by Tom Bane
“The iron knife on Tut’s mummy could have the same origin,” Suzy exclaimed.
“Hmm,” Haworth looked from one to the other, “Very good, intriguing.”
“The glass in the scarab brooch of Tutankhamun is unique,” Tom went on. “It’s ninety-nine percent pure silicon and it comes from a remote region of the Egyptian Sahara called the Great Sand Sea, the site of a giant meteorite impact thirty million years ago. The airburst was hotter than the sun and it melted the desert sands, forming the unusually pure yellow glass used on Tut’s scarab. You can still find small flecks of pure yellow glass in the sand there.”
“Extraordinary.” Haworth was nodding, deep in thought. “If it came down from the heavens, it would explain a lot.” Suzy turned over the possibilities of what Tom was saying, as Haworth continued. “In the center of this room were the original eight sarcophagi all stacked one inside the other, encasing the boy king in his magnificent golden mask.” Haworth then went on to explain the wall murals but Suzy was no longer listening.
The strong undercurrent of numbers used in the tomb was both troubling and exciting her. Why? If there were 143 objects discovered on Tut’s mummy bandages, that meant the body of King Tut was object number 144. That seemed a curious number. And the twelve monkeys on the painting, obviously that referred to the twelve hours of the night in the underworld and the number 144 was twelve multiplied by twelve. On top of that there were forty-eight mummy-shaped boxes of meat found in the annex. Back in the Cairo museum there were 413 shabtis, 365 workers, thirty-six overseers and twelve top overseers. It all seemed to be an overt reference to the calendar system and the hours of the day. Could there be something useful to learn from archaeo-astronomy after all? But then there were many other numbers that kept appearing. Maybe there was a deeper code hidden in the tomb somewhere.
A twinge in her neck brought her back from her mental reverie. It was still sore from the attack, and a terrifying reminder that someone out there had twice tried to kill her, first in the pyramid and then during the carnival. Or perhaps two people? Getsu was still her main suspect, but something told her that if he had wanted her dead he would have executed her quickly and efficiently, not by trying to choke and strangle her. She really wanted to speak with Piper.
“Where is Doctor Haworth?” Tom suddenly asked. “I thought he was with you.”
Suzy looked around. There was no sign of Haworth anywhere. “That’s strange. When did he disappear? He was here just a moment ago.”
“I don’t know. He was still talking when I wandered over to have another quick look at the sarcophagus, and then, when I realized he’d stopped talking, I looked around. And he wasn’t there.” Suzy frowned.
“He wouldn’t just walk off without saying anything, would he?”
“Maybe he took a wrong turn?”
“I doubt that,” Suzy replied, beginning to wonder if there was some connection with the events in Cairo, if she was somehow cursed to bring misfortune upon anyone helping her. They spent half an hour searching the tombs and their surroundings before conceding that the doctor had indeed vanished, and reluctantly they returned to Tom’s jeep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
During the 250-mile drive north to Amarna they talked, both of them finally relaxed in the other’s company. Perhaps Haworth had received an urgent message and left in a hurry. He would probably get in touch later in the day, they reasoned. Meanwhile Suzy was relieved to be able to take off the scarf and shake her hair free, letting the air get to her sore neck.
“So, I’m trying to research any links between Ancient Egypt and Orion,” Tom said, as the dust billowed up from the jeep’s wheels. “But I need a new angle. I want to know what is so magical and compelling about Orion compared to any other constellation of stars. I’m also looking for other star connections like the Plough and the Adze.”
“That could be interesting.”
“It’s partly down to you.” Tom said. “You really made me rethink the link to Orion. I just need to find out precisely why they used Orion and why not some other star constellation. I need to find an exact match and a reason.”
“But the stars of Orion do match the pyramids via the mortuary temples, so isn’t that enough to publish? I don’t mind donating my idea to you, since you were good enough to give me this lift.” He saw that she was laughing at him.
