Egyptian Enigma

by LJM Owen

  ‘Exactly,’ Taid said, sipping his tea. He pulled a face. ‘Madeleine, there’s no sugar in this.’

  Grandmère smiled, then tsked at him with exag­gerated concern. ‘Précisément.’ Precisely. ‘I will follow the doctor’s orders, even if you will not.’

  ‘We wanted you to stay with us three years ago when everything was very difficult and everyone was still grieving after the loss of William,’ Taid said. ‘Things are different now, more stable.’

  ‘Oui,’ Grandmère said. ‘You should arrange the interview and then make a decision. We will be fine with whichever you choose.’

  ‘We might be finer if we were allowed a proper cup of tea. Honestly, Beth bach, it’s entirely up to you. I think you should take the interview, see about the outcome, then decide what you want to do. You will have a good job either way, so really it comes down to which work you prefer.’

  For once, her grandparents were of absolutely no help. Perhaps she would do as they suggested, take the interview, then decide if she got the job offer.

  As she chatted with them about her work and tutoring over the past few weeks, she realised that, with the whole household focused on Taid’s recovery, no-one had spoken to Mai for a while.

  The front doorbell rang.

  ‘Your group come to investigate anonymous mummies?’ Taid winked.

  ‘Most likely.’ She winked back, standing to kiss Taid’s bald pate. It was so good to have him home.

  As she descended the tight red metal spiral staircase to the library below, Elizabeth made a mental note to check with Sam, Nainai and Matty as to when they had last heard from Mai.

  —

  ‘How about we grab some drinks before we make a start?’ Elizabeth said to Rhoz, Alice and Nathan.

  ‘Great idea,’ Nathan said.

  As the kettle boiled, Elizabeth excused herself and wandered into the loungeroom where Sam, Matty and Nainai sat before the masonry heater watching television. Jane Caro, a writer and social commentator, was talking about the mixed reception of a particularly fiery speech made by Australia’s first female prime minister. While many women had lauded her stance, some conservative men had apparently taken issue with her leadership. Elizabeth waited until the interview was over to ask: ‘Has anyone spoken to Mai recently?’

  Sam and Matty both turned and shook their heads.

  ‘No,’ Nainai said, looking rather worried. ‘I’ve left several messages letting her know what’s been happening and why our usual weekend activities have been cancelled, but I haven’t heard back. Have you seen her at work?’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth said, ‘but that’s not unusual. Sometimes we don’t run into each other at the Library for months.’

  ‘Would you girls please go and check on her?’ Nainai asked Elizabeth and Sam. She was clearly worried.

  ‘Yes,’ Sam said immediately.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Elizabeth said. ‘My group’s just arrived, so how about you try calling her again now? If no-one’s heard back from her by the time I’ve finished we’ll go over and see if she’s okay.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Nainai looked relieved, then turned back to continue watching the Australian history program.

  Hot drinks lined up carefully on a shelf in Taid’s library, Elizabeth, Nathan, Alice and Rhoz gathered around the skeleton of Ramesses the First. Henry observed from his usual vantage point of Elizabeth’s laptop. Llew had excused himself again, saying he needed to work on a paper.

  ‘I found what I thought was going to be a clue but, in the end, doesn’t seem to be,’ Henry said.

  ‘That’s nice and cryptic,’ Elizabeth teased him.

  ‘I finally found an x-ray of one of the mummy wrappings, number six, which seemed to show a name.’

  ‘Was it in a cartouche?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘No, and it turned out to be Aswan, the name of a city, so not much help at all.’

  ‘What name did it use, exactly?’

  ‘Swenett, which was the ancient Egyptian name for Aswan, the settlement near Cataract Gorge, correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth confirmed. ‘And the name of a goddess of childbirth. The town was important for its quarries and its garrison, but otherwise I’m not sure it helps.’

  ‘So possibly she came from Aswan?’

  ‘Maybe…’ Elizabeth trailed off.

  ‘All right, let’s do this!’ said Nathan, who was in fine fettle and looking rather smart in brown chinos and an orange sweatshirt.

