Egyptian Enigma

by LJM Owen

  ‘Cannibalism?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Perhaps we should be glad that the other seven survived, in that case.’

  Laying out the leg bones, Elizabeth’s excitement began to grow. Unless she was much mistaken, this person was going to be of the correct height to fit into the cartonnage. Another candidate for the occupant of the sarcophagus. She relayed this information to her companions.

  ‘Excellent! What else can we tell? Man or woman?’

  Elizabeth glanced at the salient features. ‘In all likelihood, a woman. Her face was slashed, confirming she was female, but there are no signs of a cut to her throat either here or in the scans of her soft tissue. It doesn’t mean she wasn’t murdered, but if she was it was in some other way.’ She picked up the bones of the pelvic girdle and turned them around, trying to catch the texture of the replica material in the library’s warm but diffuse light. ‘No pitting inside that I can see, so no signs of full-term pregnancy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t give birth.’

  ‘Tape measure?’ Alice smiled.

  In short order, Elizabeth had measured and calcu­lated the approximate height of the newest mummy. ‘Yes! One point five metres, which means a potential fit.’

  ‘How old do you think she was?’

  ‘Considering the wear on her teeth and the mild degeneration of some joints, possibly around fifty. Age determination can be difficult with ancient Egyptians, as so many individuals suffered from extreme dental issues early in life due to the grit in their food and poor dental hygiene.’

  ‘No flossing,’ Rhoz said.

  ‘Ha! No fluoride washes either.’

  ‘Does she have that extra tubercle?’

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  ‘If she was fifty, how could she have avoided pregnancy all her life?’ Alice asked.

  ‘The Egyptians had some fairly reliable contra­ception,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘Alternatively, she may never have slept with a man, or perhaps she was infertile,’ Rhoz added.

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘People these days forget how many women don’t have children in natural circumstances. In some populations, it can be up to a quarter.’

  ‘Not everyone has a post-war child-mad mentality,’ Rhoz said, her voice holding a slightly darker edge than usual.

  Elizabeth looked at her quizzically.

  ‘I’ve seen at first hand the problems an obsession with big families can bring,’ Rhoz explained.

  Alice took the conversation back a step. ‘What did you mean by contraception? Condoms made from animal intestines?’

  ‘No, although they may have had those as well. Let’s see. Egyptian males were circumcised for hygiene reasons and wore a linen penis sheath. At first, archaeologists thought the linen sheaths were an attempt at condoms, but then realised through reading ancient Egyptian texts that they were about preventing infection and also to stop them picking up parasites when they bathed in the Nile. They were colour-coded to indicate the wearer’s social status.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Rhoz looked inordinately pleased.

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. ‘Yep!’

  ‘That would certainly cut through a lot of the ridiculous posturing that goes on in so many societies,’ Rhoz stated.

  ‘Contraception?’ Alice prompted.

  ‘They had a reliable barrier method, a crocodile dung and honey pessary that’s been shown to work. The crocodile dung was an effective spermicide, while the honey helped to prevent infections from the dung.’

  Alice screwed up her face. ‘Erk!’

  ‘They could even, with some accuracy, predict pregnancy very early,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I have no idea who first invented this, but they figured out that if a pregnant woman pees on two different trays of grain, maybe one is wheat and the other barley, then if no grain sprouts, she’s not pregnant. It’s apparently around seventy per cent accurate.’

  ‘Why the two different grains?’

  ‘They thought that if one grain – say, the barley – sprouted, you’d have a girl, and if the other did it’d be a boy. There’s no evidence this works, but the first part’s pretty impressive.’

  Elizabeth returned to her examination of the mummy’s skeleton. ‘While her facial structure and teeth look to be from the same general ancient Egyptian population as our other mummies, I’m not seeing any particular signs of family affinity with them or with the Ramesses.’

  ‘Shall we see if our last candidate is also a possible fit for the cartonnage?’ Rhoz asked.

