The Gardener and the Assassin

by Mark Gajewski

  Between the two temples sprawled Waset. Men and women and children and priests who resided in its simple whitewashed mud–brick houses were either sloshing through flooded winding lanes or paddling about on small reed punts, for the inundation was higher than usual this year and had overflowed the riverbank and submerged most of Waset’s streets. The structures’ reflections shimmered as the breeze roiled the water’s surface. I was struck by the differences between Waset and Ta Set Maat – the former sprawling and bustling and drab, the latter small and compact but vividly colored, isolated from the farmers and peasants who made up most of the valley’s residents.

  Boats were moored at the edge of dry land the length of town, ranging in size from fishermen’s punts to cargo vessels, their bows pulled a few feet onto shore, for the quays they normally used were a dozen feet underwater. The area was thick with scribes recording the inventories of heavily–laden cargo boats as dozens of porters unloaded them, the scribes seated cross–legged, scratching with reed pens on long sheets of papyrus spread across their laps. I turned my attention from Waset to the river, crowded with craft. High–prowed boats with shipped masts resting on crescent–ended posts floated northward with the current, while those with large white or decorated sails unfurled moved south before the steady wind, most aided by oarsmen since the current was so strong against them. Larger boats had wooden cabins, their sides brightly painted, most commonly with images of papyrus and lotus. Some simply had lengths of leather stitched together over arched wooden frames in lieu of cabins, some with closed ends, most with open. The vessels of the prosperous had canopies or sunshades amidships supported by four posts. Most boats had benches for oarsmen. The ends of many boats were shaped like papyrus flowers, rising gracefully. Others were nearly horizontal, some with snubbed noses, some slender. Most were decorated with the Eye of Horus. Musicians played on a few decks. On one boat I noticed a sailor aloft in the rigging.

  We soon drew even with Ipet–Isut, a far larger sacred complex than Ipet–Resyt, the roofs of numerous temples and obelisks rising above its walls, gold reflecting the sun, banners waving. Its quay was underwater, the gardens leading from the quay to the complex’s entrance partly submerged. Water had even flowed into the first courtyard. Hundreds of priests and support staff were presently wading into it.

  Once Ipet–Isut disappeared behind us I turned my attention to our fleet. The rest of the boats in the vizier’s entourage were following closely, several towing kitchen barges with round–topped cabins crammed with supplies and food storage crates and earthenware jars full of beer on their decks. On one smoke was rising from a cook fire; on another a woman was grinding grain to make flour for bread while another was preparing mash for beer. We were also accompanied by a military transport boat; several dozen soldiers were lounging on its deck. Shields and long quivers full of spears were attached to its cabin. Grandfather told me the soldiers belonged to the Amen Division, some of the few that had been left behind to guard Waset when the bulk of the division went campaigning in the North with the fourth Ramesses.

  My nautical experience was limited to a small reed punt of Grandfather’s that ferried me and several girls between Waset’s west and east banks on special occasions to place flowers in temples. Aside from that, I’d never sailed any distance on the river nor been more than an hour’s travel on foot from town my entire life. I was determined to make the most of this journey. As this and subsequent days passed I spent every moment near the bow watching everything we encountered – women fetching water at the edge of the inundation in great round jars they balanced on head or shoulder; flocks of sheep and herds of cattle being watered; pomegranate and acacia and tamarisk and date trees and dom palms reflected in the vast river; hunters bringing down geese and ducks using throw sticks. Vultures and falcons and hawks rode updrafts at the edges of desert plateaus; herons and egrets and storks and cranes and ibis fished among patches of reeds; great flocks of smaller birds rose with a fluttering roar as our barque passed flooded groves of acacia and willow. I spotted many rude camps just beyond the reach of the water, temporary homes for farmers whose huts had disintegrated in the flood. I saw small papyrus boats, long and low, the bound reeds at either end rising a bit and painted to look like papyrus blossoms with alternating bands of yellow and green on the stalk, some with cages at their stern holding freshly–caught waterfowl, some with platforms from which to cast nets or spear perch or talapia or eels using bidents. We occasionally passed sanctuaries to the crocodile god Sobek, set up, Grandfather told me, wherever the beasts congregated on the riverbank; passing boatmen used spells and amulets and magic rods to ward them off. He pointed out, in each nome we traversed, a grove of willows sacred to Osiris, for that tree was believed to have sheltered the god’s dead body.