  ‘So, this is Ramesses the First,’ Alice said. ‘And I’ve printed out Seti the First and Ramesses the Second for today. I’ll do the others as soon as I get the chance.’

  ‘The first three Pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Huzzah!’

  ‘What can you tell us, Professor Pimms?’

  ‘Thank you, Henry,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Well, they’re father, son and grandfather. Ramesses the First established the Nineteenth Dynasty after the rise and fall of the Eighteenth, which included the fabulous Hatshepsut as well as the icky Akhenaten and his tragic son, Tut-Ankh-Amun.’

  ‘Were they all related?’ Rhoz asked.

  ‘There were fifteen or so Pharaohs in the Eighteenth Dynasty, all of whom were related to each other except the last, who was apparently a commoner. This guy,’ Elizabeth indicated the Pharaoh lying in front of her, ‘wasn’t related to the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaohs either. He was the son of a troop commander called Seti. The eight or so Pharaohs in the Nineteenth Dynasty were all descended from him in one way or another, as were the Pharaohs of the Twentieth Dynasty.’

  ‘So these guys aren’t related to Tut?’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth said, turning Ramesses the First’s skull in its foam rest. ‘But there is an interesting story to his mummy.’

  ‘Oh?’ Henry said eagerly.

  ‘It was discovered very early on in the European predations of Egyptian antiquities. Then, in 1860, his mummy was stolen by the Abu-Rassul family of grave-robbers…’

  ‘Grave-robbing was their family business?’ Alice seemed fascinated.

  ‘Apparently so. His mummy was taken to North America and ended up at a Niagara Falls museum. A hundred and thirty years later, it was sold to a museum in Atlanta for two million dollars. Then it was given back to Egypt and is now on display in Luxor museum.’

  ‘A globetrotting mummy!’ Henry said.

  ‘He’s a bit short for basketball,’ Nathan countered.

  ‘His arms were crossed over his chest, like many Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, and his nails were a distinct deep orange,’ Elizabeth added. ‘They were the clues that he had been a Pharaoh.’

  ‘Nail polish?’ Rhoz asked.

  ‘Not exactly, more staining of the nails with henna,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But some royal women did have nail polish.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Alice asked.

  Elizabeth walked back to her cup of Turkish apple tea and took a sip. ‘Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and Cleopatra the Seventh all wore nail polish made of oils, herbs and gums. The darker the red, the more commanding the woman. Nefertiti wore red, Cleopatra wore dark red, and Hatshepsut’s mummy had both black and red nail polish.’

  ‘Powerful woman,’ Rhoz said.

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘And one of the finest rulers Egypt ever saw.’

  ‘Now, now, you can’t crush on Hatshepsut,’ Henry teased. ‘Khaenweset will be jealous.’

  Elizabeth chose to ignore that with a lofty lift of her nose into the air. ‘So, other interesting things about Mr the First…you can’t see it particularly well here,’ she picked up the cranium and turned it, pointing at the place where the right ear would have been, ‘but the CT scans indicate destruction of the inner temporal bone and mastoid process.’

  ‘Which means?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Possible chronic ear infections, maybe even s
evere enough to have killed him.’

  ‘Thank goodness for antibiotics, eh?’ Rhoz said.

  ‘I read up on his mummification,’ Alice said. ‘Very different from Tut-Ankh-Amun’s, except they both had golden toe sandals to stop their feet curling when they were wrapped.’

  ‘His embalming was quite classic,’ Elizabeth agreed, glad that Alice was so interested. ‘First, his brain was removed, using a long metal tool inserted through the right nostril to break through the bone at the back of the nose. Then they would have swirled it around to break up the brain matter.’

  Nathan clutched his skull and bent down. ‘Argh!’

  Elizabeth’s anxiety shot up. ‘Are you okay? We can stop.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Nathan insisted. ‘It’s just that I get an image in my mind’s eye of everything you say. Please, continue.’

  ‘All right,’ Elizabeth said, a touch uncertain. ‘So, after they drained that out, his brain cavity was filled halfway with resin. Then an incision was made down the left side of his body and all the organs except his heart were removed.’

