16. Another Day, Another Temple
CHAPTER 16
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER TEMPLE
L ater, on the Acropolis in the Erechtheion
Having adopted a slab of marble as a makeshift workbench to hold her tools, Diana moved to an area shaded by the east cella of the Erechtheion and dabbed her face with her scarf. Although the day wasn’t particularly warm—yet—the quick climb up the steep slope had her struggling to catch her breath.
Unlike the day before, it seemed there were others at work on the Acropolis. A group of men were clustered near the mosque, its base and a spiral staircase the only remains of a structure that had at one time sported a minaret. The only portion of the religious building that could be seen from the city below, the minaret had been removed in 1832 after the Greeks had won their war for independence.
The animated discussion taking place was too far away for her to overhear, but she was sure the remains of the building would soon be removed.
Deciding she didn’t wish to call attention to her own work, she had moved to the inside of the Erechtheion. She did a cursory review of the marble blocks, sighing when she didn’t see any evidence of carvings.
“I thought I might find you here,” Randy said as he sauntered in from the north entrance. The temple, mostly a ruin, could still boast most of three walls, several columns, and its porch featuring five caryatids.
Diana gave a start, surprised she hadn’t heard his approach. “Found me you have,” she said, pretending to continue her perusal of the marble wall.
Although she had experienced a moment of annoyance at seeing him, she decided she could be civil with him. He had kept her presence on the roof the night before a secret from her brother and no doubt saved her from a tongue lashing. “I suppose you would like to see the rest of what the Acropolis has to offer.”
His gaze on the wall she had been examining, Randy shoved a hand into a pocket and allowed a grunt. “I would. However, I find I learn so much more when I am with someone who already knows all about them,” he said.
She gave him a dubious glance. “I must warn you. I am not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to the Acropolis.”
“Something tells me you know far more than I do,” he countered. “Is it true you remember everything you read?”
Diana stiffened, unable to control how she turned to stare at him. “Who told you that?” she asked, immediately realizing it had to be her older brother. She didn’t think Randy had even met Michael the day before.
“Don’t be angry with Marcus,” he said, moving to stand beside her. He stared at the top of the wall, his brows furrowing as he attempted to make out something he was sure was carved into the stone. “He’s merely jealous of you.”
Giving a start, Diana stared at him. She had never once thought Marcus envious of her ability to remember everything she had seen and read. Everything she had ever heard. “I rather doubt that,” she murmured, moving her attention to the adjacent wall.
“ I’m jealous,” Randy said, unable to hide his smirk. “Do you know how much better I would have done at university if I’d been able to remember everything I had read?”
She glanced in his direction and realized he spoke the truth. “It can be a burden,” she said, her hands moving to her hips as she bent to examine a lower portion of the wall she faced.
“I can’t imagine how,” Randy replied, his gaze following hers. “You must have done very well in…” He paused, wondering if she had been allowed to attend any sort of school. “Finishing school?” he guessed. If she had attended finishing school, her headmistress would probably faint at seeing how she was dressed in doeskin breeches, a man’s shirt, and boots. Where a cravat should have been, she had a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. The color set off her reddish blonde hair and pale complexion, although most of it was shaded by a wide-brimmed hat.
This particular temple was missing all of its roof, and she was no longer in the shade of the back wall.
Diana scoffed as she rolled her eyes. “I was never a student, other than of my father’s,” she said, moving farther along the wall as a gloved hand skimmed over the marble.
“Having an archaeologist for a father surely made for an interesting education,” he said, his attention once again going to the top of the wall where he was sure there was an inscription.
“I suppose,” she murmured.
Randy turned and regarded her with a furrowed brow. “How did you even become interested in looking for graffiti?”
She straightened and stared at him a moment before she chuckled. “When I was learning about Egyptian temples, I suppose,” she said.
Randy gave a start. “We’ve not yet been to Egypt, but we plan to go there from here,” he said. “What… what exactly caught your attention?”
