The Golden Falcon

by David C. Clark

  “A moment.” I made a quick foray into a short tunnel leading off the unfinished room but found nothing other than a blank wall at its end. Returning I said “This is not the burial chamber, although it may have been considered so when the pyramid was conceived. Remember, at the time and still today, we excavate down into rock. Back a short distance, I noticed an opening in the roof of the descending corridor and further up from that point, there is a large slab set into the passage ceiling. I have an idea but it will involve us climbing up into the structure. By my calculations, we are now almost directly under the apex of the pyramid. Do either of you suffer anxiety from being in small, dark places?”

  “This is not my idea of an ideal place to visit and I find myself somewhat uncomfortable. Is this structure safe?” asked Khaemwaset, who was perspiring freely.

  “Perfectly safe. You see how the blocks are locked into each other? Nothing will move inside this building but I agree with you about the discomfort. We can retrace our steps to the surface if you wish”.

  “No. As long as we have torches, I am reasonably calm but I would not like to be here without light. Let us continue whilst I still feel courageous.”

  We went back to the aperture in the corridor’s roof and climbed upwards through a winding, roughly cut tunnel. We could use only one flaming torch, held by Ramesses, as we ascended and the task was by no means pleasant. Finally the king poked his head up into a dark, open area. We followed and re-lit our torches, which illuminated walls of polished stone.

  “What is this? I can just make out a roof above our heads and walls shaped in a step like fashion. What is its purpose?” questioned Ramesses.

  “This corridor was fashioned by a process we architects call corbelling. The stones are arranged in a series of inward inclined layers designed to dissipate the great weight imposed by the upper mass of the pyramid. The floor slopes upwards. Let us see where it leads and we can determine its purpose. Notice in the lower blocks, niches cut for beams. The king’s sarcophagus was pulled up this passageway by ropes slung around timber beams. This great vaulted corridor should take us to the burial chamber.”

  “I hope you remember where we are and how we reached this point, O Great Architect, as I am completely lost.” Ramesses had a grim look on his face. Even though the air was cool, he also perspiring freely.

  “If you look behind you, will see a narrow descending passageway. I will explore the lower section in a moment. The crudely formed tunnel we climbed up ends at the beginning of this noble corridor. We will not miss it when we finish our ascent and wish to return. You are in good hands, Master. Your final resting place is in Thebes and not in this pile of stone.”

  Taking the lead, I climbed higher with my respect for Khufu’s architect increasing by the minute. What a builder he must have been! The design was brilliantly conceived and executed in this vast limestone corridor. To have laid so many courses of stones so exactly that they met just where he wanted them would have taken considerable skill. How fascinating it would be if we could meet in the Second Life and discuss his work. However, I had little time to inspect the intricacies of the stonework as this was not the reason we were inside the monument. The corbelled corridor ended at a level- floored antechamber which preceded the burial chamber, a substantial room completely clad in polished dark red granite. Standing against the western wall lay a broken granite sarcophagus and there was no evidence of a lid or anything within the sarcophagus. We swept our torches along its sides looking for some indication of its occupant but no mark graced its polished surface nor did a survey of the walls reveal any inscriptions.

  “Surely there must be another chamber as this cannot be the resting place of Pharaoh Khufu? All that effort just to finish up in this simple bare room.” whispered Ramesses. “You seem to be correct about the pyramid having been broken into. Look, lying in the bottom of the sarcophagus and on the floor there are pieces of a wooden coffin but I see nothing else.”

  At that moment, I was thinking more about architecture rather than the whims of a long gone ruler and the broken sarcophagus was all the proof I needed to know the crypt had been robbed. “If you are both willing to wait here for a few moments, I wish to investigate something. Have no fear, I will return and you have many torches. It is doubtful you will find anything on the walls but look closely for any sign of a hidden chamber. I will return shortly.”

