Ankhesenpaaten understood that time was short. Still, a few simple paintings would have been better and more fitting.
She turned back toward the light at the tomb entrance, checking to see if she had been followed. There was no sign of anyone.
Ankhesenpaaten breathed a sigh of relief. More than anything, she wanted to be alone right now. She had much to think about.
The hallway led into a large chamber, and a slightly smaller room lay beyond that. The way was lit by small lamps whose ghostly flickerings danced on the walls.
The queen was heartened when she finally gazed upon murals depicting Tut’s life. At least he would be remembered here.
In the center of the small room was Tut’s throne, as if waiting for him to arrive. She walked to it, running her hand along the wood.
Ankhesenpaaten smiled as she examined the back of the chair where a scene of her anointing him with oil had been carved.
She remembered the day, or one exactly like it, as if it were yesterday.
There was another reason she’d come here: Ankhesenpaaten was terrified for her own life.
She circled the throne, afraid of the emotions welling up inside her. She had never felt so alone before, had never so needed Tut’s reassuring voice. He would have known what to do. She had seen him grow more and more confident in Aye’s presence, so much so that Aye had little or no power over him.
Tut had been fond of reminding her that Aye and his wife had been little more than glorified servants to their parents. Indeed, Aye’s wife had been Nefertiti’s wet nurse. The queen had nothing to fear from them.
Ankhesenpaaten took a deep breath, then allowed herself to settle onto the throne. She sat up straight at first, then settled back until she was relaxed in the chair. That was how Tut sat there, not erect, like some tentative ruler, but slumped and secure.
She could almost hear his voice as she sat there. He would be speaking directly, unafraid to tell the truth to whoever needed to hear it.
Ankhesenpaaten felt power rising within her, as if Tut himself were giving her confidence. But it was too much. She broke down in tears, sobbing alone in the tomb.
Tut was gone from this world; there was no getting around it. How would she rule without him?
His voice came to her, strong and sure: A woman cannot be pharaoh these days. You have two choices—either marry Aye and let him rule, or find a foreign king to occupy the throne. Some of her sisters had married Asians. Why should she be different?
Because they were princesses, and I am the queen—and right now the pharaoh too.
Ankhesenpaaten stopped crying, but the grief in her heart was great. She didn’t want to marry anyone else and certainly not Aye. But she was the queen, and she had no choice. Whatever plan she followed, it must be for the good of Egypt.
The queen gazed at the walls again. It was amazing to think that his body would be sealed inside this very room, forever. She desperately wanted to share this chamber with him.
But she couldn’t worry about that right now. She needed to act quickly.
Ankhesenpaaten strode from the burial chamber, shoulders back and head high. In her mind she was already composing the letter that might set her free.
Or possibly get her killed—just like poor Tut.
Chapter 72
Valley of the Kings
April 1324 BC
EGYPT’S WEALTHIEST and most prominent citizens had traveled from near and far to mourn the Boy King. They had dressed in their most colorful kilts and gowns and golden collars. The vibrant scene looked out of place amid the valley’s desolation.
There were so many mourners, and the tomb entrance was so small, that only an elite few were granted the honor of entering it to see where the pharaoh would lie for eternity.
The sarcophagus was heavy, and the stairs were steep, making the journey to Tut’s final resting place long and laborious. The sweat from the shoulders of the men made their burden slick, and it was obvious that they were struggling not to drop the pharaoh.
The crowds outside watched anxiously, unprotected from the sun. Even the wealthiest and most delicate women were sweating and miserable, thick eyeliner running down their cheeks. Some were fanned by slaves, who provided just a whisper of relief in the still, hot air.
Yet no one dared leave to find a sliver of shade. That could wait until the pharaoh’s body was sealed in the ground.
The overseer snuck a glance at the queen. She was radiant in her sorrow, stifling tears, her pain impossible to hide. The overseer had always considered her a fine woman—too young to have endured the loss of two children and a husband. He wondered what would happen to her next and how she would rule this great land.
It was his job to safeguard the tomb’s contents, for even the richest and most powerful person in Thebes might be tempted to grab a golden trinket if given the chance. Once the pharaoh’s body had been placed in the tomb, the overseer quietly pressed through the crowd and descended the steps. His men were already using wood and plaster to seal the burial chamber.
Tut now lay inside a solid gold coffin, which was nested inside another coffin, which was nested inside another, which was then placed inside a sarcophagus made of quartzite, with a lid of pink granite. The sarcophagus was housed in a burial shrine, which was encased in another, and then another, all of this hidden within the outermost shrine decorated in blue faience and gold.
Tut’s innermost coffin, made of solid gold. There were three coffins in all.
The structure was so big it filled the burial chamber from wall to wall, with barely an inch to spare.
As the workers labored, gangs of men began carrying Tut’s possessions into the much larger room next to the burial chamber. No item of his was considered too small or insignificant—from childhood game boards to travel beds. The work went on for hours, as if Tut were moving everything he owned into a new residence, which, of course, he was.
