Tutankhamun and the Daughter of Ra

CHAPTER 1-2

His father had been wrong. The crowns were magic. He could feel their strength pouring into him and he spoke the words of a pharaoh in a voice that surprised even him because of its strength and depth.

Ankhesenpaaten, his Great Royal Wife, his Queen, would be having a simultaneous ceremony in the Temple of Mut, Amun-Ra’s consort. She would be surrounded by goddesses as he was surrounded by gods. She would be robed by priestesses clad in the robes of goddesses. The crown of Mut’s magic feathers would be placed on her head. Did she feel the changes he felt? But then he remembered that this was all not so strange to her. She had been through something of the kind when she reached puberty. She had been crowned the consort of her father — but not Great Royal Wife for all her royal blood. Never before had she been Great Royal Wife, Divine Queen. How would it be to go to bed with her, he thought. It was a relief to him that she at least would know what to do! His thoughts were just beginning to stray along these lines when he felt a touch on his elbow and knew that he had missed his cue.

Amun-Ra was granting him immortality and his thoughts were straying to an image of his sister-wife naked!

The double crown was on his head, the golden cobra at his brow, Amun, the Hidden Wind, was breathing into his nostrils the breath of eternal life. He drove the image of his sister from his mind with difficulty.

“Eternal Life?” What did it mean? He could not envisage it no matter how many texts about it his tutors made him read.

“It is not everlasting life,” his father had once said in answer to a question. “Though that too is granted. It is life without time, without place, without extension in any sense. It is now and yet not now. It is here and yet not here. It is everywhere and yet nowhere. It is neither before nor after ...”

At this point the prince had given up listening. He regretted that now. For it was to be his — and he did not understand what it was.

Later, sitting on the throne that the great Thutmosid kings had sat upon, the god Amenhotep II, and his own grandfather, the greatest of them all, he forgot to ponder such questions and wondered rather how he would be able to carry out all the things that were expected of him as Pharaoh in this life.

Priests impersonating the hermaphrodite god of the Great River, the river that gave Khemet life, were twining the lily and the papyrus, the plant symbols of the south and of the north lands, around the legs of his throne, and he spoke the words of invocation:

“Master of vegetation, Lord of the fishes and the birds, great water god whose powers transform a dead land to a living, be at our side, now and forever.”

Without the swelling of the waters, without the floods that deposited the rich black mud, his country would be lost. A pharaoh must surely be more careful about his relationship with Hapi than with any other god. Yet, Tutankhaten thought, a slight frown creasing his smooth young forehead, there had not been famine at the time of Akhenaten and he knew for a fact that Akhenaten had refused to honour the river god, though he had not attacked his sanctuaries with such diligence as he had those of Amun.

Tutankhaten had been gripping the two sceptres in his hands so tightly that his fingers ached. He loosened his hold slightly and one almost slipped from his grasp.

It was the one still embellished with the sign of the Aten. The inscription read:

the face of the king, son of Amun, dazzles like Aten when he shines.

“I’ll never give it up,” he whispered to his heart, and held it firm again. Ay and Horemheb had not declared the Aten anathema as Akhenaten had Amun. All ancient gods were to be venerated and the Aten was no exception. But, young as he was, he suspected that if he showed an inclination to follow his father’s way too closely he might not live long. He did not understand all the implications of the changes that had so rapidly occurred, but he was shrewd enough and alert enough to know that he was walking on a glass floor, and if he was clumsy and took one step without the guidance of these two men, his whole world would collapse under his feet.

He thought about Ankhesenpaaten again, but this time remembering the look in her eyes when she was told by Ay and General Horemheb she was to be Great Royal Wife. There was nothing of the joy and gratitude he would have expected — only a look that suggested she was weighing up the pros and cons coldly and suspiciously. She bowed to him as her future husband and king, but her eyes did not meet his, and he was shocked by the suppressed anger he sensed in her tense body. He had never been as close to her as to his other half-sisters, but he had not suspected that she hated him. Did she hate him? Or were the Vizier Ay and the stern General the focus of her rage?

As the priests intoned the ancient words over him and clothed him in his coronation robes, he tried to remember every detail of that extraordinary confrontation.

Ankhesenpaaten had been seated by the window looking out into the garden when they arrived. She stood up immediately and faced them. She ignored him from the start and it was as though he and Ay did not exist. Her eyes went straight to the General. Nothing was said for what seemed a long time. The two looked into each other’s eyes and Tutankhaten, who had felt so uncomfortable in that silence, now knew why. Though nothing could be seen it was as though the two were fighting a duel. Ay put his hand on his shoulder as though to hold him back from a battle. What was this palpable hatred between the young princess and the weathered General? Tutankhaten was so ignorant of the power struggle that had destroyed his father that he could not understand it. To him the General had been the one to punish those who had used violence against his family. He remembered that his mother Kia, who had lived in obscurity away from the court for some time, had been recalled and reinstated honourably — but only after the arrangements for his marriage to Ankhesenpaaten had been completed. He remembered something now he had overlooked at the time. He barely knew his mother for he had been brought up at the court — either with his grandparents at Per-Hay, or in the beautiful City of the Sun, Akhetaten. But he was present when she was told who was to be his Great Royal Wife, and he knew now her reaction had been unfavourable. A daughter of Nefertiti could never be close to her heart.