  As Alice handed over the replica bones from the seventh and final mummy they would examine from the Golden Tomb, Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘The pitting all over the bones?’ Alice said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even I can see that’s not right,’ Rhoz said.

  ‘Was it a data issue? A bad printout?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I had Nathan check it twice after I printed out the first few bones. It’s what’s there in the scan of the original mummy.’

  ‘Do you have access to those images?’

  ‘Just give me a few moments.’ Alice logged into her data storage in the cloud. ‘See, here’s the externals of the mummy, but look at the CT scans…’

  It was most unexpected. Not only was the mummy missing all its internal organs, it appeared to have had very little flesh when mummified as bone poked through the desiccated skin. Elizabeth pointed at the screen. ‘The pitting all over these bones is definitely part of the original.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Rhoz asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Elizabeth answered, as she and Alice finished laying out the strange skeletal remains. Turning the cranium, she ran a finger over the sites of major muscle markings. ‘But this guy was most definitely male in life and,’ she peered at the teeth, ‘somewhere around the age of fifty when he died.’

  ‘Does he have that extra bit on his tooth?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Could he be the mummy from the sarcophagus?’

  ‘He looks a bit tall, but let’s check properly.’ Elizabeth measured the length of his right femur, then ran a quick calculation in her head. ‘He’d be at least a hundred and sixty centimetres, so too tall for the cartonnage, even without wrappings.’

  Elizabeth bent to study the man’s facial features. ‘He looks nothing like the two adult women from the Tomb, and nothing like Ramesses the Third or Pentaweret,’ she recalled the skull features of the other mummies from the Golden Tomb, ‘but he’s quite similar to the youngsters, mummies two, three, four and five.’

  ‘A close relative?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to make a guess based on such limited evidence, but given that we won’t be finding any more mummies from the Golden Tomb I think it’s time for me to figure out how to run an analysis on these guys. As for that pitting on his bones… I have an idea of what might have caused it.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Elizabeth explained scaphism, an ancient Mediter­ranean method of execution’.

  ‘That’s truly gruesome!’ Alice grinned. ‘It definitely puts me in the mood for our mysterious moonlit tour of Queanbeyan tonight.’

  —

  Elizabeth awoke groggily from a nightmare parade of Pharaoh sculptures through time, all of them sans nez, their noses chiselled from their faces. What time was it? She fumbled for her phone. Four a.m. Ugh.

  Something about her dream nagged at her. Why the absence of noses? So many Egyptian sculptures were missing them, and whether it was from ancient or modern vandalism was unknown… Perhaps it wasn’t to do with the noses, but that she had been trying to follow the Pharaohs in the wrong direction?

  Images of headstones from the night’s ghost tour in Queanbeyan sprang to mind. At one point in the fascinating midnight traipse through the historical layers of th
e old mining town, Elizabeth had assumed the better-designed, better-preserved graves in the cemetery were more recent. In fact they were the oldest ones. She had made an assumption about the flow of time…time…she was heading in the wrong direction.

  She opened the email app on her phone.

  Hey Henry,

  It’s occurred to me in the middle of the night that we’re on the wrong track. I think we’re moving away from the point in time when our Golden Tomb was built. I have the strongest feeling that we need to go back into the Nineteenth Dynasty, instead of heading forward in the Twentieth. Trust a girl’s intuition, will you, and please see if you…

  Faint noises echoed up the stairwell outside Elizabeth’s closed bedroom door. Normally she wouldn’t have paid them any attention, because six people and four cats in the house generally meant someone was moving around at all hours.

  But Thoth began to growl softly and, in a shaft of moonlight peeking through the curtains, Elizabeth could see her tail had fluffed to three times its normal size. The cat jumped off the bed and pushed her belly to the floor, then began to creep toward the door and the sounds beyond.

  Startled by Thoth’s unusual behaviour, Elizabeth accidentally hit ‘send’ on her unfinished email. Cursing, she put her phone down and stood up.