“OK,” he grinned back, “you’re on. But think about it. If that’s all I do, the theory won’t really have moved beyond much from the stuff Robert Bauval published in 1989. What I really need is to pin down why they chose Orion, and not the fact that it is just correlated to Orion.”
“All right then, so let’s brainstorm. Why Orion? What’s your breakthrough insight?”
“I haven’t got one,” he admitted, “but I’m still hopeful. Anyway, that’s my wacky thesis. What’s yours?”
“Well, you know mine. I’m researching the links between Christianity and Ancient Egypt.”
“That’s pretty close to the mainstream, isn’t it?” Tom said, carefully. “I’ve read that before; all that stuff about the Ankh Cross being similar to the Christian Cross and the resurrection of Osiris having a lot of similarities to the story of Jesus.”
“Yes, but I’m trying to push the boundaries a bit further.”
“OK,” he said, “convince me.” They were sparring now like a pair of senior common room academics.
“Well,” Suzy took a deep breath, “the Egyptians knew that the lotus flower reproduced asexually and believed the vulture and cobra did the same, that there were no males of either species and that they reproduced via virgin births. So the cobra and vulture on Tut’s death mask must have been symbols of the sacred feminine.”
“I’ve heard of this sacred feminine stuff before. But is what you’re saying that somehow Jesus’s birth reflected the sacred feminine?”
“Yes. A new creature had come to life with no male seed, which could truly explain where the notion of the sacred feminine comes from: it was the virgin birth itself, passed down the Royal line of the Pharaohs in secret, symbolized by the vulture and cobra worn by King Tut, a general symbol of the Pharaohs, and a hidden reference to the virgin birth.”
Tom thought for a moment. “So Jesus was from a line of Pharaohs?”
“I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. I was aiming more for the similarities between the story of Jesus’s immaculate conception and the virgin birth myth of ancient Egypt.”
“OK, but why? All leading where?”
“Well,” Suzy said, thinking aloud, “in order to explain the creation of the Universe, they used the virgin birth theory of the Cosmos, a revolutionary theory that claimed the Cosmos was created out of nothing, by an original creator, God.”
“OK, yeah,” Tom’s head nodded, his eyes glued to the road as he tried to keep up with what Suzy was saying. “So, the Egyptian theory that the universe had come into existence out of nothing predates the most advanced concept of modern day cosmology, the Big Bang theory. That all matter and energy was created out of a quantum singularity, that is, out of nothing or out of the vacuum energy.”
“Yes, exactly. And anything that was created in this way, by virgin birth, was naturally seen as more divine because it had the hand of the creator associated with it.” Suzy was pleased that he was showing some enthusiasm for her theory, even though she was a bit vague on quantum singularities and vacuum energies. “There are so many similarities between Tutankhamun, Christianity and other religions.”
“Really, like what?” asked Tom.
“Christ was the Son of God while Tutankhamun was the physical manifestation of Ra, the Sun god.”
“That’s just a play on words.”
“At birth,” Suzy continued, ignoring him, “Christ, Buddha, Krishna and Quetzalcoatl were all associated with bright stars. While Akhenaten and Tutankhamun were shown touching the rays of the sun, Christ was depicted in a halo of light, and God is light. Tutankhamun had the snake and the vulture bir
d on his mask, while Buddha is associated with the garuda bird and the ananta, the serpent of infinity. Quetzlcoatl, the god of the Mayans, was the feathered snake, part bird, part snake.”
“You’ll need more evidence than a bunch of coincidences.”
“I am looking for real evidence. For example, they worked out recently from the pollen in the garlands around the mummy of Tutankhamun that they must have been in bloom when they were picked and that it must have been in March. Because the complex process of mummification lasted seventy days, they counted backward from that to the time of death. This means Tutankhamun probably died in late December. And therefore he was resurrected at Easter. Similar to Jesus.” She fell quiet and studied Tom’s profile as he drove, trying to gauge his reaction.
“That’s all very interesting,” he said, “but it’s hardly proof that Christianity came from Ancient Egypt.”
