Chapter Fifty-Seven
VALLEY OF THE KINGS, EGYPT
Jackals howl in the distance. As the sky grows pink with the approaching dusk, the nocturnal creatures grow louder, but I’m not afraid.
Now that I’ve surrendered to the moment and put Hatshepsut behind me for now, I can think of nothing but the vision before me.
My eye is pressed to a tiny hole in the top left corner of the doorway made by Howard and Mr. Callender.
Beneath me is another perforation, through which I’ve placed the flame of a candle to help illuminate the black interior space.
I strain to make sense of what I’m seeing.
At first, it’s just a blur. Then, section by section, shapes materialize.
As my eyes grow accustomed to the dim light, I apprehend fantastical animals, enormous chariots, life-size statues, and imposing thrones—all gleaming with an otherworldly brilliance.
How can these artifacts shine so brightly in this low candlelight?
I wonder. I then realize that every object is crafted from gold.
“My God.” I can barely speak. “You are right, Howard. The tomb is filled with wonderful things.”
Howard, Papa, and I turn to one another and spontaneously embrace.
Had the men still been present, I’m certain their mouths would have been uniformly agape to witness this exuberant display of emotion from the usually stoic English.
But they’d been sent home at the usual time.
Only the trusted reis remain, Ahmed foremost among them, of course.
We need as few witnesses as possible to this evening’s activities.
We clasp each other so tightly it takes my breath away. But I have no desire to protest. This moment has been long in coming, especially for Howard and Papa.
Howard breaks away first, and asks, “Are we in agreement?”
Papa says, “Absolutely. If we don’t take a look now, we may never get a chance. The authorities will swoop in, and we will never know all that we’ve found. Items will start to disappear before our very eyes.”
I nod, but disquiet settles within me. We are planning to make a surreptitious opening in the tomb and enter it in the dead of night.
This is in clear contravention of the Egyptian law requiring that authorities be physically present when opening a new tomb.
I know what Madame Zaghloul would think about this decision.
After all, her husband has publicly decried foreign excavations and the custom of partage as unacceptable vestiges of colonialism, and with all the recent changes, I cannot imagine it will hold.
Shouldn’t the Egyptian government have a say in the way we are disturbing the remains of their own people?
Even though part of me wants to follow along with Papa’s strategy, I’m torn.
My time with the Zaghlouls has changed me.
“But we will do nothing to disturb the treasure that we find, correct?” I ask. “We will not move any artifacts or take any objects from the tomb? Only record and catalogue what’s inside for our own purposes?”
Papa and Howard are quick to agree. I think they’d say anything to secure my acquiescence, but I choose to believe them.
And what harm could we do if we leave the tomb exactly as we entered?
We can still undertake the formal opening of the tomb in the presence of the government, and follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.
And the artifacts will remain precisely as they have for millennia.
Howard gives the signal to the trustworthy men who remain, including Ahmed.
Using chisels and picks, they make a small opening at the base of the tomb, one they’ll be able to reseal for the authorities’ visit in the coming days.
Papa and I gather the lanterns we’ll need to illuminate the interior once we enter.
The three of us assess the aperture in the stone slab. “Is it big enough for us to crawl through?” Papa asks. “It looks frighteningly small.”
“We made the cuts along preexisting crevices in the stone. It’s the only way we’ll be able to unobtrusively close the opening, so the gap is as large as we can afford,” Howard explains.
One by one, we drop to our knees, a movement that makes Papa groan.
With Howard in the lead and Papa behind me, we squeeze through it and wriggle along into the blackness.
Once we reach the murky interior, we each reach a hand outside and a reis gives us electric torches.
Almost as one, we stand, holding our torches alight and staring around this sacred space. The heat crests over us like a wave.
Hundreds of objects line the room in stacks.
Gilt chairs. Wondrous painted creatures.
Boxes and vases inlaid with precious stones.
A golden bed borne aloft by horned cow goddesses.
And, in the center of the chamber, a throne, covered in gold leaf, encrusted in patterns of turquoise, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, with lion-head arms and an image of Tutankhamun and his queen, Ankhesenamun, on its back.
A few items are scattered around the floor.
Some broken, others shattered. It appears as though someone had been here after Tutankhamun’s burial and attempted to carry out some smaller items, but was interrupted.
Tomb robbers, most likely. But they did not abscond with larger treasures, thank the Lord.