  Khaemwaset was looking very pale so I hastened down the great corridor until my passage was barred by a large squared granite block at a point I thought corresponded to the place I had noticed a limestone slab at the juncture of the two corridors. Retracing my steps, and just before I reached the beginning of the great corridor, I chanced upon a wooden bridge which led into a long passageway ending in another chamber with a pointed stone roof. This room was very roughly finished, the floor uneven and niches had been started in the walls. Making a quick mental note, I thought it best to return to the burial chamber as being inside this mass of stone was beginning to tell on my nerves and it would not be seemly to have the king and his heir panicking.

  “Master,” I said, re-entering the crypt “If you have nothing more to see, we should leave as the air becomes close. There is another smaller chamber lower down but it is ill-formed and devoid of ornamentation or contents. Unhappily, we have to retrace our steps down through the tunnel to the lower level before we can escape to the world of sunlight.”

  On the descent, I pointed out the entrance to the second chamber and other features but by this time we were all eager to leave the confines of the tomb and breathe fresh air. It would be unfair to say that we ran up the descending corridor but our leaving the tomb was much faster than our entry. After we regained solid earth, returned to the comforts of the pavilion, taken refreshments and removed the grime from our bodies, Ramesses asked for my opinions.

  “The thieves entered at the same place we began our tour. The shaft leading up to the grand corridor had been jammed by granite blocks that slid down its length after the king was entombed. The workmen who released the blocks left the pyramid by the same rough cut tunnel we used to attain the crypt and, although I suspect the king did not know about this means of escape, the builder certainly did. The king was entombed, the blocks released which sealed the main entrance to the crypt, then the workmen escaped into the lower descending corridor and came out on the side of the structure and the entrance was sealed with facing blocks. The second chamber I quickly visited may have been planned as the crypt for his queen but it is unfinished. I believe we will find the queen was interred in one of the three smaller pyramids.”

  I took a sip of juice. “The sarcophagus is slightly wider than the great corridor which means it was put in place before it was completed, a fact allowing me to better understand how these massive structures were constructed. The first chamber we visited, carved down into the rock, was probably meant to be the original burial chamber but the plans changed as the pyramid developed in the mind of the architect who was, without question, a clever fellow.”

  “Greater than you?” asked the king

  I smiled. “At least as remarkable. However, he failed his king. The only safeguard designed to protect the king’s body were two limestone blocks plugging the entrance in the face of the pyramid and someone obviously remembered where those blocks were placed. The building’s vast bulk, the beautiful internal design and the sliding granite blocks offered, in the end, absolutely no protection at all. It would have been an easy matter for the master builder to increase the difficulty of re-entering the tomb. I begin to wonder if Khufu’s architect wearied of the king’s demands and possibly the onerous burdens he placed on his subjects and intentionally left the tomb vulnerable to robbers. It would have been a simple matter to completely seal the lower corridor with sliding blocks before the facing blocks were placed.”

  “You noted the condition of the tunnel between the upper and lower corridors? First, it was literally hacked through the stone courses and was certainly not
part of the building plan. The architect would have not only detected it but noticed the men who freed the granite sealing blocks climbing out of the entrance. It was not chiselled out after the entombment as there are no limestone chips in the lower passageway. It was quarried out as the construction proceeded.”

  “Sennefer, that is a shocking accusation to make” exclaimed Khaemwaset.

  “No, my son, it is not. I have ventured the opinion before that the three kings who built so lavishly were vain and stupid men. They must have squandered the kingdom’s wealth to build in this manner. Almost unimaginable volumes of stone, vast flotillas of vessels and thousands labouring away to achieve what? How many men would have been killed or broken during this project? How much suffering did the kings inflict upon their subjects? Djoser and his architect, Imhotep, inadvertently started a process that did not run its course before those who followed had ordained the cutting and placement of millions of tonnes of stone and sacrificed the lives of countless numbers of men to build monuments in veneration of only themselves. I can readily imagine a humane and sensitive man, with the architectural brilliance Sennefer so appreciates, turning against the injustice of his king. Much human blood would have been spilt on these stones before that period of madness only stopped in the chaos at the end of the pyramid building era.”