For the first time since he had met her, Diana displayed a huge grin. “I visited, and I did not like anything but the sarcophagus!”
Frowning, Randy shook his head. “What?”
“It’s an inscription left in the Tomb of Ramesses the Fifth and Sixth in the Valley of the Kings,” she explained.
Randy’s eyes rounded. “Someone wrote that? Carved it in a tomb?” he asked in disbelief.
“It’s just one of nearly a thousand random scribblings left in that particular tomb,” she said with a shrug. “The tomb has been open since shortly after it was built, and the evidence of that is everywhere. The ancient tourists left their mark, sometimes in Latin, but most often in Greek,” she explained. “They used black or red ink and sometimes they carved their thoughts in the walls.”
Randy winced. “That’s appalling,” he murmured.
“Usually the inscriptions are down low on the walls, but some are up near the ceiling,” she continued, appreciating how he had reacted. “Which suggests the desert sand had blown in and filled up part of the tomb. It had to be quite high when those graffiti were made.”
“By the riff-raff of society, no doubt,” Randy remarked, obviously not in agreement with the practice.
“You would be surprised to learn otherwise,” she countered. “Some of the visitors were doctors. Others were philosophers or high-ranking officials. For the most part, they weren’t there as... as sightseers,” she went on. “They were there on some sort of pilgrimage, believing the tomb to be that of Memnon.”
“The hero from the Trojan War?” Randy asked in disbelief. “The king of Aethiopia? The one slain by Achilles?”
“That one, yes. But... that tomb is most assuredly not his. However,” she settled a hip against the marble slab and crossed her arms. “There are two giant statues nearby, supposedly of Memnon,” she said in a quieter voice, rather liking how she had Randy’s attention rapt with her tale. “The Colossi of Memnon.”
“Does one of those make some sort of singing sound when the wind blows?” he asked, his eyes widening with recognition.
“Indeed. You know of it?”
“One of my professors talked of it as if he had heard it for himself,” Randy replied. “Turns out, the man has never left England. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to learn that he only knew of it from a book.”
She nodded. “If I had a crack in me like that statue does, I would sing in the wind as well,” she groused. “But since it only happened in the mornings, it probably had something to do with water.”
Randy chuckled. “I’ll make sure the Colossi of Memnon are on our list. I can hardly wait to see them.”
“Don’t be too excited,” she warned. “Some of the graffiti on those monuments is poetry, but most of it is the equivalent of ‘I was here’,” she explained. “Someone would write their name and their occupation, and the most common phrase used is ‘I admired’.”
Randy leaned against the cella wall and crossed his arms. “I suppose that’s not so bad,” he mused.
“In one case, some man had his secretary do the carving for him. All he wrote was ‘I admired’.” She held up a hand and waved it in the direction of the marble wall in illustration.
Randy smirked.
“How lazy does one have to be?” she asked rhetorically. “He’s traveling all about Egypt with his own personal sculptor!”
Chuckling, Randy angled his head. “I’m almost frightened to ask if the Romans were so crass when they were there.”
Diana seemed to suppress a chuckle. “I know it seems odd to think of them taking elaborate holidays, but that’s exactly what they did. The wealthy ones would sail down to Alexandria, where they could see the lighthouse. After that, they would visit the pyramids at Giza, then board a boat, and cruise down the Nile.”
“Two of the Seven Wonders of the World,” Randy murmured in awe. “Do you suppose they had some sort of guide book? Like the ones Pausanias wrote about Greece?”
Diana blinked, staring at him for a moment before she said, “No doubt. They obviously saw the Colossi of Memnon, because those statues are absolutely covered in Latin graffiti. Even the Emperor Hadrian saw them,” she claimed.
“Is that when his… friend drowned in the Nile?” he asked, curious as to how she would react to learning he knew something about Hadrian’s sexual preferences. At least, according to one of his professors.
