titles and honorifics my master was also the Lord of the Necropolis and the Keeper of the Royal Tombs.
He was responsible for the upkeep of the tombs of all the pharaohs past and present, living and dead. But much more importantly he was also the official architect of the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.
My Lord Intef had never been gifted with any creative skills. His talents were vested more in havoc and destruction. I doubt that he could have designed a cattle pen or even a pigeon coop, let alone an elaborate royal tomb fit for a pharaoh. While retaining for himself the royal gratitude and favours that went with the title, he left the arduous work, that which was not to his liking or which was beyond his limited abilities and skills, for me to attend to.
My memories of Lord Intef are not happy ones. It was he who commanded one of his minions to take the gelding knife to me. He was a cruel man and utterly ruthless. But, in the end, I had decisively settled the score between us.
Long before that happy day it was I who designed every chamber and tunnel and funerary hall of Pharaoh Mamose’s magnificent tomb. Then I supervised and directed the builders, the masons, the artists and all the artisans that were called upon to labour in this enterprise.
Pharaoh Mamose’s outer sarcophagus was carved from a gigantic single block of granite. It was sufficiently commodious to encompass a nest of seven silver coffins, which fitted neatly one within the other. The innermost of these was intended to contain Pharaoh’s embalmed corpse. All this added up to a burden of massive bulk and weight. This had to be transported in great reverence two thousand yards from the funerary temple on the banks of the Nile River to the tomb in the foothills of the Valley of the Kings.
To accomplish this transit I surveyed and built a canal that ran as straight as any arrow from the bank of the Nile across the riparian plain of black soil to the entrance of the royal tomb. This canal was wide enough and deep enough to accept Pharaoh’s funeral barge.
Pharaoh Mamose had been overtaken by destiny and had never lain a single day in his tomb before the Hyksos drove us out of our land. When we embarked on the long exodus we were commanded by his wife, Queen Lostris, to carry his embalmed body with us.
Many years later, Queen Lostris ordered me to design and build another tomb in the savage Nubian wilderness thousands of leagues further south. That was where Mamose now lay.
The original tomb in the Valley of the Kings had stood empty all these years. More importantly for my plans, the canal that I had built from the funerary temple on the bank of the Nile to the royal tomb was still in an excellent state of repair. I knew this because only a short while previously I had ridden along the bank with my two little princesses to show them their father’s empty tomb. I must admit that neither of them showed much interest in this lesson in the history of their own family.
Even after all these years I was able to recall the precise dimensions of Mamose’s funeral barge. My memory is infallible. I never forget a fact, a figure or a face.
Now I measured the overall dimensions of our requisitioned Minoan treasure triremes. Then I ordered Zaras to anchor briefly in calm water, while I swam down to the trireme’s keel and measured the amount of water she drew with her full cargo of bullion in the hold. These measurements varied somewhat from ship to ship.
I returned to the surface well pleased with the results of my investigations. Now I was able to compare the dimensions of Pharaoh Mamose’s funeral barge with those of the captured triremes. The funerary canal would accommodate the transit of the largest of my triremes with ten cubits to spare on each side of the hull, and with clearance of fifteen cubits of water under the keel. What was even more encouraging was that all those years ago I had lined the canal with granite blocks and I had designed a system of
He was responsible for the upkeep of the tombs of all the pharaohs past and present, living and dead. But much more importantly he was also the official architect of the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.
My Lord Intef had never been gifted with any creative skills. His talents were vested more in havoc and destruction. I doubt that he could have designed a cattle pen or even a pigeon coop, let alone an elaborate royal tomb fit for a pharaoh. While retaining for himself the royal gratitude and favours that went with the title, he left the arduous work, that which was not to his liking or which was beyond his limited abilities and skills, for me to attend to.
My memories of Lord Intef are not happy ones. It was he who commanded one of his minions to take the gelding knife to me. He was a cruel man and utterly ruthless. But, in the end, I had decisively settled the score between us.
Long before that happy day it was I who designed every chamber and tunnel and funerary hall of Pharaoh Mamose’s magnificent tomb. Then I supervised and directed the builders, the masons, the artists and all the artisans that were called upon to labour in this enterprise.
Pharaoh Mamose’s outer sarcophagus was carved from a gigantic single block of granite. It was sufficiently commodious to encompass a nest of seven silver coffins, which fitted neatly one within the other. The innermost of these was intended to contain Pharaoh’s embalmed corpse. All this added up to a burden of massive bulk and weight. This had to be transported in great reverence two thousand yards from the funerary temple on the banks of the Nile River to the tomb in the foothills of the Valley of the Kings.
To accomplish this transit I surveyed and built a canal that ran as straight as any arrow from the bank of the Nile across the riparian plain of black soil to the entrance of the royal tomb. This canal was wide enough and deep enough to accept Pharaoh’s funeral barge.
Pharaoh Mamose had been overtaken by destiny and had never lain a single day in his tomb before the Hyksos drove us out of our land. When we embarked on the long exodus we were commanded by his wife, Queen Lostris, to carry his embalmed body with us.
Many years later, Queen Lostris ordered me to design and build another tomb in the savage Nubian wilderness thousands of leagues further south. That was where Mamose now lay.
The original tomb in the Valley of the Kings had stood empty all these years. More importantly for my plans, the canal that I had built from the funerary temple on the bank of the Nile to the royal tomb was still in an excellent state of repair. I knew this because only a short while previously I had ridden along the bank with my two little princesses to show them their father’s empty tomb. I must admit that neither of them showed much interest in this lesson in the history of their own family.
Even after all these years I was able to recall the precise dimensions of Mamose’s funeral barge. My memory is infallible. I never forget a fact, a figure or a face.
Now I measured the overall dimensions of our requisitioned Minoan treasure triremes. Then I ordered Zaras to anchor briefly in calm water, while I swam down to the trireme’s keel and measured the amount of water she drew with her full cargo of bullion in the hold. These measurements varied somewhat from ship to ship.
I returned to the surface well pleased with the results of my investigations. Now I was able to compare the dimensions of Pharaoh Mamose’s funeral barge with those of the captured triremes. The funerary canal would accommodate the transit of the largest of my triremes with ten cubits to spare on each side of the hull, and with clearance of fifteen cubits of water under the keel. What was even more encouraging was that all those years ago I had lined the canal with granite blocks and I had designed a system of
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