The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [90]
We did, in fact, visit some of the northern tombs, but not until after Emerson had indicated another kind of monument he wanted to examine in detail that season.
Around the rocky perimeter of his city Akhenaton had carved a number of commemorative markers defining its boundaries and dedicating it to his god. Emerson and I had found and copied three of them ourselves. These stelae, as they are called, were similar in form: a central round-topped marker bearing a long hieroglyphic inscription under a scene in bas-relief that depicted the king and his family worshiping their god Aton, in the form of a sun-disk extending rays that ended in small human hands. Statues of the royal family stood on either side. Most of the boundary stelae were in ruinous condition; some portions had been deliberately destroyed by the royal heretic’s enemies after his death and the restoration of the old gods he had denied.
“There are two series of inscriptions, one earlier in time than the other,” said Emerson. Hands on his hips, bareheaded in the baking sunlight, he stood staring up at the cliff that towered over us. “This is one of the earlier; there are two princesses shown with their parents. The later stelae show three daughters.”
Cyrus took off his solar topi and fanned himself with it. “How the dickens you make that out I don’t know. The top of the darned thing has to be thirty feet off the ground and the cliff is absolutely sheer.”
“It cannot be approached except from above,” said Emerson. He turned. Charlie was trying to hide behind Abdullah, whose tall form and voluminous robes offered a good-sized shelter, but Emerson’s eyes went straight to him. With ferocious good humor Emerson said, “The boundary stela are your responsibility, Holly. A healthy young fellow like you should enjoy the challenge of copying texts while you dangle at the end of a rope.”
A precipitous path led us up to the ledge on which the northern group of nobles’ tombs were located. Once they had gaped open, vulnerable to the depredations of time and tomb-robbers. Recently the Antiquities Department had put up iron gates at the entrances to the most interesting of them. Emerson studied these gates, which had not been there in our time, with critical curiosity.
“Isn’t there an American saying about locking the barn door after the horse is stolen? Ah, well; better late than never, I suppose. Who has the keys?”
“I can get them,” Cyrus replied. “Since I did not know—”
“I may want them later,” was the curt reply.
He refused to say more until we had reached Abdullah’s campsite. Knowing Abdullah, I was not surprised to see that his efforts had consisted of putting up a few tents and gathering camel dung for a fire.
“Very nice, Abdullah,” I said. The reis, who had been watching me out of the corner of his eye, relaxed, and then stiffened again as I went on, “Of course nothing is as commodious as a nice, convenient tomb. Why can’t we—”
“Because we are not going to work at the tombs,” said Emerson. “This site is equidistant between the two groups, northern and southern.”
“Site?” Cyrus repeated indignantly. “What the dev——the dickens do you want to waste your time on this area for? There can’t be any houses out here, so far from the main city, and no one has found any evidence of tomb shafts.”
Emerson’s well-shaped lips—now, alas, virtually hidden from my fond eyes by bristling black hair—curled in a sneer. “Most of my colleagues couldn’t find a tomb shaft if they fell into it. I told you, Vandergelt, explanations will have to wait till this evening. We have quite a distance yet to cover; follow me.”
The sun was now directly overhead and we had been walking (to use that term loosely) for several hours. “Lead on,” I said, taking a firm grip on my parasol.
Emerson had already eyed this appendage askance, but had not asked about it, so I saw no reason to explain that a parasol is one of the most useful objects an individual can carry on such an expedition. Not only does it provide