Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [1]
KV65 is one of those rare opportunities granted to someone in my profession—a find that makes careers, that puts one in every serious journal in the field for the next decade. True, this is Jim’s baby, but he brought me in to handle the particulars, and that will yield almost as many peer accolades. It’s virtually another Tutankhamen, even down to the post-Amarna dating.
Before I can call for a flashlight, at least four click on. The mingling beams push back the blackness of the sepulcher. Leaning in close, forgetting the earlier reluctance to place my body in harm’s way, I let my eyes grow accustomed to the alternating splotches of light and shadow against the outer coffin until I can see a deep red that I recognize as ancient cypress. A few moments pass as I ponder why this is peculiar—why the sight of a wood that’s perfectly appropriate for this region, and for the time period that saw this man interred, seems wrong. And when the answer waves its little hand, I find another of those teaching opportunities I so enjoy. I ignore it.
But one of my young acolytes will not see his education shortchanged.
“Dr. Hawthorne?” Brown asks. He’s twenty-four, attached to the Smithsonian, earning a doctorate at Cornell, and might be the smartest person in this room. And I’m only slightly threatened by that. After all, the successful practice of archaeology involves more than knowledge; there’s an equal measure of luck. And after watching Brown over the last few weeks, I’m inclined to think that’s a commodity he has not stockpiled.
I straighten and motion for him to take a look, taking a step back as he crosses in front of me. I’m careful to avoid bumping his cast-encased arm.
“Interesting,” he says after a moment.
“Yep.” A quick glance around reveals that the other people in the room want in on the discussion, so I prompt post-grad Cornell. “Can you share with the rest of the class?”
“The outer coffin is just wood,” Brown says. “There’s no linen, no gold overlay. Nothing to indicate that this is anything but the burial chamber for a minor noble.”
“Which is odd because…?”
“Everything we’ve seen to this point would indicate this is a royal tomb. It’s almost spot-on Tutankhamen.”
For as much as I dislike the whole teaching aspect of this assignment, at least I’ve caught on to one of the tricks practiced by genuine academics: allowing my most-qualified student to teach in my stead.
I’m as intrigued as is he by the incongruity of the barren outer coffin within a sepulcher—indeed an entire tomb—that is patterned after those of the pharaohs. And I have no immediate answer.
I wipe my brow, aware that I’m leaving a film of red dust under my hairline. Now that we’ve found something unexpected, I’m more bothered by the fact that Jim is not here. It’s worse than Will’s absence. At least my brother has a concrete reason for missing an event important enough to earn the presence of two National Geographic photographers. Jim wouldn’t give me a reason that carried any kind of weight; he was merely insistent that the events of the morning proceed. Not that he had to do too much arm-twisting; were he here, I would still be the one walking the Scooby Gang through their paces. Even so, there’s an unspoken rule that something of this magnitude should only take place under the watchful eye of the archaeologist of record. I shake my head, consoling myself with the thought that Jim’s absence means the guys from National Geographic will have to put my face on the cover of their next issue.
I field a sudden urge to light a cigar and my hand moves to my breast pocket, but I let the impulse pass, the dust in the chamber making it hard enough to breathe.
Several members of the team are jockeying for position around the sepulcher, shining their small lights into the crack. For the few moments