  We landed the first night at Gebtu, a large town on the east bank.

  “Directly across the river on the west bank is what’s left of Nubt,” Grandfather informed me. “Two thousand years ago it was one of the three greatest settlements in the valley, an early kingdom if you will, wealthy thanks to gold mines not far away in the Eastern Desert along Wadi Hammamat, and caravan trails that terminated there from oases in the Western Desert.”

  We sat by the river that evening and watched porters unload a donkey caravan that had emerged earlier in the day from the desert. They carried a variety of goods onto several large cargo boats. I saw ivory, gold, ebony, panther skins, ostrich feathers, frankincense, and myrrh. And a dozen apes and five dwarves. Both were the first I’d ever encountered. After that Grandfather and I visited a mud–brick shrine to Min, the valley’s ancient fertility god.

  “This shrine is extremely old,” Grandfather said reverently. “The original was made of reeds, one of the very first shrines erected to any god in the valley.”

  Two colossal stone statues of Min flanked its outer door, each more than ten feet tall, each holding an erect phallus with its left hand.

  “These were the first large statues erected anywhere in the valley,” Grandfather said. “See how their surfaces have been eroded by windblown sand? That speaks to their great age. Just think, Neset – our ancestors saw these statues when they were brand new.”

  And yet they were far younger than the talisman hanging around his neck, the ancient heirloom passed down in our family for two hundred thirty–nine generations.

  Gebtu was at the apex of a long sweeping eastward curve in the river. In the morning we sailed due west for thirty miles, turning directly north again at Hiw. We were fortunate to be drifting with the current; boats heading upriver had to be rowed on this stretch since they were moving crosswise to the prevailing wind and their sails were useless.

  We camped that night near Abdju.

  Every year a festival of the dead was held throughout the valley; on its first day we villagers of Ta Set Maat aimed model boats in the direction of this very town to carry our ancestors’ spirits here, part of a procession of all the millions who’d ever lived. I’d never expected to see Abdju in person.

  “This is the most sacred city in the entire valley because of its association with Osiris,” Grandfather said. “Priests claim he’s buried here. They say his wife Isis found his head at Abdju after his brother Seth slew him and cut him apart, and with the help of Anubis rejoined it to thirteen other body parts, wrapping them in bandages like a mummy.” Grandfather lowered his voice. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Neset. Osiris was unknown in the valley until a little over a thousand years ago. He was a foreign god who first appeared on the walls of tombs of high officials, and then in almost every private tomb.”

  “Why?”

  “Osiris’ followers believed the dead would have a human form in his realm. So his cult spread rapidly. Even kings, who’d been building sun temples to associate themselves with Re, adopted Osiris and began identifying themselves with him instead. A king named Unas was the first to inscribe his pyramid’s walls with spells to ensure his royal afterlife as the personification of Osiris.�
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  “What about the Ennead? Did those eight gods exist before Osiris?”

  “They were invented by theologians at Iunu, where Re had his temple, to explain Osiris’ existence to the masses. But those theologians didn’t approve of kings adopting the concrete humanity of Osiris and abandoning the abstract distance of Re. So they made Osiris into a weak god who needs protection – killed by his brother Seth, his body sought after by his sisters Isis and Nephthys and brought back to life. By inventing the Ennead, the theologians brought about a decline in the position of the living king, who was now distanced four generations away from the creator sun–god. Before there had been no one standing between the king and Re.”

  “So theologians simply made up that Osiris had ruled the valley before the first king and was subject to human fate and so, like us, he’d had to die? Then, after he was buried, he’d risen to immortal life? Since he can, so can we?”