  “You will note just how easily our masons broke into the side of the pyramid and how little time was taken climbing up to the burial chamber. A small group of men could easily break open the sarcophagus, steal anything of value and decamp into the night. Unless I have missed something, I did not find any rooms other than the one I pointed to on the way out, so it is possible the king was buried with few possessions but we will never know. Another thing. I seriously doubt the robbers re-sealed the tomb. Why should they have bothered? I suspect a later ruler detected the robbery and ordered two new blocks be inserted into the open face.”

  “Quite possible. If you desire to further explore the great pyramid you have my permission as I am sure there are aspects you wish to learn about but then close up the monument. Fill the corridors of Khafre’s monument and re-seal it. Khaemwaset, offer prayers for their souls. Concentrate your efforts on the tombs of their servants. Whilst anguished by the sacrilege committed through the removal of the king’s body, I am deeply saddened by the suffering inflicted upon those who lived under their heavy hands. Let this be done. I have spoken.”

  “Tonight we dine and consider the tombs of the royal families and nobles. We should repair the small damage to the exteriors of the pyramids but our efforts must be devoted to the restoration of temples and shrines erected in honour of the deities. Sennefer, please excuse us for the afternoon. I wish to pray with my son for those whose remains lie before us now. Please re-join us after sunset.”

  I crossed to Khafre’s pyramid to issue instructions to seal its entrance. The foreman told me he had cleared the full length of the corridor which was cut downwards into the limestone, ran flat for a while and then ascended slightly until it met a second corridor apparently leading up towards the side of the pyramid. Intrigued,I told him to bring some torches as I wished to make an inspection though I was sure the burial chamber would be empty and my visit would cause no offence to the gods. Entering the darkened corridor, I came upon a smashed granite portcullis which assured me I would find nothing within this tomb. At a juncture between an upper and lower corridor, there was another broken portcullis and, in the belief the upper corridor would finish against the facing stones of the pyramid, I ventured forward until I arrived at the crypt to find a repetition of the dismal vista we found in Khufu’s crypt. A lonely polished granite sarcophagus lay in a recess in the floor of the burial chamber, its broken lid lying beside it, the sarcophagus devoid of content. Such a waste. My inspection offered nothing further and I returned to the foreman, instructed him to refill the corridor and repave the area around its entrance.

  On the morrow, I would return to the great pyramid and learn more of its intriguing design but the memory of the two cold, empty royal crypts nestled within the architectural miracles of Khufu and Khafre developed within me a deep sense of futility that remained for many moons. Even if Ramesses’s opinion was correct and both kings were little touched by Horus, they had commissioned fabulous monuments. The shame of it was their builders appeared to have failed to protect their master’s remains by not taking just a few more steps to defend the burial chambers more resolutely. Granite faced crypts, massive structural supports to restrain stresses, sliding blocks to seal corridors, all very clever techniques but when the crucial test was applied, the reason for the pyramid’s construction fell short in the execution. Now I was in a similar position and I knew I must not fail.

  The macabre business of opening, repairing and re-sealing noble’s tombs began. Fortunately, most private tombs still retained the remains of their occupants. Many had been broken into centuries ago, though we found evidence of thefts in tombs of more recent construction. Everywhere, funerary goods had been rifled, unknown items stolen and tombs left roughly re-sealed in an attempt to hide the marks of robbery. Coffins had been crudely broken apart and the linen wrapped bodies torn open in search of jewellery. The sight of so many violated and dismembered bodies was sickening. Several tombs contained the burnt remains of bodies and it was not comprehensible why thieves would go to that degree of desecration unless they were particularly irreligious or unsavoury creatures and no better than wild beasts.

  Khaemwaset made bitter observations about the quality of workmanship provided by those who prepared bodies for immortality. There was much to indicate a lack of diligence from embalmers, both present and past. Many remains had rotted after entombment, proving the preservation the bodies had been performed poorly or in un-necessary haste, linen bindings negligently applied and, shockingly, animals substituted for the bodies of infants.

