by Tom Bane
“The Queen’s Pyramid is the same size as the King’s. You don’t get that in just any period of ancient history, but, in Nubia, women held equal status. They had a remarkable level of emancipation, thousands of years ahead of their time, and we will find it only once again in Egyptian history, that tolerance of the female, in the reign of Tutankhamun and his father, Akhenaten: the so-called Amarna period.
“Now, we shall move further on from 2300 BC and the birth of Nubia, to 1353 BC and the genesis of the Egyptian New Kingdom and the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, and his son Tutankhamun. We are moving from an age of emancipation and the multi-theism of the Nubians with their super-god, Amun, to an age of feminine liberation and the god Aten, the supreme and only god.”
Piper beckoned to Suzy to stay close behind him as he suddenly picked up speed and strode on down the museum’s corridor, making the students run to catch up. Without warning he vaulted sideways and danced up the staircase away from the group.
“I’m up here!” he shouted from the landing moments later, as those who hadn’t been attending looked around for him, confused. “Up you come.”
The students dutifully turned and climbed the stairs after him, puzzled as to why they were being led into the art gallery rather than the Egyptian section.
“Why have we come to this fine rendition of a man?” Piper asked, gesturing up at a modern painting of a naked wrinkly man. “What’s the link?”
Suzy couldn’t think of an answer, but the professor had succeeded in catching her attention.
“Think of a link with Akhenaten,” Piper prompted, seeming once more to be talking directly to her. “What is one of the most sensationalist theories of twentieth century Egyptology?” He waited in the silence for as long as he could bear before he exploded with frustration. “You’re looking at the work of possibly the greatest artist in the country—Lucien Freud! So the link is—?”
“Freud,” Suzy shouted as the penny dropped, immediately embarrassed by her own loudness in the hushed gallery. “Sigmund Freud. He wrote a book on Akhenaten!”
Piper clapped his hands in delight. “More, more” he urged.
“The book was called ‘Moses and Monotheism,’” Suzy continued, finally giving in to her unsolicited role as academic conspirator. “Sigmund Freud was a free thinker and an all-around genius, not just the father of psychoanalysis. He proposed a radical theory that became popular in the early twentieth century, that the father of Tutankhamun was in fact Moses, and Moses and the Pharaoh Akhenaten were one and the same person, the first man who ever believed in just one God, the belief of monotheism.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” It was now as if all the other students had disappeared and he was just talking to Suzy, sharing his enthusiasm with an intellectual equal. “And Lucien Freud is Sigmund’s grandson. Of course the theory lies fallow now, discredited because the timing of Moses’ exodus and Akhenaten’s reign is hundreds of years adrift.” said Suzy.
“Exactly Suzy. But what we do know is that, to promote his radical monotheism, Akhenaten had to curb Egypt’s worship of any other god. He began by stripping the all-powerful traditional priesthood of their authority; he banned the worship of their favorite god, Amun, the moon, and closed down Amun’s two-thousand-year-old temple at Karnak in Luxor. Then he forced ordinary Egyptians to abandon their pantheon of gods and worship only the supreme god symbolized by Aten, the sun. However, at the same time, Akhenaten denied them access to the ceremonies he and his royal court held for this Sun god. He would have known that, on top of forbidding them their own gods, this would cause huge anger and dissent. Some have also speculated that by doing this Akhenaten was deliberately depriving the masses of their right to enter into the underworld and be considered for reincarnation which, as you well know, was a treasured right for the Egyptian people.”
“But then surely Tutankhamun tried to correct the mistakes of his father?” Suzy queried. A few of the students, already feeling superfluous, were now losing interest but Piper didn’t notice and carried on regardless.
“Correct. When Akhenaten’s successor and son, Tutankhamun, reached the throne, the people’s resentment was so great, he was forced to change his name, the only time in history a Pharaoh took such a dramatic step. His original name, Tutankh-Aten, meant ‘living image of the Aten,’ that is, the living image of the sun. His new, more acceptable name, Tutankh-Amun, meant ‘living image of the Amun,’ in other words, the moon. And this unprecedented diplomatic move gave the go ahead for the people to abandon the sun and reinstate their moon worship.”