“All right, but listen to this, most of the treasure found inside the tomb of King Tut has some symbolic reference to numbers,” she said, wondering if she was ever going to be able to construct a convincing case from all the information that was spinning around in her head, “most of it carefully hidden.”
“Like what?”
“When you break the information down, there were 365 worker shabtis in the tomb, or mini figurines, one for every day of the year, fifty-two sun discs on the ecclesiastical chair for every week and seven door seals for each day of the week. There are so many I can’t list them all.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s one of my hot research topics as well. The Egyptians seem to have been fascinated by the calendar.”
“But what I’m saying is, they wanted to encode information into their art. They would then leave half the information visible, like the tip of an iceberg showing above the water, but down below in the dark was the secret hidden knowledge, which would only ever be accessible to the chosen few who knew how to find it. Otherwise why bother to hide information about the number of days in the week or year? It’s not exactly precious information, is it? My mother always said the best way to disguise something is to hide it in plain sight. I believe they used the calendar references to hide other numbers, and I have discovered another mystical number that is more deeply encoded into the Treasures of the Tomb, the number thirteen.”
“The number thirteen?” Tom scoffed. “That’s hardly a surprise, is it? That’s the number of a million crackpot conspiracy theorists.”
Suzy frowned, but before she could respond, his cell phone rang.
He stopped the car by the side of the road and answered his phone. Suzy climbed out and walked away to stretch her legs and give him some privacy. They had reached a remote small town called Al Minya. Once she was well away from the car, she pulled out her own phone and dialed Piper’s number.
The line was crackling and she had to shout to make him understand her. She noticed a few of the locals staring at her and wished she hadn’t taken off her scarf.
“I’m on my way to Amarna with Tom Brooking,” she yelled. “We’ve stopped somewhere, Al Minya.”
“I’ve made some inquiries,” Piper shouted back. “The authorities in Cairo are looking for suspects for what happened in the pyramids. They’re checking airports so you can’t go back that way. Keep heading north and cross the border into Israel as quickly as you can. You could go to Qumran and Jerusalem to continue your research.”
“OK.”
“And, Suzy—can you still hear me? I had a call from the Horus Corporation.”
“Yes I can,” she shouted. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them I hadn’t heard from you. I will arrange for someone to meet you inside Israel.”
The line was becoming clearer so Suzy told him quickly of her idea about the number thirteen. As she talked she became aware of a group of curious locals edging closer, interested in what was going on She tried walking away from them but they followed her.
“Bit of a fringe topic in Christian numerology, the number thirteen,” Piper said, his voice doubtful, when she had finished. “Best to stick to your original brief for the moment. Horus might be disappointed if you don’t follow up the religious links with Christianity. You need to keep them sweet to keep the funding coming in, but if there are lots of references to the number thirteen in Tut’s tomb, it’s still worth researching them. I checked the reference to Xul in that message you received, by the way. I’m convinced that someone wants you to reach a tomb before the summer solstice. It seems you are in a race.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, but some sort of race against time.” Suzy was puzzled by his words. She glanced at the group whose attention was on her. Some began calling out to her in aggressive voices. She turned her attention back to Piper.
“OK, so what happens if I don’t make it in time? There are only a couple of days to the summer solstice.” The line went dead.
The men drew closer. Suzy fingered her neck, which was growing more painful, like a bee sting. She hurried back to the car. Tom had finished his call and had his back to her, staring at the horizon, oblivious to the crowd of men headed his way. When he turned toward Suzy, she saw he had been crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“My father’s dead.”
“Oh, God.” She ran and put her arms round him, hugging him tightly. He buried his face in her hair. A few voices of disapproval rose above the general mumbling of the crowd.
“Tom, what happened?”
“They don’t seem to know, or they’re not saying, beyond the fact that it was murder.”
“Murder?” Suzy cried, a pang of cold shivering through her. The men were so close now she could actually smell them.
