spirits as he realized that the sarcophagus was empty. The massive
granite lid had been lifted from its seat, and flung aside with such
violence that it had cracked across its width and now lay in two pieces
on the floor beside the coffin.
They moved forward slowly, the bitter taste of disappointment mingling
with the dust upon their tongues, until they could look down into the
open sarcophagus. It contained only the shattered fragments of the four
canopic jars. These vessels had been carved from alabaster to contain
the entrails, liver and other internal organs of the king. The broken
lids were decorated with the heads of gods and fabulous creatures from
beyond the grave.
'Empty!' whispered Royan. 'The body of the king has gone.'
Over the following days, while they photographed the murals and packed
the statues of the eight gods and goddesses from the funeral gallery,
Royan and Nicholas discussed and argued the disappearance of the royal
mummy from its sarcophagus.
'The seals on the gate of the tomb were intact,' Royan pointed out
repeatedly.
'There is probably an explanation for that,' Nicholas told her. 'Taita
himself might have removed the treasure and the body. Many times in the
writing of the seventh scroll he laments the waste of such treasure. He
points out that it could have been much better spent in protecting and
nurturing the nation and its people.'
'No, it does not make sense,' Royan argued, 'to go to such length as to
dam the river and tunnel under the pool, to build this elaborate tomb,
and then to remove and destroy the king's mummy. Taita was always a
logical person. In his own way he revered the gods of Egypt. It shows in
all his writings. He would never have flouted the religious traditions
in which he believed so strongly. Some thing about this tomb does not
ring true for me - the mysterious and almost offhanded disappearance of
the body, even the paintings and the inscriptions up on the walls.'
'I agree with you about the missing corpse, but what do you find
illogical about the decorations?' Nicholas wanted to know.
'Well, the paintings first.' She indicated the image of Isis with a wave
of her hand. 'They are lovely, and they are the work of a competent
classical artist, but they are hackneyed and stylized in form and choice
of colour. The figures are stiff and wooden - they do not move and
dance.
They lack that spark of genius that we were shown in the tomb of Queen
Lostris where the original scrolls in their alabaster jars were hidden.'
Nicholas considered the murals thoughtfully. I see what you mean. Even
the murals in the tomb of Tanus at the monastery are in a different
class from these.'
'Exactly! she said forcefully. 'Those were the paintings of Taita
himself These are not. They were done by one of his hacks.' , 'What
else is there about the inscriptions that you don't like?'
'Have you ever heard of another tomb that did not have the text of the
Book of the Dead inscribed upon its walls, or that did not depict the
dead person's journey through the seven pylons to reach the paradise
beyond?'