  ‘Better treatment than poor King Tut,’ Henry said.

  ‘Yes. Once that was done the cavity was packed with resin-soaked linen. Ah. . .all the cavities were packed with resin-soaked linen.’

  ‘What sort of resin?’ Rhoz asked.

  ‘A mix of vegetable oils, pistachio resin and pine resin.’

  ‘So he would have smelt nice?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Yes, I guess so. There’d be no decay because of desiccation by salts first.’

  ‘So mummies smelt like pine air freshener?’ Henry said.

  ‘The expensive version, yes.’

  ‘Height, Captain?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Femur check…would you do the honours?’ Elizabeth handed him the tape measure.

  ‘Like this?’ he asked, holding it uncertainly over one end.

  Elizabeth adjusted it for him. ‘From just there.’

  Nathan let the tape snap back into its cover then pulled out his phone. ‘One metre, seventy centimetres.’

  ‘And his age?’ Rhoz asked.

  ‘May I have a go?’ Alice said.

  ‘Of course.’ Elizabeth stepped back to allow Alice access to Ramesses the First’s skull.

  Alice frowned. ‘His teeth are rather a mess, aren’t they? Hmm…’ She shifted the cranium back and forth. ‘He doesn’t have that extra tubercle. From the ones that aren’t severely decayed, I’d say they’re strongly worn away, so sixties or seventies?’

  ‘I’d concur,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And I’m seeing simi­lar­ities with Tomb mummy one and Ramesses the Third.’

  ‘I still can’t see it,’ Henry said.

  ‘It might be more obvious if I bring up some of the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaohs.’ Elizabeth accessed the files on her laptop and brought up photos of the mummies of six Pharaohs on her screen.

  ‘Now I see it!’ Henry said.

  ‘Me too,’ Alice, Rhoz and Nathan said in unison.

  The skull of Ramesses the First, with or without its mummified flesh coating, was patently different from those of the four Thutmoses, Hatshepsut and Tut-Ankh-Amun.

  ‘The first’s face is bigger somehow, stronger,’ Henry said.

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘It’s larger, longer, with a strong, wide jaw, extremely prominent chin and large cheekbones. He also has rather sunken eyes, though that’s exaggerated by the mummified state of his body.’

  ‘Now I can see what you mean about it being similar to our first Tomb mummy and Ramesses the Third.’

  ‘And reminiscent of our second and fourth Tomb mummies,’ Elizabeth said. ‘See, that’s what I want to capture with data so I can compare it to other ancient Egyptian people. But I can’t use a dental approach here like normal, because so many of their teeth are rotten.’

  Wondering again about another approach that might work, Elizabeth and Alice packed away the skeleton of Ramesses the First and set out the bones of his son, Seti the First.

  ‘Seti?’ Rhoz said. ‘As in the god Set?’

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He was named for his grandfather, another Seti. The god Set was supposed to have red hair, and some of the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaohs had red hair, so it’s thought that’s perhaps why the name Seti had such a persistent place in this particular family.’

  Looking at the features of his face, it was clear that Seti the First shared many features with his father, including a wide mouth, strong jaw line and prominent chin. Nathan performed another height estimate.

  ‘Only a hundred and sixty-three centimetres,’ he announced.

  ‘Five feet four inches?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought the Pharaohs were generally taller than the average population,’ Nathan said.

  ‘They were, but height can be strongly affected by life factors. If he had a weak heart it may have affected his health throughout his life, including his body’s ability to grow.’

  ‘A weak heart?’

  ‘Seti was only in his thirties when he died, most likely from a long-term heart problem,’ Elizabeth explained. ‘His heart was moved from the left to the right side of his body during mummification, possibly in the hope it would work better in the next life.’

  ‘Can we see that in his teeth?’ Alice asked.

  ‘His age at death? Yes.’ Elizabeth pulled his jaw down. ‘See, his teeth are in far better condition than his father’s and those of Ramesses Three, Four and Five. Hmm…no tubercle.’

