The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [155]
J: After a fair breakfast, ferry back across to the east bank to the
cats. PB: nothing and nothing. Ferry and hobble back across to Deir el Bahari. Rest often. I will finish my work, present my findings to Harvard when I return, have my job back. Or to a museum. Or a different university.
PILLAR SEVEN, TEXT: A NEWLY REVEALED QUATRAIN IN CLASSIC ATUM-HADUAN STYLE IS WRITTEN AT THE BASE OF THE PILLAR:
My Master of Largesse returns with empty hands,
Pleads illness, war, bad luck, paresse; his antics spoil all my plans.
I will take his daughter in front of him, sneer at his mingled shame and lust,
Then, finished with her, I will cut out his lying tongue and drop it in the dust.
Illustration: The Master of Largesse, corpulent and shifty-eyed, pleasures himself alone in a dark room before the figurines of the temple, while with his free hand he hides the king’s money. In a second scene nearer the ceiling, he speaks with a man we can safely presume to be the chief of the invading Hyksos.
The obvious rage of the king, contrasted with the illustration of the quite alive, quite be-tongued Master of Largesse double-crossing the king, demonstrates Atum-hadu’s frustration: betrayed by his protector, he is unable to find and destroy him. The king blusters with weightless words.
PILLAR EIGHT, TEXT: TWO MORE NEW QUATRAINS:
He was satisfied with this one, asked for no more,
But her betrayal proved she was a whore.
He replaced her in his bed and state
With not one woman but with eight.
She’s a wretched crocodile who forsakes a king,
And when she is punished he begins to sing.
She hangs from the ceiling, and sad-eyed, betrayed men come from afar
Daily to soothe themselves by viewing her weeping and her scars.
Illustration: Most remarkable. A single figure portrait, the queen, larger than life, in three-quarters. Even millennia later her beauty is undeniable. The anger in the quatrains is belied by this effortless depiction of her grace and beauty, as if she were already a painful memory rather than a living presence. It is a painting of remembered love, or a wish for some other world where they could be together without pressures of state or battle. The second quatrain seems to be more fantasy than reality, as there is no mention on the wall panels of his queen being tortured and displayed for the emotional satisfaction of the kingdom’s rejected men.
PILLAR NINE, TEXT: ATUM-HADU SPIES UPON HIS ENEMIES.
Illustration: While the Hyksos general conspires with Atum-hadu’s Master of Largesse, Atum-hadu himself is shown in the Hyksos general’s camp, unrecognised, and in his tent, unrecognised, and finally in his home, lying in his bed, reading his most secret plans, unrecognised.
PILLAR TEN, TEXTLESS.
Illustration: Studies, perhaps, for Pillar Eight. She is shown in thirty different views, and sometimes only her head or hands. Her smile alone is attempted a dozen times. She is depicted asleep and awake, seated and striding, in a variety of costumes, with hounds at her feet, beautiful and beloved.
J: CPB. Nothing. Back across to the west. The bed is really a
welcome change. I wonder if I could house the cats here.
Wednesday, 13 December, 1922
J: CPB. Someone (Carter? Finneran? Ferrell?) has poisoned the
bank tellers against me, and they stage a little drama, making much of my injury and issues of hygiene, grabbing at straws to carry out some unseen enemy’s illegal orders, barring me from further daily enquiries.
PILLAR ELEVEN, TEXT: THE END APPROACHES.
Illustration: Atum-hadu in distress, alone, seated on his throne, doubled over, clutching his belly. On the reverse (north) side, he is depicted with a literal crocodile gnawing at his insides. The Hyksos troops are shown massing in a hundred different directions. The dapper, smug Hyksos general stands ominously nearby and leers at the writhing Atum-hadu, perhaps with an implication that it is his magic causing the king’s torments?
PILLAR TWELVE, TEXT: THE END OF DAYS.
Illustration: It is night. Atum-hadu, dead, is