  He was quick to respond to this dishonourable treatment of the dead. Embalmers plied their trade in workshops attached to the temples as the priestly class was responsible for monitoring the preparation of bodies for entombment. A stern edict was sent to every temple, making it clear any failure to properly attend to this sacred duty would be punished by death. He later told me, with evident satisfaction, over the next years, several embalmers had lost their heads. It distressed me again to learn there appeared no limit to the perfidiousness of certain of the king’s subjects.

  Scribes recorded the location of each tomb in the necropolis. Artists copied decorations and inscriptions and their renditions were housed in the House of Life for the use of future tomb makers. Before each consignment of records was sent to Thebes, I read through them and this ultimately led to a discussion some time after the campaign commenced. Ramesses was in Memphis on court business and he took a day away from these duties to accompany Khaemwaset and me on a visit to recently refurbished tombs just south at Darshur.

  Pronouncing himself satisfied, we repaired to the palace and over a dinner of roast duck and goat, we sat at our leisure, talking as old men when the troubles of the day are passed and the wine flows. The night air was warm, the sky ablaze with stars. Khonsu’s moon, a perfect orb, hovered over the city, bathing the terrace on which we sat in his pale yellow glow. I addressed them both.

  “You know I am a callow fellow when it comes to the deeper understanding of our religious beliefs. For years, I have supervised the drafting of decorations for tombs and temples under the imprimatur of the head priest at Karnak but frankly, I must admit to some confusion. My time to meet Osiris draws nearer with every breath and I fear not the prospect of my death for this will reunite me with Ipi, though I mean no disrespect to Neferure, who has brought an enduring happiness to my life.”

  Ramesses held his hand up. “A man may have many loves in his life. In different ways I loved Nefertari, Isetnofret, Hentmire and Maa-Neferu, my Hittite wife. Each brought to my life devotion, love, physical joy, duty and care. Your love of Ipi was true and constant and my daughter is full of prai
se for her husband.”

  He spoke of my marriage to one of his daughters. A year ago, Khaemwaset had again mentioned that several of his sisters had expressed an interest in meeting me, despite my age, which caused me to mildly rebuke him for his irreverence to the mature man. He retorted. “You are an attractive, accomplished man and it is not rightful you remain without a partner. I know that without my wife there would be little happiness in my life. Surely you suffer the pangs of not having a companion to leaven the seriousness of your work?”

  “I do. It is now many years since Ipi departed, there seems little surcease to the gravity of my life and the nights are long. When she was with me, her laughter wiped cares from my brow, life was always brighter and my bed warm.”

  “Then I believe it is time you meet my sister, Neferure. For reasons completely beyond my comprehension, she seems fascinated with you and she is always pestering me about you. ‘When will Sennefer be in Pi-Ramess?’, ‘Can I travel down to Memphis to meet him?’, ‘He is so distinguished!’ Her chatter is like a mosquito flying around my head in the middle of the night. Do I have your permission to affect a meeting?”

  I smiled “So the prince asks the commoner if he can arrange a meeting between a princess and a simple builder. As long as she is not ugly like her elder brother, I see no harm in satisfying her childish desires.”

  “She is no child. Like her mother, she is well educated and sometimes of a serious demeanour. You will need your wits around you when you meet her but the king and I have no great fear you are slow witted.”

  “Your father knows of her interest?”

  “He not only knows of her interest, as she also pesters him about you, he is keen to see her make a marriage. She has firmly rejected any attempt made by him to affect a match, making it abundantly clear there is only one man she is interested in. Personally, I believe she is bewitched and should be sent to the Temple of Isis for a long period of religious instruction as her love is blind to your many imperfections. I will send a message to the Delta telling my innocent little sister I am in need of her assistance with some matter. Then we will let Hathor have her way with you both.”