They were intoning his titles.

“King of Upper and Lower Egypt; Neb-kheper-Ra, becoming like Ra every day; Son of the Sun; Tutankhamun, living image of Amun; Ruler of Abedju, the sacred city of Osiris; Lord of Diadems: Beloved of Amun, Son of Amun, born of Mut, Lady of Heaven ...”

He had been told that his name would be changed from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun, but until it was said in the great echoing hall, accompanied by trumpets, he had not grasped it.

At last he stood alone in the most sacred sanctuary of all before the shrine of Amun-Ra himself, standing in golden splendour in his golden solar boat.

At this moment he knew that Ankhesenpaaten, now named Ankhesenamun, would be in the sanctuary of Mut in the southern temple of Ipet-Resut. She would be raising her arms to the goddess as he was to the god. She would be speaking the words from the timeless texts as he was speaking them. She would also be clad in fine linen, weighed down by jewelled necklaces and belts, a crown upon her head. He felt strangely as though they were together in one place, though many leagues separated them. Amun and Mut, great god, the Hidden One, the Breath of Life, and his consort, the Mother, the bearer of all living beings, seemed to stand side by side, and he and his Great Royal Wife were taken into their embrace and made their instruments upon earth.

He looked into the blue lapis lazuli eyes of the golden god and it seemed to him they were no longer jewels but living eyes that could see into his soul. He was seized with terror and longed to flee, but his limbs seemed paralysed and he could not move. He could not even lower his gaze but felt the eyes of the god boring into his until he was nearly fainting from the strain of it. He found tears flowing down his cheeks.

His heart cried out many wild things — but no words passed his lips but the ones he had learned by rote and was expected to say. In his heart he pleaded for forgiveness for what his father had done — and what he had done under his influence. He swore to uphold the worship of Amun-Ra and never let it die. He swore a thousand vows he later wished he had not, but the relentless stare of the god was torture. He wondered if it was too late. Would the god extract vengeance for what had passed? He wished he had not been chosen Pharaoh. Not only would he be the god’s instrument on earth, but he would be in the god’s power to an extent no other being on earth would be. He would be bound in all the nine parts of his being and there would be no escape — ever. Not even in death.

It seemed to him the god was becoming ugly and distorted as the gold shimmered through his tears. Darkness seemed to be closing in around him and he felt himself falling.

And then he knew no more.

The nine-year-old boy had fallen forward in a faint, his crown dislodged and lying at the god’s feet.

The High Priest fetched him out.

No word was ever said about it.

Sacred water and incense revived him, and, dazed and only half conscious, he was put into his golden carrying chair and taken out through the many doors and gates of the dark temple into the blazing sunlight of the city. There the crowds surged forward and fell at his feet. Bewildered and unhappy the child stared out from beneath the double crown at the thousands upon thousands of people screaming and shouting his name. Trumpets blared. Drums rolled. Petals rained down upon him.

He could see the sweat pouring down the necks of the high nobles who, for this momentous occasion, had vied with each other to take the place of slaves and carry the new pharaoh triumphantly to meet his Great Royal Wife.

From the southern sanctuary of Mut, Ankhesenamun was also being carried — but she did not look into the faces of those who crowded round her and screamed her name. She looked above their heads to the sky. A cloud had crossed the sun and its long rays could be seen clearly reaching down towards her.

Quietly she bowed her head and murmured the words of a prayer to the Aten she had learned at her mother’s knee:

“How manifold are thy works. They are mysterious in men’s sight. Thou sole god, like to whom there is none other. Thou didst create the earth after thy heart, being alone, even all men, herds and flocks, whatever is upon earth, creatures that walk upon feet, which soar aloft flying with their wings, the countries of Khor and of Kush, and the land of Khemet. Thou settest every man in his place, and makest their sustenance, each one possessing his food, and his term of life counted; tongues made diverse in speech and their characters likewise; their complexions distinguished, for thou has distinguished country and country ...

Thou makest the seasons in order to prosper all that thou has made, the winter to cool them, the summer heat that they may taste of thee. Thou has made the sky distant to shine in it and to see all that thou hast made, being alone and shining in thy various forms as the living Aten, appearing gloriously and gleaming, being both distant and near ...”