Tutankhamun Uncovered by Michael J Marfleet Page A

he had not expected violation. The shock of such discriminate abuse almost reduced him to tears. He turned to the guards once again. “Bring my architect to this place. I order a full restoration that is to be completed before my next visit within the year. Mark that you remember!”
    Ankhesenamun herself had the greater cause for anger. These desecrated statues were the images of her father he who had cherished her and her sisters as infants. It was true that he had not been a handsome man, but the other qualities he possessed far outweighed his physical shortcomings. The family had been extremely close. He had never allowed his duties as regent to interfere with the normal activities of the family unit.
    Ankhesenamun’s personal beauty and her strength of will she owed to her mother a woman of outstanding beauty herself, with perfect physical endowments and a great mind, she carried a presence with her that gained the dutiful respect of all who knew her, and many of those who did not. For the first time in living memory, the people’s queen had become a virtual deity in parallel with her husband.
    Fond memories, happy times, until steadily, one by one, ‘the sickness’ had taken them.
    She recalled a foreboding darkness. In an instant at midday the sun, the life giver, had become extinguished. For a few chilling moments the entire population of the city fearfully contemplated the premature night. Then, equally as suddenly, the sun’s light had returned, just as brilliant and comfortably warming as before.
    But the damage was done. A pervasive sense of panic took hold of the people. For some reason Aten was displeased. He had given them a demonstration of his power to return the land to darkness and cold at his will. The hitherto accepted philanthropy of this god was not so dependable after all. The people’s confidence in the Aten had become irrevocably breached.
    There was worse to come. It came swiftly on the heels of one of the greatest inundations for years. All knew the Nile to be bountiful. In living memory she had never failed them. This year the people were rejoicing at the sight of a flood greater than any previously witnessed. The larger the area flooded, the more extensive and prolific the future harvest. But the water bore within it a hidden, sinister bounty, the like of which they had not before encountered. An unrelenting, evil humour pervaded the land. It visited every household. Almost every family was touched by it in some way the royal family as much, perhaps more, than any other. It was as if the Nile herself, in fear of his power, had conspired with the gods against Aten to render his city lifeless.
    It was a sign. This was a bad place. With so many dead and, ultimately, the deaths of the king and queen themselves, complete and permanent evacuation of the city, and abandonment of worship of the Aten, became an inevitability. To those people who remained alive and their new Pharaoh, Smenkhkare himself stricken with ‘the sickness’ but, although very weak, apparently surviving it was the only way to appease the old gods.
    By the time the dead king’s tomb had been sealed, Akhetaten had become quite literally a monumental ghost town. The new Pharaoh and his entourage, all present at the tomb sealing, left the area by the northern route, skirting the perimeter of the city until they reached the royal flotilla waiting to take them downstream to Memphis.
    Smenkhkare would never return alive.
    Tutankhamun led his queen on, out and away from the palace and into one of the streets that took them south, parallel with the river, past the tall pylons of the family chapel. After a while they reached the compound that enclosed the house and grounds that had belonged to the governor of the southern region Tutankhamun’s vizier. The guards pushed open the great cedar gates to allow the royal couple to enter.
    Here Tutankhamun had played as a boy. The garden was now dead and replaced by dried scrub, but the