Masks of the Lost Kings (Suzy da Silva Series)

by Tom Bane

  Piper eventually leaned back and took a sip from his tea, emitting a satisfied grunt and smacking his lips. He glanced at his sapphire pocket watch, then returned it to the inside pocket of his tweed jacket which he draped over the chair.

  “So, what’s your thesis topic going to be then, Suzy? You’re the last one to make the decision and you need to get a move on, to be frank.”

  “Yes, I know.” Suzy smiled triumphantly. “I would like to study the links between Ancient Egypt and Christianity. I believe I can make an archaeological breakthrough.”

  “What? The three wise men? Or Isis and The Virgin Mary and all that mumbo jumbo stuff?” Piper looked at her, incredulously. “It’s not a topic that’s taken very seriously by the University.”

  “Yes I know,” she blurted, before he could finish. “But I think I have a new angle for the virgin birth.” She had expected this reaction and had all her arguments prepared.

  “Go on.” Piper peered at her quizzically over his split spectacles. “But pass those biscuits over first.”

  Suzy got up to fetch the open packet of chocolate shortbread biscuits and passed them to the professor, who took one and put the packet down on the table in front of her, eating as he listened.

  “Well, I did some research on the lotus flower last night. I was intrigued by the fact that there are so many lotus-shaped objects in Tut’s tomb, added to the fact that the flower opens and closes with the rising and setting of the sun and that its seeds stay fertile for thousands of years.” Suzy ignored the crumbs cascading down the front of Piper’s jumper as she gabbled on, anxious to hold his attention. “As the symbol of rebirth, the lotus was closely related to the imagery of the funerary and Osirian cult. The Four Sons of Horus were frequently shown standing on a lotus in front of Osiris. The Book of the Dead contains magic spells for transforming oneself into a lotus and the promise of reflowering. In other words, of being resurrected.”

  “Pah!” Piper leaned forward and helped himself to a handful of biscuits, nudging the packet forward for her to help herself. “That resurrection theme is hardly new.”

  “But think of the dates of the winter solstice and the connection with Osiris,” countered Suzy, ignoring the biscuits and concentrating on her argument.

  “I know the connection. We can go all the way back to Osiris, who was killed and dismembered by Set,” Piper munched and talked simultaneously, sending out sprays of fresh crumbs. “His grieving wife, Isis, retrieved the thirteen dismembered body parts which she then buried. They regrew as medicinal plants in the warmth of the spring season. But she could not find the fourteenth part in her search, the genitals of Osiris, which had been thrown into a river by Set. So Isis fashioned a substitute penis and proceeded to have intercourse with it, which resulted in the conception of Horus, the child on the winter solstice.”

  “That’s exactly what I meant.”

  “Some charlatans,” Piper continued, ignoring her interruption, “claim that Horus’s birth was therefore a virgin birth. They claim that Christianity borrowed this concept, but it is a fallacy. Isis didn’t have sex with the dead Osiris, but with his spirit, the Ka, which would have been alive at that time, which of course was what mattered to the Egyptians. So, to them, Osiris lived on. He never died. Isis was alive and so was Osiris—no virgin birth. Nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, you see, because the charlatans don’t understand Egyptian religion and never heard of the ka. They make up connections that are pure bunkum. Here, Suzy, have a biscuit.”

  Suzy took a biscuit, playing for time as she prepared her response in her head.

  “But,” she said eventually, “as you said, Osiris’s ka was already in ‘heaven’when this took place. So Horus was in fact born to a so-called virgin mother goddess and had a ‘god’in heaven as his father.”

  “Bad logic,” Piper shook his head and took a gulp of tea. He was enjoying himself. “You are associating two apparently disconnected mysterious tales by an erroneous link using the superficial similarity in wording—sophistry. Don’t do it! It’s bad archaeology.”

  Suzy was going to have to change her argument. She decided to hook him in by using some science instead.

