The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [186]
In traditional mummification, the stitched wound is then patched with a seal of the eye of Horus. Gold, jewels, amulets are laid on the body. The fingers and toes are each capped with gold. Though I cannot be certain, I believe it is safe to assume that this mummy probably lacks such gaudy accoutrements.
Normally, each toe and finger is wrapped separately in the linens. Then the arms and legs. Then the body and head, twenty layers thick. Some sort of resin glue is then used to seal all this bulky linen work, and a mummy mask covers the head. All of this is a task for several men, not for one. We can only imagine his exertions, the procedural corners cut by the hurried monarch. The king’s leg was horribly wounded in one of the last battles of the Hyksos war, and it required all of his failing strength to wrap the heavy body with even five layers of linen and then roll it, centring the mummy of his onetime ally on the floor of its burial chamber.
Having completed his wrapping, the king used some ancient chemistry or linen work, the mystery of which eludes me, and emblazoned on the corpse’s chest the symbol of Atum-hadu’s reign—the vulture, sphinx, and cobra, along with the inscription HORUS CONSUMES THE HEARTS OF THE WICKED.
Lacking a mummy mask, the king painted a face directly upon the linen-wrapped head, re-creating the Master as a man who would do his king’s bidding without argument or treachery. Linen strips are by no means easy surfaces to decorate, let alone to convey repentance, servility, and restraint. But with simple, affecting brushstrokes, the king performed an act of monumental forgiveness edging into the divine, transforming his greedy and unreliable escort into another man entirely, creating a companion and father he could trust.
The text on the wall of the Chamber of the Master of Largesse concludes:
“You are young again, you live again. You are young again, you live again.” The king repeated the ritual words into the ear of his friend and earthly father, who had loved the king as a son, for as long as he had walked on the world.
Whatever the significance of my nerves at the sight of that boy on the Nile ferry, it’s an undeniable fact that somewhere evil was being done, because, early the next day, January 1st, when I arrived with my luggage at the dock and waited to board the steamer to Cairo, Trilipush and Finneran never appeared. I stood on the dock and eyeballed every passenger as they walked aboard the gangplank with wobbly legs. I waited until the purser’s last call for departure rang out. I asked him to check his list: “Yes, sir, Finneran and Trilipush reserved and paid, but not aboard.” I cannot recall if I was excited or worried. I leave that to you, Macy, to describe. But I let the boat leave without me, consigned my luggage to a porter, and set back to my work in a frenzy.
I hired a boy to watch the docks and sent another to the rail station, and then I hurried back to the police, where I was now able to rouse an inspector with the undeniable fact of two missing persons, not from 1918 but from that very day, an American and an Englishman, archaeologists, guests of Egypt, and now officially missing. (The tension produced by gently stretching the truth is sometimes enough to propel otherwise immobile objects along a path.)
I’m enclosing the very brief newspaper clipping from the Luxor Times of February 11th, 1923, “Australian Detective Helps Kena Police.” That paper, a serious and reputable one, came out every three days, I believe, in those years. It’s a short article, but it lays out the conclusion of these events plain enough, and the small drawing does justice