“Listen,” Tom pulled himself together and stood up straight. “I’m going to have to get back to Cairo, but there’s a hotel room booked here.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket with an address scribbled on it. “You might as well use that tonight. Amarna isn’t far. You could get there tomorrow.”
“OK, OK, I understand,” Suzy said. She didn’t like the idea of being stranded there without him and wanted to help him, but she didn’t fancy going back to Cairo either after Piper’s warning. And Tom was so upset that she didn’t want to burden him by explaining her problems. She was going to have to take her chances. She grabbed her backpack from the jeep and wound her scarf round her head.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “You must go. But, Tom, please ring me as soon as you find out more.”
Tom hugged her before climbing back into the jeep and she resisted the urge to kiss him goodbye. As the dust settled behind the departing jeep, she turned to face the crowd.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Suzy had to make a fast decision. She couldn’t fight all of them off. She needed an ally. As the crowd of men closed in around her she had to choose one who she thought would be willing to help. She tugged the scarf forward to make herself appear modest and smiled at a tall young man with a kind face who didn’t seem to be joining in with the angry chanting.
“Please,” she said in Arabic, pushing the piece of paper Tom had given her toward him. “Where is this hotel?”
The young man faltered, not sure how to react in front of the other men. They all fell silent and stared at him. He held her gaze, expressionless, and took the piece of paper from her. Finally, he looked down at it.
“Come,” he said, turning on his heel and walking away from the others, with Suzy almost running to keep up. One or two shouts followed them as they went down a side street together; but they sounded more ribald than angry now. With shoes crunching across the white dust and cracked concrete roads, they approached a small brick building with a chevron metal sign that read “Hotel California,” with a broken window held together with masking tape and sheets of newspaper.
“Best in town, best in town,” claimed the young man, gesturing her with his arm to go inside.
“Thank you, Shukran” smiled Suzy and waved him goodbye. She
opened the wooden door with a hefty push and nearly fell inside as the hinge springs gave way. She looked around in dismay. The reception was drab and run down, but didn’t smell so bad, she thought. There was a hint of patchouli oil. A robed man behind the reception desk stared at her through stone-slit eyes, then went back to fiddling with his worry beads with his eyes facing down, as if random strangers wandered into the hotel all the time. The badge pinned to his robe said his name was Farouk.
“Good afternoon, Farouk” she said in her best Arabic. He ignored her.
“I have a room reserved, in the name of Brooking.” She continued.
“Woman?”
“Yes, woman.”
“Fifty dollars,” he grunted. He handed her a huge key with a tear-shaped cast iron fob. She waited.
“Up, Up” he ordered, impatiently waving at the stairs, then pointedly returned his gaze to his worry beads.
Suzy looked at the key—number 21. Climbing up the dingy stairwell, she found a tiny, hot room on the second floor, with patchy, yellow, stained linoleum flooring, plain cream walls and a single, tall, shuttered wooden window. She sniffed a hint of patchouli oil again. She locked the door and gave the elderly air conditioning unit a skeptical look before pressing the switch. It clanked into life. There was a basin in the corner with a tap that dripped, no matter how hard she twisted it. She threw herself down on the narrow bed, staring up at the walls and ceiling, which were speckled with the blood of slaughtered mosquitoes.
Her mind was racing. Had George Logan really been murdered? She had emailed him only a few days before and spoken to him the week before. And how come Tom had booked this room? Had the whole thing been planned? No, that was ridiculous. But her instincts told her not to stay. As far as she could remember, the only thing that Al Minya was famous for was for where the codex Tchacos had been discovered, which contained the Gospel of Judas. More to the point, too few people knew that she was in this hotel on her own and she didn’t feel safe sleeping here. She had to move on quickly and would need a rental car. This meant winning over the surly Farouk so he could organize it for her. She could finish the drive to Amarna, Tut’s birthplace and then go on to the Israeli border that night, if she could make it. She splashed some water on her face and touched her aching neck gingerly. Picking up her bag, she made her way back downstairs.