  “The Ancient Egyptians worshipped many animals.” She spoke slowly, anxious to get the argument right. “So much so, that their gods were awarded animal heads. The issue goes deep into the Egyptian psyche, like the Egyptian vulture and the cobra sharing the position on the forehead of the protecting deity on the death mask of Tutankhamun, as you explained yesterday.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, squinting his eyes in his efforts to guess where she was going with this. “Signifying the upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt. Go on.”

  “I read that the nurturing behavior of vultures while rearing their young led to their selection as model parents. And their lack of different sexual organs in the male and female led the Ancient Egyptians to think, mistakenly, that they were all female and reproducing through parthenogenesis or virgin births. They believed the same of the sacred cobra because of its ambiguous sexual organs.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Well,” Suzy could see that she now had his attention and she wanted to hold it for as long as possible. “Many plants reproduce asexually, without a father, like the lotus flower, through what is called parthenogenesis, derived from the name of the Temple of the Virgins, the Parthenon in Greece. The same term is used to describe animals that can be born without a father, that is to say, virgin births. Until recently, scientists thought the only animals that could have a virgin birth were a few species of fish, reptiles and honeybees. But I found out that, a couple of years ago, a baby shark was born in an aquarium in Nebraska in a glass tank containing only three female sharks. There wasn’t a single male in the aquarium. And now some scientists suspect it’s not only sharks but higher order vertebrates or mammals that may have this ability.”

  “Interesting.” Piper had drained his cup down to the teabag and stared at it as he thought through what she was telling him. “But what does it tell us about the Ancient Egyptians as opposed to modern biogenetics?”

  “Well, in order to explain the creation of the Universe, they used a revolutionary theory that the Cosmos was created out of nothing, by an original creator mother god, Ptah.”

  “This is all science, Suzy, not Egyptology.”

  Now Suzy was growing frustrated. “But the Egyptians were fascinated by this notion of something being born out of nothing. They thought it was godlike. So the plants and animals that were seen to procreate through virgin births were seen as divine.”

  “Ahhh,” Piper put his cup down so hard Suzy was surprised the fragile china didn’t crack. “Now I see your point. Very insightful. But still, we are not in the microbiology lab are we? So, your suggested thesis will be on the links between Ancient Egypt and Christianity. There are statues of the goddess Isis, also called Mery, caring for the infant child Horus on her lap, which bear resemblance to statues of Mary with the infant child in the Vatican City. But these links have been suggested many times before because they are so very obvious! I suppose if you mix them with your Virgin parthenogenesis link to the Gods and creation it starts to look better, but it’s still not proof of any link to Christianity, is it?”

  “But there’s more than that. The Egyptians worshipped the crocodile god, Sobek. It had the body of a man and the head of a crocodile. It was the god they believed arose from the Dark Water and put the world in order. Sobek was worshipped across Egypt and they believed that the fat from the crocodile represented divine fertility, the most sacred virgin birth with the power of creation. They even anointed their pharaohs with the fat to ensure an heir. The Egyptian word for Crocodile is ‘Messeh,’ which is where the word ‘Messiah’ may stem from.”

  “Hah!” Piper let out a guffaw and helped himself to another biscuit, tossing a second one to Suzy as if rewarding her for pulling off a clever trick. “Very good, although I think I read it before somewhere.”

 
“Well,” Suzy gestured with the biscuit, “from that I figured baptism and Christ go hand in hand. Jesus Christ was known as the anointed one, so there seems to be a link.”

  “Heard that before somewhere as well. Anything else new?”

  “Yes, there is. Resurrection. You’ve told us how the pyramids were basically resurrection machines, so resurrection is a central theme for both the ancient Egyptians and Christianity.”

  “Yes, but apart from your theory on parthenogenesis, none of this is really new.” Piper was talking to her now like they were equals, as if he had forgotten for a moment that she was a student. “The resurrection theory is sound enough, but why do you think no one follows it up? It’s not that we don’t acknowledge the links, but we Egyptologists don’t really like to talk about it, for fear of offending our Christian colleagues. Any suggestion that Christianity borrowed its concepts from somewhere else would be bound to cause a great deal of offense. And what exactly would we add to our understanding of the Ancient Egyptians to make it worth the trouble?”

