Next to that was stamped another symbol, this one representing Tutankhamen.
They immediately kicked down the door and tore away the bricks with their bare hands, then entered a narrow hall.
A sloping corridor led to the burial chamber. Rocks littered the floor. A piece of wood decorated with gold leaf showed the
image of Queen Tiye, known to be the mother of the “heretic king” Akhenaten.
At the end of a hallway was the main chamber. It was heavily damaged by water, but the seals of Tutankhamen could be seen
everywhere on the walls.
A casket lay on the floor.
Once it had rested atop a wooden platform, but time had rotted that away, and the coffin had toppled over. The lid had popped
open, and when Davis looked inside, he was delighted to see a mummy staring back at him.
Portions of the bandaging were unwrapped. Davis could see hair and teeth and the remnants of a nose.
He plucked a hair, then wiggled a tooth, trying to determine the mummy’s condition. Not surprisingly, it gave way in his hands.
Davis was dismayed but only for an instant. Not even waiting for Ayrton’s help, he struggled to lift the mummy into his arms
and carried it out into the sunshine as if it were a small child.
He stood there, dazzled, as tourists stared at him in utter shock and amazement.
After confirming that the mummy was a woman, Davis made a judgment: based on the evidence, he was holding the remains of Queen
Tiye. He was now
convinced
that the tomb was that of Tutankhamen. All he had to do was dig deeper, and he was certain he would find the pharaoh himself.
Standing in the center of the Valley of the Kings, cradling a thirty-three-hundred-year-old woman, Theodore Davis was triumphant
and flushed with acumen and success.
He was also dead wrong about everything.
1912
CARTER AND CARNARVON weren’t the only Egyptologists to publish a book that year.
Carter leafed through the pages of Theodore Davis’s
The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatankhamanou,
and he was more convinced than ever that the elusive tomb of Tut was still out there somewhere in the valley.
Carter was “quite sure there were areas, covered by the dumps of previous excavators, which had not properly been examined.”
Looking forward to the day when Davis would abandon his concession, and he and Carnarvon might return to the valley, Carter
added: “I will state that we had definite hopes of finding one particular king, and that king was Tut.Ankh.Amen.”
In addition to finding Queen Tiye, Davis’s workers had excavated an ancient trash heap. Inside they found eight large sealed
pots bearing Tutankhamen’s name. As it turned out, the jars were filled with embalming supplies and leftovers from a long-ago
feast, along with floral collars stitched with berries and flowers.
Very likely, this feast took place after Tut’s burial. The flowers were a sort that bloomed between March and April, offering
a clue as to when this mysterious pharaoh had died.
Carter lit a cigarette and reread the descriptions of the tomb in which Davis purported to have found Tut. In his opinion,
the gold-flaked and alabaster objects present inside that tomb were of too low a quality for a pharaoh’s burial chamber. Davis
was a fool not to see as much himself.
More likely they had been placed there years later, when the tomb was reopened. Owing to the growing connection between Amarna
and the tomb, it seemed plausible that Queen Tiye had been relocated from Amarna to the valley at some point after her death.
No, Tut hadn’t been found. But other discoveries in the valley—jars of embalming fluid, the faience cup, remnants of a final
meal bearing inscriptions showing it had been part of Tut’s burial feast, seals bearing his symbol stamped on tomb doorways—clearly
showed that he had existed.
“To explain the reasons for this belief of ours, we must turn to the published pages of Mr. Davis’s excavations,” Carter went
on to write. “Davis claimed that he had found the burial place of Tut.Ankh.Amen. The theory was quite untenabl…. We had thus
three distinct pieces of evidence: the faience cup found beneath the rock, the gold foil from the small pit tomb, and this
important cache of funerary material. Which seemed definitely to connect Tut.Ankh.Amen with this particular part of the valley.”
Now all Carter needed was an opportunity to find it. “With all this evidence before us, we were thoroughly convinced in our
own minds that the tomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen was still to be found, and that it ought to be situated not far from the center of
the valley.”
But he needed Davis to abandon his concession.
