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Chapter 62
Valley of the Kings
1917
LIKE A GENERAL COMMANDING a small army, Carter barked orders, positioning his workers across the landscape in the spots where they would soon dig and dig, then dig some more.
The men marched to their positions and leaned on their hoe-like turias, knowing that the work would not commence until Carter said so.
The forty-three-year-old Howard Carter, fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable about Egypt, had been deemed a vital resource by the British army. So, rather than searching for forgotten pharaohs, he’d spent the war in Cairo, laboring for the Military Intelligence Department of the War Office.
“War work claimed most of my time for the next few years,” he wrote, “but there were occasional intervals when I was able to carry out small pieces of excavation.”
But those were strictly reco
“The difficulty was knowing where to begin,” he noted. “I suggested to Lord Carnarvon that we take as a starting point the triangle of ground defined by the tombs of Rameses II, Mer-en-Ptah, and Rameses VI.”
Just as so many soldiers in the trenches had longed for loved ones, so had Carter pined for the valley. To be standing here beneath the blazing blue skies, feeling a fine layer of dust settle on his skin-it was like falling in love all over again.
“Proceed,” he yelled, his words echoing.
The bare-chested army of diggers swung their turias into the earth.
Carter intended to clear the area around the tombs of Rameses II and Rameses VI right down to the bedrock, a task that would require removing tens of thousands of tons of stone and soil. He had already laid narrow-gauge tracks and arranged to have a small train haul away the debris.
The plan was ambitious, but after a decade of waiting, anything less would not have been acceptable to Carter or His Lordship. There was too much stored-up energy, too much deferred ambition.
But would he find his virgin tomb? Would he find King Tut?
Davis had said that the valley had been exhausted, and by the time he’d up and left, the American had become its leading authority. For that reason experts had taken Davis at his word.
But now Davis was dead, having keeled over from a heart attack just six months after abandoning the valley. Carter, however, was very much alive and hard at work.
He wondered about his diggers, those veterans with callused hands and broad shoulders who had moved so much earth in their lives. Did they also think the valley was exhausted? Were they just here for the paycheck? Did they believe they were digging all day long in the blazing sun with no hope of finding anything? Or did they believe in their hearts that they might help unearth a long-buried tomb?
Would they discover the elusive Tut?
Chapter 63
Valley of the Kings
1920
BUT TUT’S TOMB would not be found in 1917-or 1918 or 1919, for that matter.
Carter surveyed the Valley of the Kings with deepening frustration and little of his usual quixotic hopefulness.
Hundreds of workers had labored on Lord Carnarvon’s payroll for a number of long seasons-and for nothing of any real value. In Luxor, Carter was something of a laughingstock, a sad man tilting at windmills.
Carter had found tombs that had been begun but never finished, caches of alabaster jars, a series of workmen’s huts. And though his patience seemed inexhaustible, Lord Carnarvon’s was not. “We had now dug in the valley for several seasons with extremely scanty results,” Carter lamented. “It had become a much debated question whether we should continue the work or try for a more profitable site elsewhere. After these barren years, were we justified in going on?”
He looked out at the valley, searching for some sign of King Tut. As Carter explained it: “So long as a single area of untouched ground remained, the risk was worth taking.” His rationale was simple: “If a lucky strike be made, you will be repaid for years and years of dull and unprofitable work.”
His gaze rested on the flint boulders and workmen’s huts over by the tomb of Rameses VI.
That would be his focus next year-if there was to be a next year.
Chapter 64
Tut’s Palace
1324 BC
A SOLITARY FIGURE MOVED like a ghost through the pharaoh’s bedroom-an angry, vengeful ghost.
He was a soldier in the Egyptian army, a man named Sefu, who had been conscripted at the age of eight and spent every day since in the service of the pharaoh. He had no wife, no children, and his parents had long since entered the afterworld. This warrior, in essence, was a nobody who had nothing. He had never risen above the rank of foot soldier. On the eve of his fortieth birthday, his left eye had been put out by a Hittite lance, but other than that he had few visible scars to show for a lifetime of war.
Sefu was unused to the finery of the palace. He felt certain that he would be discovered at every turn in the hallway. But he’d only seen the queen leaving Tut’s bedroom. It was as if the guards had all been told to take the night off. Had that been arranged too?
He had left his sandals at the barracks, knowing that his feet would be quieter on tile. His chest was bare, and his kilt was a faded blue. He wore nothing on his head, but in his hand he clutched a special implement prepared for him by one of General Horemheb’s top weapon makers.
A smooth Nile stone the size of a grapefruit had been tied with leather straps to the end of a two-foot length of polished ebony.
By all appearances, it was a most attractive and suitable war club. Sefu knew, however, that the club was too pretty for combat.
But it would be perfect for murdering a young pharaoh.
Chapter 65
Valley of the Kings
February 26, 1920
A DISCOVERY HAD BEEN MADE, but what kind of discovery was it? Large or small?
Carter bent down to be the first to examine the find. Lord Carnarvon was close on his heels, as was his wife, Lady Carnarvon.
They appeared to be inspecting a common debris pile-rocks, sand, chips of flint and pottery tossed aside during the excavation of a tomb long ago.
But peeking out, smooth and white, were alabaster jars-a dozen or more.
And the jars were intact.
Carter stepped forward to clear away more dirt, but the normally reserved Lady Carnarvon beat him to it. Though heavyset and past her prime, she dropped down to her knees and clawed fitfully at the soil. The Carnarvons had invested substantial time and money in the valley, and this was the first significant treasure they had to show for it. Lady Carnarvon would not be denied the opportunity to enjoy the discovery every bit as much as the men.
Carter and the workers stood back to watch as she cleared the soil away from each jar.
A tally was taken when she was done: thirteen. Perfect and near pristine, they were most certainly related to the burial of a king named Merenptah and represented a decent find.
There were, however, no markings indicating that the jars had anything to do with Tut. As minor as the find may have been, something was better than nothing. And with the close of the 1920 dig season just a week off, it would end the period of labor on a high note.