other to discover the space and the logic by which to manoeuvre each piece, in the right order, into place, in silence. Finally it was completed, and the men, shining with sweat and breathing like exhausted mules, retired. By now there was just two cubits’ space between the great gold shrine and the decorated walls; priests finished laying out ritual objects according to a pattern that made sense only to them: wooden oars, lamps and boxes, wine jars and a bouquet of olive and persea. The doors of the shrine were sealed. Inside lay shrine within gilded shrine; and at the heart of this large cold nest of carved and inlaid gold and wood and yellow stone, small and vulnerable within all this panoply of gold, this accumulation of treasure, lay the thin, eviscerated, mummified body of the dead King. I remembered him suddenly, and the look of delight on his face as he waited for the hunt, under the desert stars, alive.
We stepped backwards in respect, our heads bowed. Ay and Ankhesenamun came last; and then we slowly retreated, backwards, out of the Hall of Waiting, leaving the King in his stone chamber with all his gold, his grave goods, his couches and masks and little boats, with his game boards, and stools on which he had sat as a child, and the bowls from which he had drunk-all the things of this world he would need again in the next, where time had no power, and darkness was changed into eternal, unchanging light. So they say.
We ate the funeral meal and watched as the last of the grave goods were carried down to furnish the Hall of Waiting and the smaller crypt to the left: chariot wheels and the sawn-off or disassembled parts of gold chariots; beautiful painted and marquetry-inlaid boxes; and three elegant couches, one of which was decorated with lions. Their gold faces and blue muzzles and the looks of pity in their wise, serious golden eyes glimmered at me in the darkness, and then threw powerful shadows against the wall in the dim lamplight as they passed. White food-offering containers were stacked under one of the couches. Here was the lotus cup of alabaster, pale and luminous in the lamplight, which I had seen in Tutankhamun’s chamber on the ship. There were chairs and thrones decorated with the signs of the Aten, and two life-sized guardian statues studiously ignoring the disorder; silver trumpets wrapped in reeds, gold walking sticks and gold-tipped arrows had been stacked by the walls. Many wine jars, whose dockets indicated they were already old, from the time of Akhenaten, and many more alabaster vessels of oils and perfumes were carried through into the small crypt, together with hundreds of baskets of fruit and meat which were then stacked on stools and boxes and a long, gilded bed. There was gold everywhere; enough to make me sick of its famous lustre.
Finally it was time to seal Tutankhamun in his tomb of eternity. I had a strange feeling that we, the living, crowded into the passageway, were on the wrong side of the stone door that was hurriedly constructed between ourselves and the now deserted Hall of Waiting. The gathered faces-nobles, priests and the young Queen-looked like conspirators at a crime in the candles’ nervous, gusty light. I felt something like disgust as well as pity as the masons in their dirty work-clothes manoeuvred the last stones into place with a grinding sound, then crudely slapped and smoothed dark wet grey plaster with their trowels over them for the necropolis guards to apply their oval insignias of Anubis; many hands reached forward to record their signs for eternity, in a manner perfunctory, anxious and at odds with the meaning of the other symbols. Great of love of the entire Land…creating images of the Gods that they may give to him the breath of life…
Then, like a herd of animals, we shuffled backwards up the passageway holding our frail lamps. Ankhesenamun laid a last bouquet on the steps-mandrake, blue water lily, nightshade, olive, willow; hopeful, frail, transitory flowers from the world’s spring. Her face was wet with tears. I came last, and as I looked back I saw, like a dark, rising flood, the shadows of our departing forms joining the great darkness of eternity that now followed us up the sixteen steps, until it was sealed in by more stones, for ever.