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who passed on Tetisheri’s good wishes; the entire staff of the Epigraphic Survey at Chicago House, Luxor, especially the Mudir, Peter Dorman, who dragged me, kicking and screaming, up to the top of Drah Abu’l Naga; Dr Daniel Polz, who has politely refrained from finding Tetisheri’s tomb before I could do so; The Oriental Institute, its library and its director, Dr William Sumner; Dr Peter Der Manuelian, who designed the map and the tomb plan. He followed my (often confusing) instructions, so any errors and/or anomalies are my responsibility.

And Dr Edna Russman, who was the first to mention to me the possibility that the statuette of Tetisheri might be a copy of an ancient original rather than an out-and-out forgery. She graciously admits that Emerson may have hit on the idea earlier.

Characters Appearing or Referred to in The Hippopotamus Pool

Abd el Hamed – antiquities dealer and forger, living in Gurneh

Abdullah ibn Hassan al Wahhab – reis (foreman) of Emerson’s Egyptian workmen

Ali – a suffragi (room steward) at Shepheard’s Hotel

Ali, Mohammed, Selim, et cetera et cetera – Abdullah’s sons, who also work for the Emersons

Ali Murad – antiquities dealer and American consular agent in Luxor

Amherst, William – Cyrus Vandergelt’s assistant, a young Egyptologist, who has very little to do with the story

Bertha – a woman of mystery, one of the Emersons’ former enemies

Brugsch, Emile – assistant to Maspero, first archaeologist to enter the cache of royal mummies at Deir el Bahri

Budge, Wallis – Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum; notorious for his questionable methods of acquiring objects for the museum

Carter, Howard – newly appointed Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt

Daoud – Abdullah’s nephew

Emerson, Amelia Peabody – Victorian gentlewoman, archaeologist, and expert in crime

Emerson, Evelyn – Walter’s wife, granddaughter of the late Earl of Chalfont

Emerson, Radcliffe – Amelia’s husband, ‘the most eminent Egyptologist of this or any other era,’ known to Egyptians as the Father of Curses and to his wife as Emerson Emerson, Walter – Radcliffe’s brother, a specialist in the languages of ancient Egypt

Emerson, Walter Peabody – son of Amelia and Emerson, called Ramses by his friends and an afreet (demon) by almost everybody else

Forth, Nefret – ward of Amelia and Emerson, granddaughter of the late Lord Blacktower

Layla – Abd el Hamed’s third and most interesting wife

Mahmud – steward of the Emersons’ dahabeeyah

Marmaduke, Gertrude – hired by the Emersons to tutor their children

Maspero, Gaston – reappointed in 1899 to his former position as Director of Antiquities

Murch, Chauncey – American missionary and dealer in antiquities in Luxor

Newberry, Percy – English Egyptologist

O’Connell, Kevin – star reporter of The Daily Yell

Petrie, William Flinders – Emerson’s chief rival as the founder of scientific archaeology

Quibell, J. F. – newly appointed Inspector of Antiquities for Lower Egypt

Riccetti, Giovanni – formerly in control of the illegal antiquities trade in Luxor, he intends to regain that position by any means necessary

Sethos, aka the Master Criminal – formerly in control of the illegal antiquities network in Egypt, the chief adversary of Amelia and Emerson (and Ramses)

Shelmadine, Leopold Abdullah, aka Mr Saleh – is he the reincarnation of the High Priest Heriamon or a member of a gang of tomb robbers? Or both?

Todros, David – Abdullah’s grandson

Vandergelt, Cyrus – American millionaire excavator and enthusiastic amateur of Egyptology

Washington, Sir Edward – a younger son with a talent for archaeological photography and a questionable reputation with the ladies

Willoughby, Dr – English physician residing in Luxor

Introduction

FOR the convenience of readers who may be encountering Mrs Emerson’s journals for the first time, we have obtained permission to reprint this excerpt from The National Autobiographical Dictionary, 45th edition.

The date of my birth is irrelevant. I did not truly exist until 1884, when I was in my late twenties.1