The Awakening Aten

by Aidan K. Morrissey

  No more. He wrapped Tamyt in a linen sheet and walked to the Mortuary Temple, a part of the massive complex in which he served. Calling over one of the priests, he handed her lifeless body to him.

  ‘Send immediately for the High Priest of Bastet. I want Tamyt to be properly treated and mummified. I want the gods to know her. She must enter the afterlife certain in the knowledge she will be welcomed by them.’

  Bastet, the cat goddess, daughter of Ra, protected the home from disease and acted as a guide and helper towards the afterlife. Her priests knew the importance of cats in the world, honoured their feline faithfulness, worshipped their form. These people would know how to honour Tamyt in death as he had loved her in life. For these priests the death of his beloved pet was not the end of her existence. It was a step on the way to the afterlife. His own faith was causing much inner turmoil. Torn between the beliefs of his grandfather, Yuya, and those of the majority of the people who it was his destiny to rule. For Tamyt’s sake, he set aside his doubts. He commanded the priests in the Temple, to treat her as a member of the Royal family. Her sarcophagus would reflect her exalted position.

  He summoned the most senior sculptor in the Temple. He gave clear instructions that the coffin should depict his feline friend, wearing her favourite necklace, offering food to the gods.

  Tamyt would be buried with full royal honour. By the end of the mourning period, the King and all his family would be here in Ineb-Hedj for the Apis ceremonies and would attend.

  Satisfied he had done all he could for Tamyt, Thutmose walked to the Apis enclosure. The great beast was surrounded by priests. One, in a jackal mask, was performing a blood-letting ceremony. The High Priest and others, specially chosen, would drink the animal’s blood to take from it the strength and spirit living within the great animal.

  The search had already begun for the new Apis. The Two Lands were awaiting the birth of a young male with the sacred markings which would single him out, as a manifestation of Ptah, to be revered for his entire life.

  In the five years since the death of Maiherpri in Waset, nothing had really changed in the Two Lands but, for Prince Thutmose, everything had altered. He was now a man. Last year, he was invested as Overseer of all Priests in the Two Lands by his father. This title causing further resentment, from the High Priest of Amun in Waset, who still regarded himself as Head of all Temples and priests.

  Haqwaset dealt with the attitude of the High Priest in what had become his traditional way. Get him to build something. This time Haqwaset commissioned a new western entrance to the Great Temple, Ipet-Sut, completely knocking down the existing structure and constructing a new third pylon. The King never tired of new building projects and never tired of forcing the High Priest in Waset to pay for them.

  The Ptah High Priest did not acknowledge the arrival, nor presence, of Thutmose. Theirs was not a good relationship. His years as a priest made Thutmose more sceptical about the true religious meaning behind Temple rituals. Being a member of the Royal Family he was in a privileged position. After his first year of training he was no longer obliged to reside permanently within the Temple confines. He was able to live in the Royal Palace and only attend the Temple when his duties required it.

  The High Priest resented this and the appointment of Thutmose as Overseer did not help. The Prince saw corruption permeating every level of the Priesthood.

  Pilgrims came to the Temple, from all over the Two Lands, to worship or plead with Ptah and to pay tribute to the Apis. An industry was built around selling artefacts or offerings to the gods. The offerings were paid for and handed to the priests for the performance of the rituals. The priests retained the offering, returning it to the seller at the end of the day and were given half of what the pilgrim had paid. The church was not short of wealth but it seemed each priest wanted to make himself personally rich. Thutmose discovered priests who left the Temple after a few years of service and retired to estates of cattle farming or wine production, purchased from funds extracted from pilgrims in this way.

  Once appointed as Overseer of Priests, Thutmose tried to stop the practice but he met obstacles at every stage. The High Priest said it wouldn’t be possible to change the workings of the system. This was the start of their bad relationship.

  ‘With respect Majesty, I do not see why you are so concerned. Everyone gains from this. No one loses,’ he told Thutmose. ‘The artefacts are made in the workshops of the Temple and sold to the street sellers. The Priests pay one fourth of what they earn to the Temple funds. The sellers are able to charge lower prices for the artefacts, based on the fact the same item is sold many times. The Pilgrim gets what he wants, at a price he is prepared to pay. The seller is happy with what he gets and only has to give half to the church if the item is returned to him. The Temple, the priests and the sellers all earn money. Who is being cheated, who is losing out?’

  Thutmose was perplexed by the twisted logic.

  ‘The god does not keep the offering.’

  ‘And what need does Ptah have for trinkets? He receives all the homage and love he needs from his priests. His ba, embodied in the Apis Bull, is treated as a god. He never needs for food or care. He is massaged daily with oils. He has the company of a herd of cows to enable him to fulfil his physical needs and his mother is kept near to him and given all the respect a god’s mother should have. His offspring are treated with dignity and reverence as is fitting. Prince, you should concern yourself with more important things. The Temple will take care of the god’s needs and I’ll take care of the Temple’s needs.’

  Thutmose was not invited to drink the blood. He could have insisted, but today he did not have the spirit to challenge the High Priest. Instead he decided to seek out the company of friends, to spend time with people who would let him be himself. Help him grieve for Tamyt.