Diana visibly reddened. “Indeed. Not an unheard of situation given how they behaved on holiday.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Imagine you’re a wealthy Roman citizen. You sail across the Mediterranean for an exotic Egyptian adventure, seek out all the sights, attend some amazing Egyptian festivals, and drink copious amounts of beer. So of course you’re going to see those two huge statues and all the tombs. Listen to them singing in the morning,” she mused. “Believing them to be statues of Memnon.”
Randy frowned. “Are they not?”
She shook her head. “They are of the pharaoh Amenhotep the Third,” she stated. “The Romans thought they were of Memnon because he shared one of his names with a name found inside the Tomb of Ramesses the Fifth and Sixth, so they thought the tomb was his as well.”
Scoffing, Randy uncrossed his arms and joined her next to the marble slab. “The timing... we’re talking about a...” He paused a moment to think. “A thousand-year difference between their deaths and when the Romans would have visited,” he murmured.
Diana’s eyes widened as she displayed another huge grin. “Exactly!”
He winced, his face displaying a moment of confusion. “The Egyptians must have known the Romans had it all wrong.”
“Yes!” she agreed enthusiastically, nodding her head for emphasis.
“So... why didn’t the Egyptians correct them? Set the record straight, so to speak?”
Chuckling softly, Diana dipped her head. “Would you? You had all these rich Romans—including emperors—giving you their gold coins. Why correct their mistaken assumptions?”
“So history wouldn’t get it wrong?” he replied, shoving a hand into one of his pockets as his momentary annoyance became evident. After a another moment, his face lightened. “The Egyptians were probably laughing behind their backs,” he mused.
“Indeed,” she agreed, secretly glad he seemed genuinely interested in history.
“You should be a professor,” he stated.
Taken aback, Diana blinked. “A professor?” she repeated before she scoffed softly. “I rather doubt any of the colleges at Oxford would be amenable to hiring a woman,” she complained. “They don’t even allow women to attend.”
He dipped his head and shook it. “Still, it’s obvious you’re passionate about this work.” He waved in the direction of the Propylaea, where a small team of men were working. “Which has me wondering why it is the man who is overseeing the restoration efforts up here allows you to be here, too.”
Diana glanced in the direction he indicated. “Only because I gave Mr. Pittakis a letter from my father asking that I be allowed to search for markings,” she explained. “He was quite clear that I was to inform him of any inscriptions I might find that were anything other than graffiti,” she added, rolling her eyes.
“So he can take credit for them?” Randy guessed.
Inhaling softly, Diana nodded. She hadn’t expected him to grasp the situation so quickly. “Probably,” she agreed. “Once I assured him I would share anything I found, he reluctantly agreed to allow me to bring my tools up here.” When she heard him gasp, she asked, “What is it?”
“The rubbing you did?—”
“I showed it to him this morning when I arrived.”
Randy rounded his eyes. “And?”
Diana lifted a shoulder and sighed. “He thanked me but said he was already aware of the inscription.”
“So...” He waved to the remaining walls around them. “What are you searching for here? Or rather, who?”
Diana stiffened, not sure she wanted to share a name. “I’ll know when I find it,” she finally replied.
He grimaced. “Well, seeing how everyone else in our parties have gone to see the Prison of Socrates, will you allow me to stay here and help?”
Angling her head to one side, Diana gazed at the wall where she had begun her search. Randy’s height—he was at least a head taller than she—might prove useful. “Since you are obviously a student of history?—”
“You have that right, professor,” he acknowledged.
Diana felt the heat of a blush color her cheeks. “You’ll have to do as I say,” she warned. When she saw the eagerness in his eyes, she nearly changed her mind.
It was almost as intense as his happy countenance. Was he always in a good mood?
For a moment, she was sure she saw something else in his expression, but she didn’t dare attempt to decipher it. She hadn’t known him long enough to make any assumptions.
“I can follow directions,” he claimed, holding up a finger as if to remind her of how he had helped with the rubbing the day before.
“Then you are welcome to stay.” She struggled to maintain a passive expression as a frisson of pleasure fluttered through her abdomen at seeing his happy countenance.
What would he think if he ever learned she had never actually been to Egypt?