All that was familiar to a physicist like myself.
“The point is,” Ronnie continued, “it can accumulate in confined spaces, and you wouldn’t know you were breathing it because it’s colourless, odourless, and tasteless. Did you know radon is second only to smoking as a cause of lung cancer?”
No, we didn’t know that.
“So you’re saying,” our host said, “that an Egyptian tomb is a prime example of one of these confined spaces?”
“Exactly. And the first person to open it up is likely to get a lungful on the spot. Of course, I’m assuming radon is accumulating in these places, but that’s not unreasonable. The so-called ‘Curse’ has been blamed on many things – moulds, pathogenic bacteria, and so on. I’m saying this is a much more likely explanation.”
Deryk’s wife stood up and suggested we retire to the other room for coffee, and the conversation strayed to other topics. I didn’t join in. I was still thinking it over.
It wouldn’t be hard to set up detectors at a dig. The real problem, of course, was being around at the precise moment someone opened up a tomb for the first time. That would be far from easy to manage, so I put it to the back of my mind.
The idea surfaced again when I read about a Dutch mission from Leiden which was carrying out excavations in Saqqara. The area, it seemed, was an extensive necropolis used by the inhabitants of ancient Memphis, and it included non-royal burials. A British Egyptologist, Geoffrey Moorcroft, had gone out to join them after they made a rare discovery: the well-preserved tomb of a High Priest of Amun, a man called Osorkon. Based on inscriptions he’d read there Moorcroft had returned home and was now raising the money to mount an expedition of his own. The man had an outstanding reputation. He’d had many successes, and it was rumoured that he could look at a landscape and point to exactly the right place to initiate a dig. I didn’t suspect for a moment that it was pure intuition. He had thirty-odd years’ experience, and coupled with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history and culture of the country this had educated his eyes in a way that probably even he would find hard to put into words. All in all this seemed like the perfect opportunity and I found the temptation too much to resist.
I won’t dwell on the difficulties of getting myself included on his expedition. Moorcroft wasn’t an easy man to contact, and when you did contact him he wasn’t an easy man to talk to. Eventually, though, I managed to persuade him that I wouldn’t get in the way and that my instrumentation would add an extra dimension to his work. I applied for some long overdue leave from my university and went out to Egypt with him.
The dig did not go well. After more than six weeks all it had turned up was a large mound of sand. The team’s morale was low. Moorcroft was nearly always in a foul mood, not so much because of the work or even the lack of results, but because of the constant interference of Mohammed Kutawi, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. Although the Council had granted us permission to conduct the dig, it was conditional on providing Kutawi with complete access at all times. It seemed like a reasonable clause to include in such an agreement, but Moorcroft hadn’t counted on the abundant use Kutawi would make of it.
Kutawi was a busy, very voluble man, who spoke to us in fluent, if heavily accented, English and to the workmen in Arabic. He was not very tall, but he was stocky, and he looked strong. The skin of his face was dark – whether by birth or from constant exposure to sun I couldn’t say; the eyes were black and always on the move, and topped by heavy black eyebrows. I can say nothing of his hair because, in my company at least, his trademark broad-brimmed hat never left his head. The most striking feature, however, was the man’s nose, which was very prominent but narrow, like a parrot’s beak. He was considered an Egyptian scholar of great eminence but Geoffrey had no regard for him whatever, and he made little secret of the fact that he disliked the man intensely.
As the weeks went by, Geoffrey and I got to know each other better. After lunch one day we stayed to chat for a while after the rest of the team had gone back to their quarters. We’d all risen early – the heat was too brutal to work in the middle of the day, and even here in the meal tent the temperature was a little high for comfort. Geoffrey was more communicative than usual and he volunteered the information which had led him to the site.
“If you’re expecting gold treasure, like Tutankhamen’s tomb, forget it.”
Although the discovery of a few trinkets wouldn’t have gone amiss, I assured him that it was the science that interested me.
“Yes, well this is a non-royal burial. You see, there was a cadre of priests living here – well, when I say ‘here’ I mean about ten miles north of here. In effect, they’d been expelled from court. The priests had acquired undue influence during the reign of the previous pharaoh, and the new man was determined to put his own stamp on things. Naturally the priests weren’t too thrilled with this state of affairs. There was a certain amount of plotting to have this pharaoh assassinated so they could instate one who had a bit more time for them. I knew that already. It’s the inscription the Dutch group found in Osorkon’s tomb that was so interesting.”
“What exactly did it say?”
“In essence it was this. The pharaoh must have suspected these priests were up to something because he sent his own court magician to entertain them. The man – his name was Wakheteb – was descended from a long line of magicians and he had some remarkable skills. Part of the inscription read: ‘Beware Wakheteb, for he can enter a chamber unseen.’”
“He was spying for the pharaoh?”
“I think he must have been. He was certainly under royal protection: the inscription included the statement ‘No man may take the life of Wakheteb.’ He must have reported at least one plot, because around that time several priests were summoned to the court and the pharaoh had them executed. Maybe that did it. The remaining priests decided to rid themselves of Wakheteb, but in such a way as to circumvent the royal decree. The inscription said Wakheteb had been embalmed and entombed. It didn’t say anything about him dying first.”
