The Egyptian by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 4th, 2022 in Stories

King, ruled and sat in judgment there on the King’s throne with the leather scrolls before him so that life in Thebes went on as before, only the false Pharaoh was absent, and Thebes did not miss him.

Furthermore, Queen Nefertiti returned to Thebes for the birth of her next child, for she dared not be brought to bed without the help of the physicians and black sorcerers of Thebes, and she bore her third daughter, whose name was Ankhesenaten and who would in time be Queen. To ease the birth, also her head had been elongated long and narrow with the help of the sorcerers, and when the princesses grew up, all the court ladies and all women in Egypt who wished to be in the fashion and to imitate the styles of the court, took to wearing false backs to their heads to make their heads appear longer. But the princesses themselves kept their heads close shaven to show off the fine shape of their skulls. Artists also admired it, and they carved and drew and painted numerous portraits of them without suspecting that this distinctive feature was but a result of the magic of black sorcerers.

When Nefertiti had borne her child, she returned to Akhetaten and took up her residence in the palace, which in the meantime had been set in habitable order. She left the Pharaoh’s women’s house behind in Thebes, being vexed at having given birth to three daughters and unwilling to let Pharaoh waste his virility on the couches of other wives. Akhenaten was content to have it so, for he was weary of fulfilling his duty in the women’s house and wanted no one but Nefertiti, as all who beheld her beauty could well understand. Not even her third confinement had dimmed her loveliness but she seemed younger and more radiant than ever before. But whether this change in her was due to the city of Akhetaten or to the black men’s witchcraft, I cannot say.

Thus Akhetaten rose from the wilderness in a single year, and palm trees waved proudly along its splendid streets, pomegranates ripened and reddened in the gardens, and in the fish pools floated the rosy flowers of the lotus. The whole city was but a blossoming garden, for the houses were of wood, airy and fragile as pavilions, and their columns of palm and reed were light and brightly coloured. The gardens entered the very houses, for the paintings on the walls were of palms and sycamores swaying by the breezes of eternal spring. On the floors were beds of reeds and colourful swimming fish, as well as ducks with

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brilliant wings rising in flight. In this city, nothing was lacking to rejoice the heart of man, but tame gazelles wandered in the gardens, while in the streets the lightest of carriages were drawn by fiery horses adorned with ostrich plumes, and the kitchens were fragrant with pungent spices brought from every part of the world.

Thus the City of the Heavens was completed, and when autumn returned and swallows emerged from the mud to dart in restless flocks above the rising waters, Pharaoh Akhenaten consecrated the land and the city to Aten. He consecrated the boundary stones in four directions of the wind, and on each of these stones was the representation of Aten shedding the benediction of his rays on Pharaoh and the house of Pharaoh, and in the inscription of each stone Pharaoh vowed never again to set foot beyond the land of Aten. For this ceremony, the workmen laid stone-paved roads to the four quarters of the land so that Pharaoh might drive to the borders in his golden carriage, attended by his family in their carriages and chairs, and also by the members of his court in their carriages and chairs, strewing flowers as they went while flutes and stringed instruments sounded in praise of Aten.

Not even in death did Pharaoh intend to leave the city of Aten, but when the building of it was finished, he sent his workmen to the eastern hills within the consecrated land of Aten, to hew out eternal resting places so that they found work enough to last their whole lives through and were never able to return to their birthplaces. But they did not greatly desire to return to their old homes any more but became resigned and accustomed to dwelling in their own town in Pharaoh’s shadow — for grain was measured to them abundantly, and oil never depleted from their jars, and their wives bore them healthy children.

When Pharaoh had decided to build tombs for himself and his nobles and to present one to each of his distinguished followers who would live in the City of the Heavens with him, and who believed in Aten, he also built a House of Death outside the city so that the bodies of those who died in Akhetaten would be preserved forever. To this end, he summoned from Thebes those embalmers and corpse washers who held the foremost place in their craft without asking about their faith — since the embalmers and corpse washers cannot have any faith for the sake of their profession, and only their skill matters. They came down

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