  Suzy felt she was playing her last card. “But I truly believe I can shed new light on the links with Christianity. I’m confident I will be able to find new real evidence.”

  “Suzy, Suzy, Suzy!” He sat back, noticing the crumbs down his front for the first time and brushing them away. “You are so much more talented than this thesis would ever suggest. You simply have to do better. What about the Orion Correlation Theory? Your insights were truly tremendous. And you sent poor old Brooking off with his tail between his legs.”

  “I don’t think there’s that much to pursue on that,” Suzy grinned sheepishly at the memory. “If I am right and the hidden doors of the mortuary temples align with the belt stars of Orion, then Robert Bauval’s theory doesn’t need changing; it’s just the details of the exact alignment that are slightly different.”

  “And what about the last part of the theory, the magnitude of the third star and the size of the third Pyramid of Menkaure?”

  “I think that is a less serious flaw. It is only three percent out. Four thousand years ago they didn’t have any way of measuring a star’s exact brightness, so three percent is actually astonishingly accurate.”

  Piper wasn’t deterred. “I still think you could really make a name for yourself if you did your thesis about Orion.”

  “Also, we already know very well,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him, “that Orion represented the god Osiris who helped the Egyptians achieve passage through the Underworld so they could live in the Afterlife. So there’s nothing much to investigate in archaeological terms.”

  “Yes, yes, you are right on that, Suzy,” Piper begrudgingly agreed, “but it would be truly stupendous if you could find out more about the pyramids and Orion. That is truly a real mystery. Why did they pick the stars of Orion for the Pharaohs’ transmutation into a star? Why not some other constellation of stars?”

  Suzy heard what he was saying but she wanted to give him a chance to think over everything she had said. She took a sip of her tea, which had now gone cold, and nibbled on the biscuit, bravely holding Piper’s gaze as he stared at her, apparently lost in thought. After what seemed like an age he spoke.

  “OK, you might be right.” He paused before delivering his verdict. “By all means concentrate on Christianity’s links to Ancient Egypt, if that is what you really want to do. But I would strongly encourage you to try and crack the Orion puzzle as well.”

  “OK.” Suzy couldn’t stop herself from grinning, hardly daring to believe that she had convinced him.

  “Any ideas on how you might make your crucial breakthrough?”

  “Well, with parthenogenesis, the virgin birth was sacred, since it mirrored the creation of the universe, a new creature coming to life with no male seed. Now, that could explain where the ancient notion of the sacred feminine came from, pre-dating the Virgin Mary by thousands of years. Maybe it was passed down the royal line of the Egyptian pharaohs. The hidden symbolism of the vulture and cobra worn on their headdresses could be a hidden reference to the virgin birth, which then somehow passed onward to Christianity.”

  “But the vulture and the cobra also symbolized the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. It is easily explained by that. You don’t need a virgin birth or a sacred feminine.”

  “Ah yes, but what better way to hide the secret than in plain sight? A double meaning. Just like you said, the Egyptians loved double meanings.”

  “Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,” Piper shook his head. “I think you should stay away from that. How about Christian links to Tutankhamun or his father, Akhenaten?”

  “I guess,” Suzy said doubtfully, “that one link is Sigmund Freud’s theory of Moses being connected to Akhenaten, or even that Moses was Akhenaten.”

  “Nope,” Piper interrupted. “The timing of Akhenaten’s reign and the Exodus of the Jews is out of sync. If the biblical story of the Exodus is true, then it happened 100 years after Akhenaten died. So he cannot possibly be Moses. I think you should be looking for direct Christian links between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. That would be very novel and very challenging.”

  Suzy nodded but was still keen to retain control of her research plan. “I was also thinking of investigating the hypothesis that some ideas of Egyptian alchemy and magic were absorbed into Christianity.”