“We’re finished, sir,” said the mason, motioning with one hand for the overseer to inspect the work. The plaster was still wet, but it was clear that the job had been expertly done. For a tomb robber to penetrate that chamber would take an act of supreme will—and muscle.
Getting to the pharaoh’s body would require knocking down the entire new wall, then disassembling each piece of the elaborate sepulchre.
“You are safe now,” murmured the overseer, proud of his handiwork and professionalism. “You were a good pharaoh.”
No one would bother the pharaoh ever again.
The overseer was the last man to leave the valley that evening. He mounted his mule and began the familiar trek back to Thebes.
In the distance he could still see the bright royal banners of the queen’s procession and her many servants. He suddenly realized that Tut’s tomb was too small—and too well sealed—for her to join him one day.
And yet he knew of no plans to carve a tomb for the queen.
That was odd.
What would become of Ankhesenpaaten?
Chapter 73
Valley of the Kings
November 4, 1922
CARTER WAS SMOKING a cigarette, already his fifth or sixth that day, and was again in a hopeful mood. He sat astride his brown and white mule as it sauntered into the valley, his feet resting in the stirrups of a fine leather saddle.
The dirt path wound between cliffs that climbed steeply, giving way to pale blue sky.
This was the same route Carter had traveled countless times in the past thirty years, and the day seemed like it would be just another day, fraught with expectation but tempered by despair. Before going home the night before he had ordered his foreman to finish clearing the soil down to the bedrock. Now he smoked and wondered how the work was progressing.
Thirty years—a long time for such unpleasant and unrewarding results. No wonder they laughed behind his back in Luxor.
He noticed the valley was quiet.
That could be a problem, for the valley was never quiet during dig season
.
His curiosity aroused, and not in a good way, Carter dismounted and tied the animal in the shade. Reis, the foreman, found Carter almost immediately to tell him the news. “I was greeted by the announcement that a step cut into the rock had been discovered,” Carter recalled. “This seemed too good to be true, but a short amount of clearing revealed that we were actually in the entrance of a step cut in the rock.”
Carter had seen this sort of staircase in many valley tombs, and, he mused, “I almost dared to hope we had found our tomb at last.”
Chapter 74
Valley of the Kings
November 4, 1922
HE ORDERED THE MEN to dig. The single step found by the water boy soon revealed more steps, leading deeper and deeper into the hard bedrock a dozen or so feet beneath the entrance to the tomb of Rameses VI.
Carter had worked the valley long enough to know that this was the sort of stairwell associated with tomb construction. The way the rock had been cut was a giveaway.
The men didn’t need to be told what to do. All other areas of the job site were abandoned.
As one group dug deeper, clearing away the hard-packed soil and limestone that covered the staircase, another worked up top. Their job was to hack away the soil around the opening to reveal the stairwell’s true shape and size.
Carter halted the work at nightfall.
But the frantic pace began again at dawn, with the men back to jabbering.
By the afternoon of November 5, it was clear that they had found some kind of great underground structure. They just needed to dig until an entrance was revealed.
Even with the clang of turias and dust choking the air, Carter’s pessimism had returned. He began to ponder the status of the underground chamber.
Was it empty? Had it ever been used? Was it just a storage chamber, or was it actually a burial tomb?
And if it was a tomb, how was it possible that it might have somehow eluded plunder?
The staircase was now a partially covered passageway, measuring ten feet high and six feet wide. Eight steps had been unearthed.
Then nine.
Ten.
Eleven steps.
At step twelve they found the uppermost portion of a door. In his journal, Carter described it as “blocked, plastered, and sealed.”
Sealed. That was a positive sign. Carter began to believe it was possible he had found an unopened tomb.
“Anything, literally anything, might lie beyond that passage,” wrote Carter. “It needed all my self-control to keep from breaking down the doorway and investigating then and there.”
But he was through investigating—at least for now. As the sun set on the Valley of the Kings on November 5, Carter ordered that there be no more excavation.
Instead, as much as he wanted to dig deeper, as much as he needed to, he ordered the men to fill in the stairwell.
Chapter 75
Luxor
November 23, 1922
AS THE TRAIN FROM CAIRO pulled into Luxor station, nearly three unnerving weeks had passed since the tomb’s discovery.
Not a bit of work had been done since the staircase had been filled in on November 5. Sentries guarded the site night and day. As added insurance, boulders had been rolled over the opening.
These safeguards were vital. Rumors about the find had already sent droves of tourists into the valley, leading Carter to note wryly in his journal that “news travels fast in the small town that is Egypt.”
Yet he refused to open the tomb.
“Lord Carnarvon was in England,” he explained. “In fairness to him I had to delay matters until he could come. Accordingly, on the morning of November 6th I sent him the following cable: ‘At last have made wonderful discovery in valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; recovered same for your arrival; congratulations.’”
Carnarvon had replied by telegram two days later, saying that he might not be able to come.
Before Carter could take that as a reason to resume digging, a second cable announced that Carnarvon would arrive in two weeks.