  “That’s right, Neset. To mark his new importance, priests decided to claim Osiris was buried at Abdju among the graves of the first human kings. They appropriated King Den’s tomb for him.”

  “Our ancestor King Den?”

  “Yes. His grave lies in an ancient cemetery on the plain near the entrance of the Underworld, along with several of our ancestors – Benerib, King Aha’s wife; their son King Djer; Djer’s daughter Merneith, who was sister–wife to King Djet and regent for their son, King Den; and King Adjib.”

  “Do you really believe we’re descended from those kings, Grandfather? Our family stories are fascinating, but how do you know they aren’t made up?”

  “There’s no way to prove either way,” Grandfather admitted. “But I believe they’re true, Neset. Just like I believe this talisman around my neck was cast from the sky in a fireball by the falcon god for our ancestress Aya to find.” He touched the falcon–shaped object hanging around his neck with his fingertips. “I take it on faith. How could the stories have survived so long and the talisman have been passed on more than two hundred times if a god wasn’t watching over our family? And what about the image on your thigh?”

  The river and quay at the mouth of a canal that led five miles through the heart of the plain to Abdju were crowded with craft of every description, most carrying pilgrims to visit Osiris’ shrine, but officials hurriedly made space for the vizier’s barque and accompanying vessels to land. We spent the night aboard the barque, leaving early the next morning. There wasn’t time for Grandfather and me to visit the town or the ancient graves on the plain. I wished I could have seen them for myself, trod in the footsteps of ancestors who’d figured so prominently in my family stories.

  After departing Abdju, four pleasant days travel between fertile riverbanks lined with date palms and sycamores and pomegranates brought us to Assuit. Then came twenty tense miles where desert cliffs closed in on the river and it rushed whitely between sheer narrow rock walls. Birds swooped at us and oarsmen struggled mightily against wind gusts and giant waves that smashed against the sides of the barque, exacerbated by the speed of the river during inundation. Several times I was drenched by spray from exceptionally powerful waves. Then, just as suddenly as the cliffs had appeared they fell back, leaving a wide cup of land edged by desert plateaus.

  “The ruins of Akhetaten, city of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten,” Grandfather whispered, his fingers closing around the talisman.

  “Where the line of talisman bearers almost came to an end,” I said solemnly.

  Grandfather nodded. “After Akhenaten succeeded his father, the third Amenhotep, he abolished the cults of the valley’s gods. He declared the Aten, the sun’s disk, was the sole god. In his sixth regnal year he moved his court from Waset and built a new city, Akhetaten, on this virgin plain. He forcibly relocated every craftsman from Ta Set Maat to here to decorate his per’aas and mighty temples and administrative buildings and to cut his family’s tombs and his courtiers’ in the surrounding cliffs.”

  “Including our ancestor Ika.”

  “As soon as Ika arrived at Akhetaten he was apprenticed to Pharaoh’s most important sculptor, Thutmose,” Grandfather said. “Even though Pharaoh demanded that everyone worship only the Aten, many, including Ika, continued to worship the old gods in secret. When Ika’s father died the falcon god’s talisman passed to him. One day he told a woman he was courting about the talisman and its history. He was bragging, trying to impress her. She reported him to Pharaoh. Ika barely escaped Akhetaten with his life. After many adventures he finally made his way back to Waset, where he hid out on a farm. Shortly thereafter Akhenaten died. He was succeeded by his son, Tutankhamen. Tutankhamen returned his court to Waset, but he died after nine years on the throne. Craftsmen hadn’t been relocated to Ta Set Maat from Akhetaten yet. Some were hurriedly sent south to work on Tutankhamen’s tomb. Ika simply reported for duty then and resumed his old life.”

  I gazed at the curve of cliffs well back from the river that bounded Akhetaten. Somewhere atop them was the grave of Bakist, first wife of my ancestor Nykara. According to the family story, she’d died in childbirth aboard his boat after an extremely difficult passage through the canyon I’d just traversed while helping rescue my ancestress Amenia from a death sentence at Nekhen more than two millennia ago. Nykara had later married Amenia. It was almost mind–boggling that as I sailed down the river I was passing so many places connected with my forebears.

