The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

and see dreams for there was great wisdom in this medicine. Large poppy fields grew in Babylon, and these fields with their multi-coloured flowers were a strange and terrifying sight, and they were called the Fields of Gods, as Marduk’s Tower and the Gate owned them.

The priests also processed hemp seeds in secret ways and turned them into medicine that made men fearless of pain and death, and if a man consumed it often and plenty, he did not need earthly women any more, but took heavenly pleasure with dream women, brought to his arms by this medicine. This way I gathered a lot of knowledge during my stay in Babylon, but what amazed me most was the skill of the priests to spell rock crystal into transparent glass that magnified things when seen through it. I would not have believed this if I hadn’t held these glasses in my own hands and seen things through them, but I do not know and the priests could not explain and I guess there is no one who can explain why these crystals held such powers. The mightiest and richest used these glasses when their eyesight got worse so that even in their old age they could read clay tablets and use their seals without mistakes.

But a yet bigger miracle was how the rays of the sun when shining through these crystals could light up dry dung or wood dust or dry leaves, so that as long as there was sunlight, a fire could be made without a fire drill. These crystals made me believe that the magic of Babylonian sorcerers was greater than the magic of the sorcerers of any other country, and I had great respect for their priests. These glasses were also unbelievably expensive and cost many times their weight in gold, but seeing how much they pleased me, the royal dentist gave one to me. In return, I gave him a cedar wood door for his house, and on this door I let the artist paint in Egyptian style the King and him pulling a tooth out of King’s mouth with great skill and the King granting him great rewards, for there are artists in Babylon who can paint in Egyptian style; and wood is so expensive there, that a door is given as an inheritance by the father to the son through generations, and when moving to a new house a rich and noble man takes his door with him.

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The art of prophecy practiced by the Babylonian priests was also of great interest to me. Because I was in King’s favour and the royal physicians talked favourably of me, I was allowed to study the art of prophecy in the Tower. This way I learned to read the auguries in the sheep liver, and within the liver how to distinguish mountains and rivers, streets, gates and towers, heads, limbs, ears, fingers and everything else; the deepest wells included, which was very useful to a doctor for having some good luck — he could see the patient’s ailment and remedy from a sacrificed sheep liver without even examining the patient. The Babylonian doctors used this method often when they were unsure of the cause of the disease, and it could greatly improve the doctor’s self-confidence if the patient’s sickness made him confused. I kept this in my mind.

But the most definite information of what is and what will be, one can read from the fiery writing on the sky at night. I did not try to learn to spell this writing for it takes years and decades to learn, and the astronomers were old men and their beards were grey and eyes weary from staring at the stars, and yet they argued amongst themselves and never agreed on the meaning of the stars’ positions, so I thought this learning was useless. But I learned from the priests that everything taking place on earth also takes place in the sky, and there is no thing so small and low that could not be seen from the stars in advance — not to mention greater ones, if one just has learned enough of the writing on the sky. To me this learning was more believable and understandable than many other learnings about men and gods, and it made life easy as it teaches how everything happens according to unshakable laws and no one can change his destiny — for who could change the positions of stars and order their movements. Giving it a good thought, this learning is the most natural and understandable of all learnings and is equal to the wishes of the heart; even if the Babylonians talk about liver while the Egyptians talk about heart, but this difference is only a way of speech and nothing else.

This wonderful knowledge made such an impression on me, that for a while I seriously contemplated staying in Babylon to learn reading the stars and giving up my travels and everything else to spend years and decades to understand the writing of the stars, for I understood that a man’s life could serve no higher purpose than learning this skill. I told this to Kaptah, but Kaptah said, “What use it is for a man to spend the years of his life peeping to the skies until tallow flows from his eyes. If

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