  “Believe me, that won’t be taken very seriously,” Piper chuckled. “I’ll be honest with you, Suzy, when I was your age I wasted years on these mystical theories—the kaballah, the occult, the lost world of Atlantis. The more fringe it was, the more it sucked me in. The combination of ancient hidden wisdom and the occult has rotted many a talented mind. Don’t be drawn in or you will waste your career. You must use some of Dr. Brooking’s scientific discipline as your guardian.”

  Suzy didn’t care much for Dr. Brooking or his science. She preferred her intuition. However, she sensed they had reached as much agreement as they could. She just wanted to get on with her field trips to Egypt so she could do some real research.

  “So, will you let me do my thesis?” she asked, keeping secret that fact that she had actually started writing her thesis four weeks earlier.

  “Well, I can see your mind is set on this so, yes, I will. But you don’t have long, and,” he looked her straight in the eye, “the University will not fund it.”

  “What do you mean?” Suzy felt as if he had ripped the rug out from under her, like he was playing some private game of cat and mouse. “They have to fund it.”

  “I’m afraid they won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Piper shrugged as if such things were beyond his control. “Because it is not a mainstream topic for a thesis and the development of Egyptology is inextricably linked with the Church and Judaism. The Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt was originally funded by the Church. The original Articles of Association of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1891 stated that the objective of excavations was to elucidate or illustrate the bible narrative. Anything that disagreed with that, like Crocodile Messiahs, wasn’t funded. Even Lord Carnarvon’s funding alledgedly came from his in-laws, the Rothschilds. The last thing we want to do is offend religions like Judaism.”

  “But where does that leave me?” Suzy asked, feeling beaten.

  “You’ll need to raise private funding yourself. People who choose to struggle against the current all the time have to be very strong swimmers, Suzy.”

  “Isn’t it wrong that we should be beholden to religious dogma?” Suzy said, her voice quavering with indignation. “Shouldn’t a university like Oxford only be interested in the truth?”

  “Old habits die hard.” Piper shrugged again. “Egyptology does not progress as fast as we would sometimes like it to. Views are entrenched and we must dig our way out gradually.”

  “But I have no idea where I would get the money to do this.”

  “You could try the Horus Corporation,” Piper said, as if the idea had only just occurred to him. “They are n
ot affiliated with any institutions or religions.”

  “Horus?”

  “It’s a company based here in Oxford. I know the chairman quite well, Al Kharismus. He’s very friendly with the University.” He reflected for a moment. “Yes—I think he’s your answer. Would you like me to see if he’ll meet with you?”

  “Yes, please!” Suzy couldn’t hide her desperation, making Piper chuckle, as he rummaged through another pile of papers beside his chair looking for the telephone. Locating it, he dialed a number from memory. Suzy threw him a questioning look.

  “Professor Piper here,” he said when someone picked up. “Could I book an appointment for a young lady of my acquaintance to see Doctor Al Kharismus? … That’ll be perfect … It’s Suzy da Silva … Thank you … My pleasure.” He put the receiver down and beamed at her. “One o’clock today. It’s 33 Park End Street, down near the railway station.”

  Suzy glanced at her watch. It was already twelve o’clock.

  “Are you coming?” she asked, shocked by the speed with which things were developing.

  “No, you don’t need me. But do let me know how you get on.”

  Suzy stood up to leave. “I nearly forgot—I did my homework.”

  “Homework?” He had obviously forgotten all about it.

  “The mysterious painting by Ambrogio da Fossano Bergognone. You told us to look into it. It was called ‘Christ among the Doctors.’”

  “Indeed.” He tapped her folder of papers. “It might actually be relevant to your thesis.”

  By the time she left his room, she had just forty-five minutes to save her research. She didn’t like going behind Piper’s back but she desperately wanted to consult her unofficial mentor in the United States. She ran to the internet terminal downstairs and logged onto her email, praying he’d be there to advise her. But it was still only seven in the morning in Boston and Professor Logan was still fast asleep. Suzy was on her own.