  Fluffy sentry at her side, she opened her door and carefully descended the stairs, one hand firmly on the banister and feet placed to avoid creaking. As a teenager she had taught herself how to move silently around the house and knew every creaky floorboard and shadow. As they reached the foyer, Thoth padded into the darkness in the direction of the kitchen.

  Sensible cat. Elizabeth, on the other hand, edged towards a crack of light coming from the door to Taid’s library. She heard a thump followed by a grunt.

  She swung open the door to see an enormous person standing over the unconscious form of her grandfather.

  Chapter Ten

  Year 5, Reign of Pharaoh Siptah (1188 BCE)

  Waset, Khemet (now Luxor, Egypt)

  Chancellor Bay lay unconscious in the bottom of a reed boat anchored in the river by stakes, unmoving as pots of milk and honey were poured over him. When they had finished, the servants holding the jars retreated and two Medjay carried a second, upturned, reed boat toward the first. As they waded through the powerful waters of the Aur they interrupted the river’s flow and sent chaotic eddies swirling downstream. When they reached Bay they lowered the second boat over him.

  After realising that Chancellor Bay had been behind the false accusations against her cousin, Lady Meryt, Tausret had pieced together the full extent of his plot against the throne. It was Bay who had urged the priests to deny her irrigation program, lining the coffers of religious institutions and regional administrators across all of Khemet. He had intended to bring about the end of Tausret’s reign as Khemet’s covert Pharaoh, presumably to replace her as Siptah’s Regent – as a foreigner he would never have been allowed to occupy the throne.

  As Tausret watched, the Medjay lashed the second boat to the edges of the first, forming a casket that left only Bay’s face exposed.

  Promising the soul of Meryt that she would exact revenge, knowing Meryt’s ba watched over her each day, Tausret had spent considerable time and resources planning Bay’s demise. She had directed Seben to send spies into every major city in Khemet, spreading rumours against him: that he was too powerful, too ambitious, and suspected of plotting to kill Pharaoh. He was a foreigner after all – where did his loyalties lie? Not with Khemet.

  When Tausret had offered Bay a prominent role in Khemet’s most important festival, the month-long celebration of Opet, he had eagerly accepted. Bay’s outrage at being abducted by Tausret’s personal Medjay the night before the festival began had been met with Tausret’s assurance that she was being true to her word. For Bay was, indeed, the most famous person at the entire festival, apart from Pharaoh…just not in the role he had anticipated.

  Tausret nodded for a Medjay to wake the detested bureaucrat. The guard reached down and pinched the Canaanite’s nose.

  Gasping for air, Bay awoke. His only sight must have been the sides of the reed boat around his head and Khemet’s blue sky above.

  Tausret waded into the Aur, the raw power of Sekhmet, lioness goddess of vengeance, roaring through her limbs. She leant over Bay’s boat. ‘Comfortable, are we?’

  ‘Where am I? What is this?’

  For the first time in her recall, Tausret saw panic in Bay’s eyes. ‘This, you treasonous pile of ox dung, is called restoring the balance.’ She stood up straight and spoke to the surrounding Medjay. ‘Feed him on the hour every hour.’

  ‘Yes, Mighty Lady,’ they responded in unison.

  ‘Allow all who would approach him to do so.’

  ‘Yes, Mighty Lady.’

  Tausret waded to the riverbank, climbed out of the water, then onto a raised platform erected for her to address the gathering on the shore. The ranks of businesswomen, housewives, labourers and merchants pressed in to hear her words. The crowd was a sea of flesh, men in penis sheaths or short linen skirts, and women in loose, sleeveless shifts. Many carried brightly coloured festival pennants: blue for the gift of air in one’s lungs; green to celebrate the beauty of life and youth; yellow to beg the gods for more gold in the coffers. A few celebrants wore expensive black wigs, and even fewer were in pure white linen dresses. The people of Waset were not prosperous, but they were united in their hatred of Bay.

  Tausret raised her arms and spoke loudly, controlled fury icing her words. ‘At Pharaoh’s command, this is the destiny of Bay, great enemy of Khemet. It was Bay who disobeyed the laws of Ma’at. It was Bay who stole the food from your mouths. Let all who would betray Khemet witness his fate.’