  ‘So his father may have died of an ear infection and he died from a dodgy ticker,’ Henry said. ‘Ruling the known world doesn’t seem to make you invincible, does it?

  ‘No, but the next guy thought it did,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Even he might have lived a little longer than his ninety-something years if not for a rampant tooth infection.’

  Having packed away Seti the First, they laid out the next skeleton with practised ease.

  Elizabeth looked down into the empty eye-sockets of Ramesses the Second. The same large, long, narrow face, broad jaw, prominent chin, high cheekbones and large orbits of Ramesses the First – his grandfather – stared back at her. Ramesses the Second’s father, Seti the First, was far more handsome than either the first or second Ramesses in Elizabeth’s opinion, but it was strange how completely the looks of Ramesses the First had passed on to his grandson.

  ‘Mummy one from the Tomb shared the same strong jawline, chin and cheekbones, even though she was female,’ she said, ‘and to a lesser extent mummies two and four. It’s possible mummies three and five might have as well, if they had been older when they died.’

  ‘It’s strange to stare into the face of such a famous man who died thousands of years ago,’ Nathan said quietly.

  Elizabeth looked at him with intensity. ‘That’s what I love about this.’

  He smiled hesitantly. ‘I think I’m starting to get it.’

  ‘Did you know our Mr the Second had a modern passport?’ Henry asked.

  ‘You mean Ramesses the First wasn’t the only jet­setting mummy?’ Rhoz played along.

  ‘It was all the rage in his family,’ Henry said. ‘I read that in 1974 the condition of his mummy was deteriorating so he was issued with an Egyptian passport – occupation listed as king – and flown to Paris with full military honours to preserve him.’

  ‘Is it my imagination, or did he have a large nose?’ Alice asked.

  ‘He has an extraordinary nasal aperture,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘Even though it’s set high on his face, it’s so large, wide and long, he must have had an incredibly impressive schnoz in life. And to make sure it was just as impressive in the afterlife, it was packed with seeds and small animal bones during mummification to preserve its shape.’

  ‘So mummification could really get up your nose?’ Henry said.

/>   Rhoz shook her head.

  Alice moved to examine his teeth. ‘Abscesses?’

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘He had severely abscessed teeth in both his upper and lower jaw and, as you can see, they were extremely worn. The infection in his mandible was so severe that it was probably what ultimately killed him. So many of his teeth are missing it would be impossible to include him in any dental analyses, but look!’ Elizabeth pointed to his remaining upper second molar. ‘It’s deeply worn, but he does have the extra tubercle that five of our mummies and three of the Ramesses had.’

  As they looked over the replica skeleton of possibly the most famous Egyptian Pharaoh, Elizabeth pointed to multiple healed bones – the sites of old battle wounds and fractures – including what must have been an incredibly painful fracture of his left middle finger. ‘He also had rampant arthritis throughout his body.’ She turned his vertebrae and joints to show the wearing of the bone to the others. ‘He probably walked with a hunch for the last third of his life.’

  ‘The Hunchback of Notre Memphis?’ Henry suggested.

  ‘Certainly not reflective of the Lothario he’s normally portrayed as in modern fiction, is it?’

  ‘And did he really have red hair?’ Rhoz asked, touching her own mahogany mane. ‘I know you mentioned that before, but is it true?’

  ‘When the roots of his hair were examined they showed he had red hair as a younger man. Other tests showed he also had quite pale skin.’

  ‘So Ramesses the Second was a ginger?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Probably more like my sister, Sam,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Lighter red hair and paler skin.’

  Through the vagaries of genetic inheritance, Sam had inherited the mop of burnished curls that she allowed to grow so wildly atop her head. Unfortunately, she had also inherited their unknown grandfather’s pale Scottish skin. Given that Elizabeth merely went darker in the sun, and their mother had also shared Grandmère Maddie’s much higher levels of melanin, no-one in the family had realised what would happen when little Sam first spent a whole afternoon outside under the Australian sun. She had howled in pain for days from the burns, then peeled for weeks.