The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [49]
“No late tombs have been found here,” I objected. “And aren’t we postulating a reburial, a group of mummies hidden away after their tombs had been violated by thieves? The other caches were located near Deir el Bahri.”
“The other reburials were done in the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Dynasties,” Emerson retorted. “The Cushites didn’t turn up until much later. What do you keep raising objections for? We’ve got to do something with the cursed things, and unless you can suggest a better alternative …”
In such stimulating if morally questionable debate we passed the next hours, inspecting the contours of the base of the cliffs, scrambling over rocky slopes. The heat was intense, and we consumed quantities of the cold tea Daoud carried with him. Anubis refused even the water we had also brought, but managed to knock Abdullah’s cup out of his hand and deluge his skirts with tea. The cat went off after that to explore on his own, or, more likely, to hunt.
Emerson had brought along copies of the plans of the Valley made by earlier scholars. He enjoyed himself very much finding errors in them. Abdullah and Daoud searched for signs of unknown tombs. Like most treasure hunts, it was both endlessly enticing and relatively hopeless, for the rock was as riddled with holes as a sieve. Some individuals have, or develop, a seemingly uncanny instinct for such things; Belzoni, the flamboyant Italian strongman who had been one of the first to work in the Valley of the Kings, had an extraordinary talent for locating hidden tomb entrances. He had been a hydraulics engineer and was one of the first to realize that the floods, which were more common in his day than now, could leave evidence of subsidence and displacement. Abdullah and Daoud were not engineers, but they were descendants of the master tomb robbers of Gurnah, who have located more tombs than all archaeologists combined. Any hollow among the rocks might indicate a tomb entrance—or it might indicate only a natural hollow. We probed several such hollows and investigated a heap of stones like the one Belzoni had mentioned in his description of the discovery of the tomb of King Ay, in this very valley—all without result, which was what we had expected.
“Shall we have another look at Ay’s tomb?” Emerson asked, indicating the opening that gaped forlornly above.
“The sight would only depress me. It was in wretched condition last time we visited it, and I am sure it has deteriorated even more. But that can be said of every tomb and every monument in Egypt. It is difficult to decide where to concentrate our efforts, there is so much to be done.”
Not until sunset stretched glowing fingers across the sky did we turn our steps back toward the house. (It rejoiced, I must add, in the resounding name of “House of the Doors of the Kings,” but this appellation appeared only on Cyrus’s notepaper. Europeans referred to it as “Vandergelt’s place,” and Egyptians as “The Castle of the Amerikâni.”)
The main valley was deserted; tourists and guides had left for the landing where boats would carry them across to their hotels on the east bank. Shadows thickened. Emerson quickened his pace. I heard a rattle of pebbles, and a strangled Arabic oath from Abdullah, trotting behind us; it included the word for “cat,” so I deduced that Anubis had caused him to stumble. The animal’s tawny-gray fur blended so well with the twilight that he was almost invisible.
He must have gone ahead after that, for he was waiting for us on the doorstep. “You see,” I exclaimed. “My method was