  The crowd roared, then surged around the platform and closed in on the boat to taunt the former chancellor, spit and cast spells on him for threatening the life of Pharaoh.

  Tausret alighted from the platform and began her trek through the festival back to her temporary quarters. From a high point near Waset’s avenue of sphinxes she glimpsed a Medjay forcing a funnel into Bay’s resisting mouth. Each day thereafter, she visited the little boat on the Aur in the morning and the afternoon.

  At first, flies gathered in clouds around the vessel, seeking to sip the milk and honey that fell from the corners of his dry, cracked lips after each feeding. After three sunrises, Tausret glimpsed white, wriggling maggots peeking from beneath Bay’s blistering skin.

  The stench, a mixture of vomit, faeces and rotting meat, was appalling, and served to draw even more flies to the boat to feast and lay their eggs in Bay’s decaying flesh.

  Still, the hourly feedings continued.

  After ten days, Seben commented that no-one had been known to endure execution by milk and honey for so long before. Somehow, the doomed soul of Bay remained in his body.

  On the eleventh morning, Tausret looked into Bay’s swollen, festering face, as a fresh crop of maggots fell from his scalp. ‘Now that is a look that befits your place in life.’

  Bay choked out a sound of dry mirth.

  How, so close to death, riddled with pain as he must be, could Bay laugh?

  ‘You are not cutting off the cobra’s head by executing me,’ Bay croaked. ‘I am not the true threat to Siptah. That remains. I am but one of many. The shadow of your boy-king is already walking in the Land of Two Fields. His soul will join it shortly. ’

  ‘You’re delirious.’

  ‘I am the kingmaker,’ Bay rasped, ‘and I have already chosen the next Pharaoh. Made the next Pharaoh.’

  The certainty in his voice gave Tausret pause. But Siptah was Bay’s nephew – the Canaanite had nothing to gain by deposing his own flesh and blood. Bay had to be blustering, over-confident even in the face of death. Still, why did Tausret feel a chill at his words?

  Tausret turned to Seben. ‘This en
ds today.’

  Seben’s eyes dipped toward the sand. ‘Yes, Mighty Lady.’

  ‘But leave him there until the maggots strip his bones clean.’

  Bay cried out only once, as Tausret turned and signalled to her personal guard to clear a path through the celebrating crowds. She would return to Pharaoh’s barque, where they would enact Siptah’s kingship confirmation ceremonies in the Chamber of the Divine King.

  With Bay’s removal, Tausret had finally eliminated a key threat to her country’s security and avenged her cousin. She would restore the balance of Ma’at to the land and force through her program of dams, weirs and irrigated fields to capture the Aur’s next floodwaters. She would finally ensure Khemet heeded Nitocris’ advice to save her stricken people.

  Chapter Eleven

  Now

  Canberra, Australia

  Elizabeth blocked the doorway, staring at the man clad in darkest green looming over her prone Taid. The intruder’s eyes widened. Whoever they were, they realised they were trapped.

  Time stretched.

  Glancing at Taid for signs of consciousness, Elizabeth groped at the bookshelf behind her for a weapon. Her hand closed on something: a pen. Useless. She felt further along the shelf, her eyes never leaving the intruder’s. She grasped something else: a letter opener. What was she going to do with that?

  ‘He’ll die if you don’t let me go,’ came a whisper from behind the intruder’s dark balaclava.

  Heart pounding, Elizabeth’s hand wrapped around the brass poker that Nathan had left there during his last sleuthing session.

  The intruder moved toward her. Elizabeth swung the poker at him. Her eyes flicked back to Taid. In that instant the burglar sprang for the door and rammed past her, knocking her into the bookshelf. Elizabeth half fell, then launched herself off the shelving toward Taid, distantly aware of the front door slamming.

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. ‘Taid! Taid!’

  His eyes remained closed.

  She grabbed the cordless phone on his desk and dialled 000.