  As our barque neared the head of the valley we began to encounter pyramids erected by early kings, towering high over the desert and visible from the river, first at Meidum, then Lisht, then Dahshur. Six generations of my ancestors had helped erect them, either setting stones in place or supporting workers who had. I marveled; landscapes described in family stories were coming to life before my eyes. I could scarcely contain my excitement. And the pyramids! Grandfather had told me many stories about them but I’d never imagined their utter magnificence. I gazed at them in awe. They were like small mountains, unbelievably old, worn by time and weather, yet still amazing. I wondered what they would have looked like when new. I could scarcely imagine the power of the kings who’d conceived them, who’d marshaled the wealth and manpower of the entire valley to build them, who lay at rest within them.

  “These are not the largest,” Grandfather told me. “Those are at Giza, on the plateau north of the valley’s original capital, then called Ineb–hedj, now Mennefer.”

  “Worked on by Pakhar and Maetkra.”

  “That’s right. He was a harbor overseer responsible for unloading blocks of fine limestone delivered from the quarry at Tura. She was a seamstress who made clothing for pyramid workers and, ultimately, for royals.”

  We sailed past Mennefer, originally called “White Walls” after the limestone walls that guarded the central section of the city. It sprawled along the riverbank for miles, overlooked by a line of ancient mastabas atop the Saqqara plateau and the top levels of the Step Pyramid. My ancestor Hemi had labored there. According to a family story he’d carved his name into a block of stone atop the pyramid’s first level. The central section of Mennefer was encircled by limestone walls glittering brilliantly in the sunlight, the roofs of countless houses and temples barely visible above them.

  “When Narmer first unified the valley, this stretch was where the upper and lower river valleys intersected with caravan trails into the eastern and western deserts,” Grandfather said. “It had already been an important trade point for hundreds of years. There were clusters of warehouses and huts and a harbor and boatyard and such scattered haphazardly on both sides of the river.”

  “Our ancestor Djem turned this spot into his brother Narmer’s capital.”

  Grandfather nodded. “As you can see, the valley’s very narrow here. There wasn’t enough cultivable land to support everyone. So Djem had to draw grain and beef and other foodstuffs from estates in nearby Ta–mehi to feed everyone.”

  “Like our ancestor Nykara’s?”

  “His was the very first in the North,” Grandfather affi
rmed. “He led an exodus of farmers from the South nearly twenty–three hundred years ago. They all established estates. In return for the delta farmers’ food, the men who lived on this stretch of river supplied them with finished goods and materials and supplies. When Narmer became king he ordered Djem to build him a capital city, as you said. Not only did Djem do that, he erected a temple to Ptah within its walls. It’s been rebuilt and expanded many times since. The current version was constructed by Ramesses the Great. He built widely throughout the city, mostly to glorify himself. Those red pennants atop the four flagpoles? They mark the temple’s entrance.”

  The pennants were snapping in the strong breeze.

  “Narmer rarely resided here,” Grandfather continued. “His rule was tenuous, Neset. He traveled constantly, visiting the valley’s elite, reminding them they owed him fealty, collecting from them his share of what they grew or made to distribute to his courtiers and officials and the priests of the various gods. Our ancestors on their delta estate were instrumental in providing him and his immediate successors what they needed to stay on the throne.

  “Mennefer served on and off as capital for centuries. When the Chiefs of Foreign Lands captured the delta they ruled it from Avaris; its ruins are within sight of Pi–Ramesses. After King Ahmose reunited the land, Waset became as much a capital as Mennefer, though Mennefer continued to be the land’s trade emporium. When Ramesses the Great became pharaoh he established Pi–Ramesses as his capital, which it has remained to this day. But with Pharaoh moving his residence back to Waset, Pi–Ramesses will eventually decline and Mennefer will regain its position as capital in the North.”