“That’s ghastly.”
Geoffrey nodded. “Based on these and other accounts it looks like they drugged him, packed him in dry salt, which would have drawn all the water out of his body, and then wrapped the dessicated corpse and entombed it.”
“After all that a tomb looks like a rather extravagant gesture. Why didn’t they just stick him in the ground?”
“Good question, but the inscription makes it clear that it was a tomb. I think it may be related to the business of him entering a chamber unseen. The man’s powers were so awesome they didn’t dare to simply pop him in the ground; they were afraid he’d rise again from the grave. Of course they might have done it to mislead the pharaoh into thinking this was a show of respect for someone who’d died from natural causes.”
I poured some more coffee for both of us. It didn’t matter how much I drank; I knew the moment we left the shade of the tent for that broiling landscape my whole body would be craving water all over again. We both sipped the coffee and I picked up the conversation again.
“How do you know the tomb is here?”
“The inscription pointed to this location. Trouble is, you can’t always interpret their measures of distance.”
“Well, assuming it is here, what do you expect to find?”
“I don’t think there’s ever been an excavation of an individual of this sort. It could be almost anything but I’d expect some of the accoutrements of a court magician to have been buried with him. And the inscriptions could provide a fascinating insight into an unknown aspect of court life.”
The dig went on, the sun beat down, Mohammed Kutawi turned up at far too regular intervals and we were all losing heart. The team began to leak away; the academics who’d come out with us had – or found – reasons for going back, and the archaeology students returned to sit an exam. This left just Geoffrey, myself, and the fellaheen, who presumably couldn’t have cared less wha
t we found so long as they got paid.
One morning Geoffrey and I were in the tent again, lingering over breakfast, and I thought he looked a bit tired. It was unusual for him; normally he was full of restless energy. When I commented he said:
“Didn’t sleep too well last night. Bad dream. Kept me awake, thinking about it.”
“I was dreaming, too,” I said. “What was yours about?”
He was reluctant at first, but it must have been weighing heavily on him because eventually he described it.
“The sun was going down and a band of jackals appeared. They didn’t attack or anything, just came and stood there and stared at me with glowing red eyes. Then they raised their muzzles. Looked like they were howling, but there was no sound. Then one of them started to walk and somehow I was following, for about two hundred metres. Then he stopped and so did the dream.”
I think my jaw must have been hanging open. When I could speak again my voice emerged in a hoarse whisper.
“Geoff, that’s the very same dream as I had. In every detail.”
He looked hard at me. “Are you sure? I haven’t just put it into your head?”
I swallowed. “Absolutely sure. Normally I can’t remember dreams but this one was so vivid it stayed with me. What do you make of it?”
He leaned back in the chair. “For me, the strong message that came over was: we’re digging in the wrong place.”
I nodded my agreement and we sat in silence for a bit. He pushed a few crumbs around on the table, then shook his head.
“This is ridiculous! I’m a rational man. My work is based on scientific evidence. How can I possibly give credence to a dream?”
“I don’t know. It’s just so weird that we both had the same dream and got the same message. Maybe there’s something we’ve both noticed without being conscious of it.”
The silence fell again, and we sat for maybe five more minutes. Abruptly he got to his feet.
“Well, one thing’s certain: we’re not doing any good where we are. I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll survey the area carefully, look at the near-infra red satellite photographs again, and if there’s the slightest sign of something I’m going to move the dig.”
So he did. Before long we were excavating at a new site, about two hundred metres further along the wadi. And at that point everything changed.
We heard shouts from the fellaheen and hurried over. They’d hit rock: not just ordinary buried rock but vertical slabs which, when exposed, lined a passageway downwards. Our excitement must have been contagious because even they started to work with renewed energy.
The passageway turned out to be short, ending in another vertical slab.
“I’ll get set up,” I said, when they were preparing to remove it.
“You can if you like,” Geoffrey said. “But we’re not there yet. There’ll be a passage on the other side that’ll lead us to the tomb chamber.”
He was right, of course. Once the slab had been removed it exposed an inner corridor. Bent double, and shining our torches ahead of us, we followed it in. It was chill down there, and I could feel the sweat cooling on my back. The corridor took a sharp turn to the right and expanded almost immediately into a sort of antechamber. There we were confronted by the entrance to the chamber proper, again blocked by a stone slab.
I left Geoffrey examining the slab while I went back for my instruments, a Geiger counter and a portable gas chromatograph. Both would record digitally but I wanted an immediate display so I had a pen recorder as well.
While I was connecting it all up someone came to tell us that Kutawi had arrived. Geoffrey grimaced and went outside. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could hear their voices rising. When Geoffrey returned he was flushed with anger.
“We have to pull out.”
“What?”
“Yes. His bloody Excellency insists on being the first inside. He’s contacted a camera crew but they’ve got to come from Cairo so it’ll take a while. He’s not aiming to wait for them; he’ll check everything out and repeat his entry when they arrive. Then they’ll film, and finally – if we’re good little children – we can go in and do some real bloody work!”