Two years later, the American did just that.
February 8, 1915
LORD CARNARVON SNATCHED UP Theodore Davis’s concession without hesitation. Just like that, after eight years of waiting, Carter
was back in the valley. He finally began scouring the area for his long-hoped-for virgin tomb on February 8, 1915.
When Davis had walked away from his concession, saying that the valley was “exhausted,” few members of the Egyptology community
disagreed. “We remembered, however, that a hundred years earlier Belzoni had made a similar claim and refused to be convinced.
We had made a thorough excavation of the site and remained convinced that there were areas, covered by the dumps of previous
excavators, which had never been properly examined,” wrote Carter.
Carter clung to the belief that Davis’s evidence was incredibly slipshod and that he’d made assumptions about the discovered
mummy’s identity that couldn’t be verified. “Clearly enough, we saw that very heavy work lay before us and that many thousands
of tons of surface debris would have to be removed before we could find anything. But there was always a chance that a tomb
might reward us in the end, and that was always a chance we were willing to take.”
So February 8, 1915, should have been a triumphant day for Carter, as what amounted to the pinnacle of his life’s work was
about to begin.
There was just one problem:
the world was at war.
All digging in the Valley of the Kings had been stopped. Even worse, orders arrived from the British army drafting Carter
into service.
How dare the venal, tawdry modern world intrude on his search for an ancient king.
1324 BC
THE BONFIRE LIT UP THE NIGHT, its crackling flames reflecting off the pale tents of Egypt’s great army. Tut sat on his traveling
throne, with sword-carrying sentries on either side. He was close enough to feel the fire’s warmth but distant enough that
he was safe from any drunken soldier who might suddenly decide to settle a grudge with the pharaoh.
Tonight such a confrontation was unlikely. The men were beyond euphoric after slaughtering a hated enemy. Blood still flecked
many of their faces; desert grime ringed their eyes.
Tut had drunk more wine than was prudent, but he didn’t feel it that much. As he strapped a cloak about his shoulders to stave
off the cold night air, Tut sensed the men watching him. He detected a new respect. Their eyes said that today, on the field
of battle, he had behaved as a true king.
Women also ringed the fire, some of them quite beautiful. Several were camp followers who had endured the long trek from Thebes.
But many were captured enemy women—the prettiest ones—bound at the wrists after having been dragged from their homes. Their
faces were masks of terror, shame, and loss. They had already seen their husbands and sons slain. Now, once the fire died,
they would be passed from man to man—a fate that made many wish that they had died too. Soon, a few would get their wish and
go to the afterworld.
Tut felt one of the women gazing at him. Across the fire sat a solitary maiden with the most beautiful hair.
Someone’s daughter,
thought Tut. She was his age, perhaps younger. Raven hair flowed down her back. Dark brown eyes. Full lips and a strong chin.
His stomach felt funny, a sensation that he at first blamed on the wine. But now he knew it was nerves, the same insecurity
that had threatened to paralyze him before battle. Tut shrugged it off and turned away from the gorgeous girl who dared to
stare at him. He forced himself to think of Ankhesenpaaten, who was pregnant with their second child. His queen, his lover,
his friend since childhood.
But then Tut found himself staring at the female prisoner. The girl looked even more desirable than before, tossing the ringlets
of her hair to better show her profile. If she would have to submit to an Egyptian, she clearly preferred to spend the night
with a pharaoh.
He watched as the woman stood, the firelight revealing the sort of full-breasted figure that he had long coveted. Her skirt
rode high on her thighs, leaving Tut’s imagination free to wander, which it did. How could it not? He was far from home and
had just won a great battle.
I am the pharaoh,
Tut reminded himself.
What does it matter what others think? Let my wife be angry with me. My father had lovers. So did my father’s father, and
his father before him. What does it matter if I take this woman to my bed—or take her for my wife, for that matter?
Tut moved forward until he was sitting on the edge of his seat. By the look in her eyes, it was clear that the girl sensed
that she was about to be beckoned. Her hard look had softened.