Piper paused and at last looked around, noticing the disengaged students on the perimeter of the group. He deliberately aimed his next remarks at them, pointing to another exhibit on the opposite wall.
“Who can tell me the connection, and it is not as oblique this time, between Akhenaten and this picture?”
The students looked at an art deco style poster of a glamorous 1920s half-naked dancer, holding a thin cheroot cigarette holder in the Folies Bergère in Paris.
“It’s Amarna,” one of the students called from the back.
“Correct,” said Piper. “Akhenaten moved his whole court and capital city from southern Karnak to a new purpose built city in the desert, east of the Nile at Amarna. The city was called Akhetaten, meaning ‘the horizon of the sun.’ It was built to celebrate Akhenaten and his beautiful wife, the eternally famous Nefertiti. Buried in the sand for thousands of years, the lost City of Akhetaten was filled with statues and paintings imbued with a flowing naturalistic style not seen before. Only rediscovered in the 19th century, its artwork became a key driver in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles in the 1920s, just like this poster of the burlesque dancer.”
The professor was gazing closely at the painting with a look of rapture on his round, pink face, as if entranced by a real woman. The stifled giggles of some of the students brought him back to the present.
“Something else you will see is that Akhenaten was painted and sculpted with strange features: an elongated skull, a squashed face and strange ‘childbearing hips.’ If you look at the family paintings they all have pear-shaped hips. This has led to many fringe theories, like Akhenaten was really a pregnant woman or that he suffered from a congenital skull-deforming disease called Marfan’s syndrome, the same ailment that afflicted Abraham Lincoln.”
As Piper continued to talk, Suzy was jotting down notes, only half-listening. With her own imagination fired by the distinguished professor’s unpredictable thought patterns, her mind began to race as she began developing her own theories. Piper, seeing his protégé distracted, paused and coughed a little too loudly. When Suzy looked up, he continued.
“So, we have a real story here. Imagine the mighty Akhenaten and his beautiful and famous Queen Nefertiti. They swept to power with a new god of the sun, and assigned the old gods to the dustbin of faith. Then they moved en masse to their own new luxury resort and self-proclaimed capital. The closed worship of the Aten was purely the preserve of the Royal Court. How did they manage to keep the masses from total rebellion?”
“Suppression?” someone suggested.
“Absolutely. There are many murals of military forces quelling rebellion, and it was clear the reign of Akhenaten could never last forever. So, was Akhenaten a megalomaniac or a genius? His subsequent enemies and successive pharaohs defaced his name and abolished the worship of the sun disc. His name could have been lost forever, were it not for the discovery of the lost city. But he is still an enigma. Why the worship of the sun disc? Who was his beautiful wife, Nefertiti, really, and where did she come from? Was Akhenaten the real father of Tutankhamun? And where is Akhenaten’s resting place? His mummy has never been found. And why is there so much uncertainty over which pharaoh succeeded him?”
“Wasn’t that his son, Tutankhamun?” Kathy asked, at last spotting one question she felt confident answering.
“Maybe. Or—” Piper paused for dramatic effect. “did Smenkhare steal the throne?”
“Nothing much is known about him,” Piper admitted, “except that he disappeared after only two years of reigning, to be replaced by Tutankhamun. Maybe Akhenaten fled to Israel to escape his enemies and stayed there in hiding, while Nefertiti-Akhenaten’s wife, continued as Pharaoh, disguised as a man called Smenkhare. If so, then Tutankhamun inherited the throne from a woman.”
“Wasn’t Nefertiti Tut’s mother?” Suzy chipped in.
“Probably not. Tutankhamun is thought to be the son of one of Akhenaten’s minor wives, Kiya. As Howard Carter put it, ‘The shadows move but the dark is never quite dispersed.’” Piper paused to let the quotation hang in the air before continuing. “Now, back to the pictures.”
The professor now stood in front of an Andy Warhol painting of three Coca-Cola bottles, waiting a moment or two for them to soak up the image. None of them spoke.