I didn’t know what to say. Kutawi had the upper hand here; he could pull the plug on us at any time if we weren’t cooperative.
“Geoff, I’m really sorry. Look, I hate to bring this up but I’ve been waiting for weeks for just this moment. Could I possibly leave my equipment where it is to record what happens?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you can. He’s not bothered about you or your equipment as long as you stay out of the chamber.” And with that he stormed outside again.
I’d just finished calibrating the instruments when Kutawi arrived, followed by four of his own Egyptian workmen, each carrying a lantern. He ignored me but went up to the slab and banged on it heavily with the end of a crowbar. I think he was trying to gauge the thickness. At any rate he didn’t seem happy about breaking through and spoke to the workmen with gestures that indicated they would have to lever the slab away. I realized I’d have to shift my precious equipment in case it was crushed, and what with that and trying to connect things up in time I missed seeing the actual moment when the slab gave way. The instruments didn’t miss it though: the pens went berserk, recording a huge spike in both radon and radioactivity. The pens then settled to record a lower, but still elevated, level and I found myself wishing I’d had time to put on the respirator which I’d left back in the tent. Was I going to fall victim to the Curse of the Pharaohs? It was too late to worry about that now.
When I looked up, one side of the slab had been moved back, creating a gap large enough for a man to get through. I felt a presence next to me, and turned to see that Geoffrey had quietly come to join me and was watching the proceedings with a disconsolate expression. I was about to tell him about the recordings, then thought better of it. This didn’t seem like the moment.
Kutawi picked up one of the lanterns and squeezed his stocky body through the gap. We waited, watching the feeble illumination come and go. Then Kutawi’s hawk-like countenance appeared in the gap again. He barked out orders to the waiting workmen and two of them went off. The face withdrew. I looked at Geoffrey and he heaved a sigh.
“He told them to bring a block and tackle. There must be a sarcophagus in there. He wants to lift the lid.”
While we were waiting Geoffrey stepped up to the gap to look inside. After a minute or two he came away, shaking his head. All he would say was, “I need some air.”
I was curious, too, so I went over to take a look. I could hear rustling sounds as Kutawi moved around inside. The light from his lantern sent shadows crawling across the walls, but I couldn’t see a sarcophagus or anything else. After a while I became uncomfortably aware of the air I was breathing, which was as dry as dust and prickled my nose and lungs. I’d half expected some sort of stale odour, but this was much worse. It smelled of decay, of must and rotting fungus and stale urine – of ancient death. A slight feeling of dizziness came over me, coupled with a strange feeling of being transported to a place filled with cobwebs, large spiders lurking in their nests, the floor alive and crawling with cockroaches and centipedes… My heart was banging violently in my chest and I had to back off quickly and get into the open air. The rock slab from the first entrance was lying there and I sat on it, crossed my forearms on my knees, and rested my head on them.
After a few minutes I looked up to see Geoffrey standing over me. “Got to you, too, then?” he said.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“The air’s not very nice. It can do that to you sometimes. You do get used to it.” He turned to watch the workmen as they went in, carrying the heavy lifting equipment. He said nothing for several minutes, but in his mind he could probably see them in the chamber rigging up the strong tripod, with a pulley system and series of ropes attached to the overlapping edges of the lid of the sarcophagus. Then, to our surprise, two of the workmen rea
ppeared. Geoff detained one with a hand on his arm and there was a brief exchange in Arabic. He turned to me. “They’re pissed off,” he said. “As soon as they had everything set up he sent them away. Wants to do the unveiling all by himself. Shall we take a look?”
We went back down to the end of the corridor, where we found the two remaining workmen squatting on the floor, waiting patiently and listening to the faint creaking noises coming from the chamber itself. Suddenly there was a sound like a very loud handclap, the pen recorder went wild, and something brushed past my face, making me recoil.
The workmen were on their feet. Geoffrey was trying to peer into the chamber. I lowered my voice to an urgent whisper.
“Did you feel something just then, Geoff?”
“Like what?”
“Erm, I don’t know, like… well, a bit like a dry gust of wind.”
“No, I didn’t notice anything.”
“Well the instruments registered something.” I pointed to the pen recorder. “Look at that spike! I wonder what’s going on in there.”
“I dare say his High and Mightyness will let us know – when he’s good and ready.”
A dim light was still showing through the gap in the doorway, but it had stopped moving and the silence was so thick it pressed on our ears. The workmen started to look at one another. They’d evidently been told not to go in until they were called, but they were getting restive. One stepped up to the gap and called out. A hollow echo sounded inside the chamber but there was no reply. He called more loudly, but still there was no reply.
Geoffrey looked at me, frowning, and said, “I think it’s time I took a hand.”
He slipped through the gap and into the chamber. I was tempted to follow but I thought it would aggravate Kutawi still more if I went in as well so I just waited. A minute later he reappeared and spoke to the workmen. They departed in a hurry.
The Tomb and Other Stories Page 21