“We had thus nearly a fortnight’s grace, and we devoted it to making preparations of various kinds, so that when the time of reopening came, we should be able, with the least possible delay, to handle any situation that might arise,” Carter wrote.
Somewhat ominously that same week, a cobra had slithered into Carter’s home and eaten his pet canary. Otherwise, all went smoothly. A friend named Arthur Callender had been hired, tasked with mundane details Carter might be too busy or too distracted to handle. Lord Carnarvon’s favorite foods and drinks were purchased. Electrical wire and lamps were procured in Cairo.
But most of all, Carter spent those two weeks in a state of perpetual self-doubt and second-guessing. It was as if his entire life was tied up in this tomb.
“One thing puzzled me, and that was the smallness of the opening in comparison with the ordinary valley tombs,” he wrote. “Could it be the tomb of a noble buried here by royal consent? Was it a royal cache, a hiding place to which a mummy and its equipment had been removed for safety? Or was it actually the tomb of the king for whom I had spent so many years in search?”
As the days slowly passed and the news rapidly spread around the world, Howard Carter became a public figure.
This terrified him. Not that he minded the fame—after years of failure and struggle, it was nice to have his ego massaged. But if the tomb was empty he would be a laughingstock everywhere, and his reputation for failure would only grow.
Carter tried the best he could to go about his business, spending night after sleepless night waiting for Lord Carnarvon and his family to arrive.
At last they were here!
As the train settled to a stop, the dapper earl, wearing a scarf and wool coat on the cool November day, stepped down from his first-class compartment. His daughter Evelyn, a twenty-year-old beauty, was at his side. She and Carter had enjoyed a clandestine enchantment the season before, despite the nearly thirty-year difference in their ages. The two were “very thick” in the words of one chatty observer, though with Carnarvon spending night and day with Carter in Luxor, it was impossible for him to take the romance with Evelyn very far.
Lady Evelyn Herbert and Howard Carter. Their purported romance was one of the few sources of friction between Carter and Lord Carnarvon.
Carter greeted them both eagerly, handing Evelyn a bouquet of white flowers. Next, the three would mount donkeys for the six-mile ride to the Valley of the Kings.
The path would take them through the lush green fields outside Luxor. They would then cross the Nile by ferry and continue down the dusty dirt path to the valley.
But even though Lady Evelyn was her usual radiant self, Lord Carnarvon was weak and tired. He needed rest.
The opening of the tomb would have to wait one more day.
A disappointed Howard Carter led his guests to his home, where he would spend yet another sleepless night.
Chapter 76
Valley of the Kings
November 24, 1922
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Carter, along with Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn, arrived at the site. For Carter this had been a thirty-year wait, but even for the Carnarvons the suspense must have been great.
The heavy boulders were rolled away from the tomb. Then Carter’s men began clearing the steps.
One group dug away the bits of debris while another swept the steps clean. But this was not as simple as shoveling sand out of a hole, for as they dug deeper and deeper, ancient artifacts mixed with the soil.
Lady Evelyn was beside herself about the historical significance of it all, lovingly studying each new pottery shard or amulet—scarabs, they were called—that turned up in the mountain of dirt.
But Carter’s spirits soon plummeted. In his mind these bits of rubble confirmed that he had found not a tomb but a royal trash heap. “The balance of evidence would seem to indicate a cache rather than a tomb,” he admitted dourly, “a miscellaneous collection of obj
ects of the Eighteenth Dynasty kings.”
The shards were stamped with the names of kings he knew well: Amenhotep the Magnificent, Akhenaten, Tuthmosis. Less than pleased with what he was seeing, Carter passed the day looking down from the top step, thinking this might be the end of his career—and an ignominious final chapter at that.
When he was not having such thoughts, he was bent to the ground sifting through whatever new shovelful of dirt the workers had exhumed, now and then admonishing them to be careful. His mood blackened further.
Finally, “by the afternoon of the 24th the whole staircase was clear, sixteen steps in all, and we were able to make inspection of the sealed doorway,” he wrote.
He was terribly disappointed by what he saw.
“The tomb was not absolutely intact, as we had hoped,” he wrote.
Someone had been there before Carter.
Chapter 77
Valley of the Kings
November 24, 1922
WITH THE DOOR now fully exposed to sunlight and air, there was clear evidence that the plaster seals had been tampered with. A party of tomb robbers—perhaps two—had actually entered the tomb, then had taken the time to reseal the door when they had finished ransacking it.
Carter’s mind raced in all the wrong directions. Would the break-in have happened in modern times? Impossible. The workmen’s huts and loose soil above the bedrock predated the tomb to the time of Rameses VI, at the very least. This meant that whoever rifled through the tomb had done it in a two-hundred-year window between the reigns of Akhenaten and Rameses.
There was one thing that gave Carter hope: the seal of Tutankhamen was stamped on the doorway.
This led to more questions: Was the seal evidence that this mysterious king, about whom so little was known, was buried inside? Or was it merely an indication that he had been present or in power when the remains or belongings of others had been relocated to this site? After all, the same seals had been found on the tomb that Davis had once claimed belonged to Tut.