Tut rose and stared at her. He could feel a deep and powerful longing. He studied the girl—her face, lips, every curve—and
then he turned and walked to his tent.
Alone.
He remained faithful to Ankhe.
1324 BC
ANKHESENPAATEN STAGGERED into the throne room holding her bulging belly in both hands. She was six months into her second
pregnancy.
Each morning she had said a quiet prayer to Amun that this time he would let the baby live. Those prayers had been answered
so far, but now something was happening, something new that had her terrified.
“Tut,” she whispered from the doorway. “Tut, please.”
Tut’s advisers stood in a semicircle before his throne, midway through their morning discussion about an upcoming invasion
of Nubia. The pharaoh wore just a royal kilt and a decorative collar, for it was summer in Thebes, and at midmorning the temperature
was already stifling. When Tut had decided to move the capital back to Thebes, he had not anticipated such extremes of weather.
At the sound of Ankhesenpaaten’s voice his head turned toward the doorway. Then he walked quickly to his queen, not caring
that his advisers might disapprove.
“What is it, Ankhe?” he asked. After he had returned from war, the two of them had become closer than ever.
“Tut, I can’t feel anything.”
Tut glanced back at his advisers, who were trying—and failing—to somehow pretend that they weren’t smug about the conversation.
“I’m sure the baby is just sleeping,” Tut said in a low voice.
Ankhesenpaaten shook her head. “It’s been a whole day. Usually he moves inside me all the time. Here,” she said, taking Tut’s
hand and placing it against the curve of her abdomen. “Feel that?”
Tut nodded. “That’s his foot,” she told him. “He normally kicks all the time, but that foot hasn’t moved today.”
She suddenly gasped in pain and crumpled to the floor. The advisers rushed to the pharaoh and his queen.
“Guard!” Aye yelled. “Send for the royal physician.”
1324 BC
ANKHESENPAATEN’S FACE HAD TURNED a sickly shade of pale. She cried out as wave after wave of excruciating pain coursed through
her body.
“What is it?” asked Tut, holding her hand tightly. “What is happening?”
“The baby is coming, Tut. Right now.”
And at those words, Ankhesenpaaten began to cry. She knew that no child should enter the world so early in a pregnancy. There
was no way it would live.
It was as if Tut and his advisers did not exist now. Alone with the child, she curled into a ball on the floor and sobbed
bitterly, pressing her face into the cool, smooth stone.
“I am so ashamed,” she whispered.
“My queen… ,” said Tut.
“I am not worthy of being called your queen,” she said, sitting up straight and looking deeply into Tut’s eyes. The bile in
her throat rose as she stared at the three advisers. “I cannot give you an heir. Don’t you see? I am incapable.”
The advisers said nothing to this, but none would have disagreed. Thanks to their spies within the royal household, the aging
men knew that she referred to them as the Serpents. The girl was arrogant and disrespectful, but she was also very smart.
“Don’t speak nonsense,” Tut said in an unconvincing voice. This was the moment he had feared since Ankhesenpaaten had announced
that she was with child again. “We’ll put the child in my burial tomb. Much of it is already finished.”
“You’re not listening to me,” said Ankhesenpaaten, just as a contraction sent a new wave of pain through her body.
“She’s right,” Horemheb pronounced. “She sees things clearly.”
Tut got to his feet and stood toe-to-toe with the general. “Do you dare tell the pharaoh that he is in error?”
Horemheb didn’t back down all the way. “No, sir. I am merely agreeing with your queen. You heard her. She is telling you to
take another wife. Listen to her.”
Tut bent to the floor and scooped up Ankhesenpaaten. Lovingly, he kissed her cheek as she wrapped her arms around his neck
and he carried her to the royal bedroom.
“I will deal with you later,” Tut said to Horemheb. “Egypt is a land of many generals. Do not forget it.”
Then, to Aye, he added, “Send the doctor to the bedroom. Do it quickly, Scribe.”
1324 BC
TUT STRIPPED DOWN at his bedside, letting his kilt fall to the floor for a servant to clean in the morning.