The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [88]
For a stretch of almost forty miles along the Nile in Middle Egypt the cliffs of the high Eastern Desert rise sheer from the water’s edge except in a single spot where they curve back to form a semicircular bay some six miles long by three miles deep. The barren, level plain seems even more forbidding than do other abandoned sites, for this is a haunted place—the site of short-lived splendor, of a royal city now vanished forever from the face of the earth.
Here, equidistant from the ancient capitals of Thebes to the south and Memphis to the north, the most enigmatic of Egyptian pharaohs, Akhenaton, built a new city and named it Akhetaton after his god Aton—“the only one, beside whom there is no other.” By pharaoh’s order the temples of other gods were closed; even their names were obliterated from the monuments. His insistence on the uniqueness of his deity made him a heretic in ancient Egyptian terms—and in our terms the first monotheist in history.
The portraits of Akhenaton show a strange haggard face and an almost feminine body, with broad hips and fleshy torso. Yet he was not deficient in masculine attributes, as the existence of at least six children proves. Their mother was Akhenaton’s queen Nefertiti—“lady of grace, sweet of hands, his beloved”; and his romantic attachment to this lovely lady, whose very name meant “the beautiful woman has come,” is shown in numerous reliefs and paintings. Tenderly he turns to embrace her; gracefully she perches on his knee. These depictions of marital accord are unique in Egyptian art, and uncommon anywhere. They had a particular attraction for me; I do not believe it is necessary for me to explain why that was so.
Some scholars view Akhenaton as morally perverse and physically deformed, and decry his religious reformation as nothing more than a cynical political maneuver. This is nonsense, of course. I do not apologize for preferring a more uplifting interpretation.
I trust the Reader has not skipped over the preceding paragraphs. The aim of literature is to improve the understanding, not provide idle entertainment.
We were all at the rail on the day of our arrival, watching as the crewmen maneuvered the dahabeeyah in toward the dock at the village of Haggi Qandil. The period of rest had done Emerson good; tanned and bursting with energy, he was almost his old self again—except for the confounded beard. He was also in a high good humor for, though it had almost choked me to do it, I had not pressed him on the subject of Mr. Vincey and Bertha. However, Cyrus and I had discussed the matter at length and had agreed upon certain precautions.
Waiting on the quay were twenty of our faithful men from Aziyeh, the little village near Cairo which produced some of the most skilled diggers in Egypt. I had sent Abdullah to fetch them to Amarna, and the sight of their keen, smiling faces was more reassuring to me than that of a troop of soldiers would have been. They had worked for us for years; Emerson had trained them himself, and they were devoted to him body and soul.
Emerson climbed over the rail and jumped ashore. He was still thumping backs and shaking hands and submitting to fervent embraces when I joined the group. I was not the second one ashore, however. The cat Anubis preceded me down the gangplank.
Abdullah drew me aside and gestured at the cat, which was giving each set of sandaled feet a thorough inspection. “Have you not rid yourself of that four-footed afreet, Sitt Hakim?