The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [147]
Sunday, 3 December, 1922
WALL PANEL D: “THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REIGN OF ATUM-HADU,FINAL KING OF THE TWO LANDS”
Text: For ten floodings of the Nile, Atum-hadu made good his boasts. The Hyksos were stopped.
Where Atum-hadu ruled, business was conducted and crops gathered and the gods were worshipped and the scribes did as the old king instructed and the permanent night was held at bay and the palace was lit not by the fire of war but by the heart of Atum-hadu, a master of all things, the incarnation of Horus, but also of Atum, and with his own hand he created the world anew for the pleasure of his people.
Atum-hadu brought the wicked men of his youth to see his palace. He showed them the vast array of foods. They hungered at all they saw but were not permitted to eat, while Atum-hadu bit into a plum wrapped in a map of the night sky. The king gave his visitors a chance to apologise for rudeness delivered to the king when he was a boy. At dinner, the priest of his childhood was skewered like a veal and placed over the flame, and Atum-hadu spoke quietly to the large man, who wept in his anguish like a little boy. “Are you sorry?” Atum-hadu asked quietly. “I am, I am, master.” “And do you think that your regret suffices?” “I do not know, master.” “It does not. You stole something of mine, and it is not in your power to return it.” “Tell me, great king and master, how I may serve you now.” “Are you suffering?” “I am.” “That is all the service I require of you.” And Atum-hadu called for the priest’s nieces and sisters and mother to be brought, and this surprised the priest, and in front of the dying priest the king engaged with the women of the priest’s family in different combinations, sometimes with violence and weeping. Later the doom of death seized the priest, and when Atum-hadu deemed his flesh cooked, Atum-hadu removed him from the skewer himself and sliced pieces of the man’s flesh, which he fed to the animals of the court. The priest’s heart Atum-hadu did feed to the favoured royal dogs so this man’s name and ka are forever forgotten.
Illustration: The wall seems to have been more forgiving here, and this text is accompanied by an illustration that again shows the artist’s gradual technical improvement. In the most affecting of the dozens of scenes, the priest—naked, splayed, pierced most brutally, his muscular form no defence now against the grown and vengeful king—sobs. Atum-hadu’s face displays an expression of relief, as if this exercise brought the king some measure of peace.
Analysis: This is a remarkable passage for two reasons. First, if historically accurate, it allows us a glimpse of the inner man, a man tormented even at the heights of royal power by his thirst to avenge his childhood. His soldiers were sent to gather his enemies, and his vengeance sessions (apparently more than one) were choreographed to provide him the maximum pleasure and his former tormentors the maximum shame and pain. Second, the story itself was of such importance to the king that it was included as an element of his illustrated biography to carry with him to the underworld.
Per immortality, it should be noted that the destruction of the priest’s heart would mean that he could never be admitted into the underworld, where every applicant’s heart is examined and weighed against a feather prior to admission. And, for good measure, Atum-hadu made sure that the priest’s very name would never again be uttered in this world, further insurance that immortality was impossible for the roasting, rotten priest.
Journal: Hobble down to ferry, post, bank, feed the cats. Post.
Margaret, no silence now, I beg you. You should be cabling, writing, somehow telling me all is well again. I will tell you someday of the anxiety in my belly every day that I did not hear from you, during every