“In 1992, a German scientist claimed she had discovered cocaine in the wrappings of several Egyptian mummies.”
Suzy, now fully in tune with Piper’s cryptic fine art references, interrupted. “The original secret recipe for Coca-Cola had nine milligrams of cocaine in it.”
“Very good,” Piper rounded on her, pushing his face unnervingly close to hers. “So, what is cocaine doing in the wrappings of the mummies of Egypt?”
Suzy thought for a second. She shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”
“Cocaine only grew in South and Central America in ancient times, just as it does today, so the scientist suggested the Egyptians must have had trading links with the ancient civilizations of South America, people like the Mayans and Olmecs. However, this suggestion appalled the archaeological community. It didn’t just contradict their world view; it also defamed the great Catholic, Christopher Columbus, as the first discoverer of South America. So they tried to discredit the German scientist, saying that she had contaminated the mummy wrappings herself. But she proved them wrong. It was indeed cocaine and not contamination. But in the end the archaeologists just ignored the evidence anyway. Intriguing, no?”
Suzy realized that his last query, spoken softly, had been directed at her. But she was too lost in the earlier thoughts he’d sown in her brain to think about this. Piper winked at her as he moved on toward an old oil painting, standing silently in front of it as the students gathered behind him. Suzy followed the professor’s gaze to the beautiful depiction of “Christ among the Doctors,” painted by Ambrogio da Fossano Bergognone in the early 1500s.
“This picture was originally attributed to Da Vinci, and there are many even earlier pictures with the exact same Messiah theme,” Piper said. “I will let you contemplate the link between the picture and Tutankhamun for your homework. And study hard—there are hidden meanings. This Messiah theme was only meant to be seen by those who possessed the knowledge to understand it. The translation of the Egyptian term for sculptor, ‘S-Ankh,’ means ‘one who brings to life.’ The word for creating a statue was synonymous with giving birth. This awards an importance to any artist who goes beyond simple workmanship and clearly points to the spiritual-religious function that art had. So, nearly all art in Egypt has something mystical or hidden beneath the surface, a double meaning, or even a triple meaning.”
Piper gave Suzy one last knowing look before turning on his heel and striding back down the stairway toward the Griffith Institute for Archaeology, which stored all the priceless treasures Howard Carter had found in Tutankhamun’s golden tomb. Inside were thousands of photographs and artifacts, along with Carter’s meticulous records describing every one of the 5398 objects recovered. Some of these sacred objects had never even been seen in public, deemed to be too precious and too majestic for ordinary people to desecrate with their ignorant gaze.
Suzy’s thoughts were racing as she followed behind the great professor.
CHAPTER THREE
Five years before … the Brazilian evening sun had set several hours earlier and, having dined al fresco on Moqueca Capixaba, the country’s festive fish stew, washed down with a few too many caipirinhas, the guests had now rested and digested long enough. The samba band was growing impatient under the acacia trees, taunting the frustrated revelers with seductive percussive rhythms. But there was one last ceremony to observe before dancing could begin. It was Suzy’s eighteenth birthday, and although most of the people celebrating were either society friends of her mother or colleagues from her father’s university, there wasn’t a single person who failed to be entranced by this fragile and beautiful girl taking her first step into adulthood.
Suzy’s mother had worked hard to plan for this evening, much of it in secret to avoid Suzy’s protests. Socially confident ahead of her years, Suzy nevertheless had little time for the traditions of grand celebrations and stylish entertaining. However, she knew how much this occasion meant to her parents and she was more than happy to play her part in it for their sake. She even agreed to wear a chic new cocktail dress and to forgo her usual pumps, choosing instead some more delicately styled espadrilles. But she could have worn football shorts and a t-shirt and still have radiated a beauty that outshone the most glamorous of the invited entourage.
“Darling, come on—everyone’s waiting,” laughed Suzy’s mother, tugging on her husband’s jacket sleeve. She had already discreetly exchanged her heels for flat shoes better suited to smooth samba moves. “Give Suzy her present. You can’t keep us in suspense forever you know, any more than you can hold back your daughter from the rest of her life!” She knew just how difficult it was for her husband to concede that this day had finally arrived; that Suzy was now a woman, ready to cut her own path and doubtless to break many hearts along the way. Surveying the tables, it was clear from the eager faces of his guests that he had no alternative.