And the fact that thieves had broken into the tomb millennia ago strangely makes our excavation easier, as the Egyptian authorities have far greater control over fully intact tombs.
I reach for Papa’s hand and squeeze it tight. “Oh, Papa, can you believe your eyes?”
“No, my darling Eve. I feel as though I’ve stepped into a dream.”
Otherwise speechless, we wander the enclosed space, which, at first, appears to be the only chamber.
I try to keep a running list of the artifacts.
I observe piles of ornamental caskets, small black shrines, bronze instruments, alabaster vases, strange egg-shaped boxes, elegantly carved chairs, and a variety of stools.
Still, the glinting objects are many and the light is dim.
After a time, a realization dawns upon me.
“There’s no sarcophagus in here. There is everything a pharaoh would need for the afterlife, but no coffin,” I announce. “There must be another chamber.”
“You’re right,” Howard mutters. “How did I miss that?”
“I think you were blinded by gold,” Papa says. “I know I was.”
“Where is it?” I ask, mostly to myself.
Shining the light around the walls, I see cracks or maybe the outlines of a door. I squat down and shine my torch along the floor. Underneath the bed, I see a rectangular opening, roughly the size of Papa’s Napoleonic desktop. “There.” I point.
Lying on my belly, I slide underneath the elaborate, patterned bed. “Be careful, Eve,” Papa warns. But I ignore him and crawl until I reach the aperture and stick my torch inside it.
“Can you see anything?” Howard calls over to me.
“Yes, there’s furniture, wooden crates, some alabaster statues and vessels. Similar items as in the main chamber but even more disorganized. As if someone ransacked the place and left things dispersed around the room.”
“More tomb robbers there as well,” Howard remarks. “Is there a sarcophagus?”
“Not that I can see,” I answer, as I slide out from under the bed. “And I think I’d see an enormous pharaonic sarcophagus if there was one in there.”
Placing my torch down, I brush off my clothes and face. I then push myself to standing. “There must be another chamber,” I announce.
“But where?” Papa asks. “There aren’t any other openings. Unless they are midwall and behind one of these stacks. But we cannot move the items right now. It would draw the attention of the authorities.”
My eyes are drawn to two life-size black-and-gold statues along the wall.
These figures, wearing the nemes of the pharaoh and brandishing sticks, serve as vessels into which Tutankhamun’s ka—or life force—could pour in the afterlife.
Never mind the pharaonic accoutrements, the imposing statutes, standing alone on the wall away from the piles, look like guardians to me.
I begin to wonder, what are they guarding?
Slowly, I approach the statues. Shining my torch along the wall at their back, I peer behind them.
There, I notice a series of seals. When I follow along the length of seals to the tomb floor, I see a heap of baskets behind which is a pile of loose plaster at the juncture of the wall and floor.
I kneel in front of it, and remove a few pieces. Another opening emerges.
“I think the statues are guarding Tutankhamun’s tomb,” I tell Howard and Papa.
They crowd around me, studying the wall and floor as I’d just done. I begin to clear away the plaster pieces until the outline of another rectangular hole appears. “I knew this plaster was hiding an opening,” I exclaim.
“Excellent work, Eve,” Papa says. “But this hole is even tinier than the other.”
“I think I’m small enough to crawl inside.”
“That’s not safe, Eve. The ceiling or walls could be unstable and you could get trapped or injured,” Howard declares.
At the same time, Papa lets out an emphatic, “No. Not like last time.”
I pretend I haven’t heard them, and lie flat on the ground again.
Using my elbows as leverage to pull me along, I slither into the breach.
When half of my body is wedged into the hole, I feel a hand on my ankle.
“Lady Evelyn, stop. Debris is beginning to trickle out of the ceiling above the hole,” Howard warns me.
Retreat is not an option. I’ve come too far, and we’ve broken too many rules.
Soon, word will get out, and this site will be inundated with workers and tourists and archaeologists and governmental officials.
The chance to make the actual discovery—to be the first—will never come again.
And the fragile hope that this discovery may one day lead to the discovery of Hatshepsut will slip away.
I pull the rest of my body through the opening into the chamber.
Then I switch on my torch. At first, I see the outline of an enormous dark statue of the god Anubis in the far corner.
But then, as I shine my torch around the space, I am illuminated by golden light, reflecting from my torch off a golden object.
It is a gilded shrine, which I’m hoping holds the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.