  Five years before, events had thrown men, women and children, from different social classes, together; bonds of friendship had been established, which Thutmose was happy had continued.

  He walked the short distance through flower filled gardens to the offices of the Vizier of Lower Kemet. He passed the Vizier’s residence in the Palace complex; he heard the sweet sound of singing. The deputy of the King, the most powerful man in this northern part of the Two Lands, was Aperel, brother of Maiherpri, now married to Tawy, daughter of Kha.

  Appointed Vizier almost two years ago, Aperel was also Governor of Ineb-Hedj. Thutmose was fascinated by the way Tawy could sing almost all day and night without tiring. Her voice as strong in the evening as it was in the morning. She made up songs as she went along and was singing out orders for her children to go to bed. In the four years which had passed since Aperel and Tawy had married she had borne him three sons.

  ‘I’m not getting any younger and I needed to make up for lost time,’ she told Thutmose one day, shortly after moving to these quarters and when she was just about to give birth to their third son. ‘It is such a pity my mother and father are no longer alive to see that I’ve finally found true happiness.’

  The death of Maiherpri had reunited Tawy with her parents, introduced her to Aperel and also led to her being widowed, freeing her to marry.

  Thutmose needed no introduction. The guards, standing at the doorway, saluted and stood aside allowing him to enter unheeded. The scribe, sitting cross-legged inside the doorway, making a note of all who entered, immediately and effortlessly changed the position of his legs beneath him, moved into a kneeling position and bowed.

  Standing, he said, ‘Good evening, Prince Thutmose, I will inform the Governor of your arrival. I’m sure he will be most pleased to see you.’

  There was not the slightest hint of sarcasm in the scribe’s voice, as Thutmose often detected from servants in other houses he had occasion to visit on official business. The scribe returned and took up his previous seated position. A few moments later the tall, muscular figure of Aperel appeared. He was dressed
from head to toe in a long blue, sleeveless gown, with a gold chain around his neck. He was deep in conversation with a small, elderly man dressed in a dishevelled white gown which finished just below his knees.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Aperel said, looking down at the man, who did not even come in height to the shoulders of the Vizier. Aperel glanced at Thutmose, an exasperated look on his face. The old man was talking at great speed and seemed highly agitated.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Aperel continued, ‘but we will need to discuss this in detail tomorrow. Look, here is the Crown Prince. I told you, as important as these matters are, I can’t keep the Prince waiting, let us talk tomorrow, come early, speak to my scribe who will assign you an appointment.’

  The man looked up at the young Prince, made a cursory attempt at a bow and shook his head.

  ‘It’s most important, most important,’ the old man was saying as he passed the Prince. ‘There is never enough time to get to the detail.’

  He continued talking as he was accompanied across the grounds by a guard and his voice trailed off into the distance. The Prince and the Vizier stood at the doorway as the old man disappeared from view. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. Thutmose was the first to speak; there was a lilt in his voice.

  ‘If you needed more time, Aperel, I would have been perfectly happy to wait, you need only have asked.’ Aperel gave him a punch on the shoulder and laughed as he put an arm around the Prince. They walked towards the sound of singing in the private quarters.

  ‘I told you he would be delighted,’ the scribe said as they passed him.

  Aperel looked at the cross-legged servant.

  ‘It is beyond your duties to have an opinion about what your master may or may not be. Remember your station.’

  They both smiled.

  ‘Who was that?’ Thutmose asked.

  ‘Don’t ask, just don’t ask. You’ve saved me from hours of torture and I’m most grateful. Anyway, to what do we owe this pleasure, it seems we haven’t seen you for weeks?’

  ‘I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t trying to get money or favour from me,’ replied the Prince.

  ‘Well you’ve come to the wrong place,’ retorted Aperel, ‘if that man is returning tomorrow I want a new job, can you find me one?’

  The two men were still laughing as they entered the private quarters where Tawy, together with three nursemaids, were finally getting the children off to their beds. Three boys born in rapid succession, two even in the same year and the third just fourteen months later. Tawy saw the two men arrive, stood up from her kneeling position and walked over to kiss the young Prince on the cheek. Theirs had become a friendship where formalities were dispensed with unless in public, where Tawy would pay homage to the Royal family exactly the same way as all other subjects. Here, in her own home it was different; Thutmose was a very welcome guest.

  ‘I must get the servants to prepare something special to eat,’ she said, smiling. I think we have some very good bull meat freshly delivered.’

  ‘I would rather chew on the ear of a live donkey than have bull meat Tawy. I’ll go to my quarters to eat.’

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Aperel, ‘you keep a live donkey in your quarters so you can chew on his ear? I think we need to find you a woman.’

  Thutmose had known these two would pick up on his mood, realise he needed cheering up. There were few better in the world at achieving this. Even his younger brother Teppy was not as good at raising his spirits as he used to be. In the last five years, Teppy, free from any of the pressures of future Kingship, had been able to go more his own way in the world. He and Nefertiti were inseparable and spent many days and weeks with her family. Her father, Ay, was Teppy’s uncle, his mother’s brother.