“Suzy” he began solemnly, “today you turn eighteen, and …” Whatever words followed were drowned out by spontaneous applause and he shrugged, grinning, knowing he was beaten. “OK, OK, no speeches. Just this: my darling, tonight is your night, and we don’t want to steal any of it from you. So please, take this simple gift from us both—something that we hope will bring happiness, vision and inspiration to you in your life ahead.” More applause as Suzy accepted from her father a small wooden box, decorated simply with a cream ribbon. She lifted the lid and took out a small silver locket and opened it, delicately laying the minute chain across her hand. Looking inside, she suddenly felt warm tears flowing down her cheek. On one side, attached to the inside of the lid, was an exquisite enameled scarab beetle. On the other side, four words: “To my little professor.”
Sensing her daughter’s uncharacteristic loss for words, Suzy’s mother clapped her hands, nodded to the samba band and waved everyone forward to an area framed by loops of fairy lights strung from the trees. Oil lamps in glass of every color hung from shepherd hooks, and perfumed candles sent wisps of scented smoke into the evening air. Soon everyone was laughing and swaying to the sensual syncopation of the music.
Six weeks later, Suzy was bedridden, unable to speak and barely able to eat. She was also denied sleep. The moment her eyes closed, all she could see was the knife lying on the ground beside the dying man. She had arrived just as the killer was running off across the path and into the woodland beyond. Even if it had not been late dusk, Suzy would have had no useful description to give to the police as she was completely mesmerized by the scene on the ground. A dying man, his last breaths escaping through his neatly slit throat. She watched, paralyzed and helpless, as her father died in front of her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Now, five years later, Suzy felt her pulse quickening as they approached the entrance to the Griffith Institute, knowing that inside the Institute’s walls lay all the treasures that her father had told her about so many times. As a small child, when most others her age wanted to hear fairy stories before they went to sleep, she had nagged her father every night to tell again the magical story of the discovery of the boy pharaoh’s fabulous t
omb. So many times had he told her the stories of his homeland’s history that in the end she knew the details even better than her father did, impatiently prompting him if he missed one out. Now for the first time in her life she was going to see some of the actual artifacts he’d described to her and her heart was racing in anticipation. The professor was still talking as he walked but Suzy was only half-listening. Childhood memories of her distinguished and adoring father flooded her mind as she delicately touched the silver locket around her neck, holding back tears of regret that he wasn’t there to share this moment with her. It was another of the many cruel reminders she experienced that she would never earn redemption for her father’s death. But no, she’d promised Marcello she would resist these self-destructive thoughts and she was determined not to let him down as well. Fighting her tightly wound emotions she squared her shoulders with resolve, knowing that through the doors ahead there lay the next small step in her long academic journey to honor her father’s memory.
Piper loved to play games with his students’ expectations, using mind puzzles and steppingstones to tease them toward his conclusion. In the first part of his lecture, the clues had all been offered in works of art from different centuries, together illustrating his point that Egyptian art can contain mystical and hidden messages. Together with the promise of what lay beyond the Institute’s doors, this sufficiently whetted the students’ appetites to win their attention for the next part of his talk. “Through these doors lies the evidence that in Egyptology there are dual meanings in everything. The Egyptians loved the idea of shared duality and hidden subtexts. Stay alert, my dears, look deeply into everything you see. Maybe then you will find the insight that creates superior archaeology.”
“Are you OK, babe?” Kathy whispered. “You look kinda pale.”
Suzy nodded, her lips tight, not trusting her voice to speak, not wanting to break her concentration with small talk. Although Piper’s lecture helped her to retain her academic focus and put aside her feelings of guilt, she couldn’t help wishing it was her father and not her professor who was about to guide her around the distinguished collection, her father sharing her excitement at examining the objects he’d shown her years before in pictures as he described the adventures of their discovery.