  Whilst Ay, like his sister Queen Tiye, had embraced the need in Kemet to uphold the religious and cultural heritage of the country, he was able to maintain his own personal beliefs of religion and keep them separate, much as his father, Yuya, had done. All who met Ay, in his official capacities, believed he was a follower of Amun, but this was just political expediency. His views were not strictly monotheistic as were his father’s. They were more complex and perhaps reflected his father’s insistence that all religions be understood and respected.

  Teppy had grown fascinated by tales of his forefathers. Wonderful stories of how the one, true God had saved the world from a great flood by instructing his faithful servant to build an enormous Ark. This story had intrigued Teppy ever since his father had created his Temple in such a way that, during the inundation, only a large replica of this life saving Ark was visible. There was also a completely different story about the creation of the earth, less complicated and easier to grasp and accept than the one the local priests claimed to be correct.

  In his younger years, Teppy had regaled in the stories told to him of his ancestors on his father’s side. Great Kings of the Two Lands who, just seven generations ago, removed all foreign power from the Two Lands and who created the richest and most powerful nation on earth. Now he was just as fascinated by his ancestors on his mother’s side. He knew by heart the story of his grandfather, Yuya, who was born into a large family. His father had four wives and thirteen children. Jealousy had taken over Yuya’s brothers, who sold him into slavery, and pretended to his father he was dead. Yuya eventually prospered in Kemet and, near the end of his father’s life, had been reconciled with him. The two sons born of Yuya’s first wife were now tribal leaders in their homeland, having been taken there by Yuya’s father.

  The previous year, during the season of the inundation, when the land was covered in water and life in Kemet was calmer, Teppy and Nefertiti journeyed, together with Ay and his brother Anen, to meet with their father’s younger and favourite brother. They stayed for three months. They were very inquisitive and wanted to know about Yuya’s own great-grandfather, a man named Abram, who was credited as being the founder of the religion which the family now followed. One all-powerful God. Creator of all things. A God who could at times be vengeful, at times loving, but always just. The more thought Teppy and Nefertiti gave to the subject, the more they came around to the belief that this was a true and irrefutable view of God.

  On their return to Kemet, they marvelled at the engravings and statues in the Temples in Iunu. Here, the principal god of the region was Ra, the sun god, represented by the Aten, the sun disc. Nefertiti discovered how Yuya’s first wife had come from Iunu, her father being a priest in its Temple. They spent days with the priests learning all they could about the history of the Temples and the god represented by the sun.

  The High Priest journeyed with them to the Sun Temples by the great statue Hor-em-Akhet, uncovered by Teppy’s grandfather. They became convinced by the teachings that Ra was the King of the gods and was a representation of the same god they’d heard about from the clerics in Yuya’s homeland.

  Ra was omnipresent in the stories of the Two Lands. Other gods, even Amun and Ptah, had increased in their importance within the country but this was a new phenomenon. From the time when the Great Pyramids had been built and even before then, it was Ra and his symbol, the Aten, people turned to and worshipped. The Temple at Iunu was different to those the young Prince had been used to seeing in Waset or Ineb-Hedj. Here the vast Temple was open, with a great obelisk in the centre of a magnificent, expansive courtyard.

  ‘What need we of a roof,’ one of the priests had said to them. ‘We worship the god who brings us the sun every day. A roof would shield the sun from us, we want to celebrate his glory, not hide away from him.’

  They discovered many similarities, in what they were hearing in Iunu, to the teachings they heard in the house of Nefertiti’s great uncle.

  From Iunu they journeyed to Yuya’s estate and spent weeks with him before travelling together, first to Ineb-Hedj and then on to Waset. Yuya had been impressed by the depth of knowledge the young couple had and the enthusiasm
with which they both spoke. He was also a little astonished at their ability to assimilate the correlation between the two stories told to them, so different on the surface but many things overlapping or complementing the other.

  He said as much to Tiye.

  ‘It is such a pity they will be soon separated. Nefertiti is destined to become Queen one day and therefore must marry Thutmose. I think Haqwaset has it in mind to announce the marriage during his festival next year.’

  ‘I wouldn’t make too many plans,’ replied Yuya.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Tiye.

  ‘Nothing in particular daughter, it’s just I was thinking about a dream I had,’ replied her father.

  ‘A dream? What dream?’ asked Tiye, always concerned when her father talked of dreams.

  The old man looked at her for a moment. ‘Don’t worry my child, only God knows what is in the future.’

  ‘And sometimes he gives a glimpse of our futures in dreams,’ she retorted.

  ‘Sometimes, but not always,’ he replied.

  Tiye was persistent, ‘Please tell me what was your dream. You must tell me of your dream.’

  ‘No Tiye, I don’t have to tell you my dreams,’ responded Yuya gently, and he did not tell her, at least not until many months later.

  Without travelling to the lands in the east, or speaking with the priests in Iunu, Prince Thutmose was also questioning the beliefs of his people. He had seen the corruption here at the Temple of Ptah; he had seen the criminality of the Priests of Amun in Waset, which put in motion the train of events leading to the death of Maiherpri, a death which still wrenched at his heart.