The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare Read online

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  The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare

  By Max Overton

  Writers Exchange E-Publishing

  http://www.writers-exchange.com

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  The Amarnan Kings, Book 2: Scarab - Smenkhkare

  Copyright 2011, 2016 Max Overton

  Writers Exchange E-Publishing

  PO Box 372

  ATHERTON QLD 4883

  AUSTRALIA

  Cover design by: Julie Napier

  Published by Writers Exchange E-Publishing

  http://www.writers-exchange.com

  ISBN 978-1-921636-50-9

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

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  Contents

  Dedication

  Who's Who and What's What in Scarab - Smenkhkare

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  The Main Characters in Scarab-Smenkhkare

  Gods of the Scarab Books

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  Other Historical Books By This Publisher

  Back Cover

  Return to Contents

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  Dedication

  Dedicated to Julie Napier,

  my beloved wife and devoted reader.

  Return to Contents

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  Who's Who and What's What in Scarab - Smenkhkare

  In any novel about ancient cultures and races, some of the hardest things to get used to are the names of people and places. Often these names are unfamiliar in spelling and pronunciation. It does not help that for reasons dealt with below, the spelling, and hence the pronunciation is sometimes arbitrary. To help readers keep track of the characters in this book I have included some notes on names in the ancient Egyptian language. I hope they will be useful.

  In Ancient Egypt a person's name was much more than just an identifying label. A name meant something, it was descriptive, and a part of a person's being. For instance, Amenhotep means 'Amen is at peace', and Nefertiti means 'the beautiful one has come'. Knowledge of the true name of something gave one power over it, and in primitive societies a person's real name is not revealed to any save the chief or immediate family. A myth tells of the creator god Atum speaking the name of a thing and it would spring fully formed into existence. Another myth says the god Re had a secret name and went to extraordinary lengths to keep it secret.

  The Egyptian language, like written Arabic and Hebrew, was without vowels. This produces some confusion when ancient Egyptian words are transliterated. The god of Thebes in Egyptian reads mn , but in English this can be represented as Amen, Amon, Ammon or Amun. The form one chooses for proper names is largely arbitrary, but I have tried to keep to accepted forms where possible. King Akhenaten's birth name was Amenhotep, though this name can have various spellings depending on the author's choice. It is also sometimes seen as Amenhotpe, Amenophis, Amunhotep and Amonhotep. I have used the first of these spellings (Amenhotep) in the Scarab books, and every name that includes that of the same god is spelled Amen- or -amen. The god himself I have chosen to call Amun, largely because the word Amen can have an alternate meaning in Western religious thought. The god of the sun's disc I have called Aten, though Aton is an alternative spelling. The City of Aten I have called Akhet-Aten (the Horizon of the Aten), rather than Akhetaten as it is normally written, to distinguish it easily for readers from the similar name of its king, Akhenaten.

  The names of the kings themselves have been simplified. Egyptian pharaohs had five names, known as the Heru name, the Nebti name, the Golden Falcon name, the Prenomen and the Nomen. Only the Nomen was given at birth, the other names being coronation names. The Heru name dates from pre-dynastic times and was given to a king upon his coronation. All kings had a Heru name, but by the eighteenth dynasty it was seldom used. The Nebti name dates from the time of the unification of Egypt and shows the special relationship the king had to the vulture-goddess Nekhbet of Upper Egypt and the cobra-goddess Wadjet of Lower Egypt. The Golden Falcon name conveys the idea of eternity, as gold neither rusts nor tarnishes, and dates from the Old Kingdom. It perhaps symbolizes the reconciliation of Heru and Seth, rather than the victory of Heru over Seth as the titles are usually non-aggressive in nature.

  By the time of the eighteenth dynasty, the prenomen had become the most important coronation name, replacing the Heru name in many inscriptions. Since the eleventh dynasty, the prenomen has always contained the name of Re.

  The nomen was the birth name, and this is the name by which the kings in this book are commonly known. The birth names most common in the eighteenth dynasty were Tuthmosis and Amenhotep. Successive kings with the same birth name did not use the method we use to distinguish between them--namely numbers (Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV). In fact, the birth name ceased to be used once they became king except by family members, and the coronation prenomen distinguished them. Amenhotep (III) became Nebmaetre, and Amenhotep (IV) became Waenre.

  Another simplification has occurred with place names and titles. In the fourteenth century B.C., Egypt as a name for the country did not exist. The land around the Nile Valley and Delta was called Kemet or The Black Land by its inhabitants. Much later, Greeks called it Aigyptos from which we get Egypt. Other common terms for the country were The Two Lands (Upper and Lower Kemet), and the Land of Nine Bows (the nine traditional enemies).

  Similarly, the king of Egypt or Kemet was later known as pharaoh, but this term derives from the phrase Per-Aa which originally meant the Great House or royal palace. Over the years the meaning changed to encompass the idea of the central government, and later the person of the king himself. The Greeks changed Per-Aa to Pharaoh.

  During the eighteenth dynasty, the k
ings ruled from a city known variously as Apet, No-Amun or Waset in the Fourth province or sepat of Upper Kemet, which itself was also called Waset. This capital city the Greeks called Thebes. The worship of Amun was centered here and the city was sometimes referred to as the City of Amun. I have retained the ancient name of Waset.

  The gods of Kemet are largely known to modern readers by their Greek names; for instance, Osiris, Thoth and Horus. I have decided to keep the names as they were originally known to the inhabitants of Kemet--Asar, Djehuti and Heru. The Greek names for some unfamiliar gods can be found in the section Gods of the Scarab books .

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  Prologue

  Syria 1960

  Dr Dani Hanser climbed down from the truck and stood on the dusty road looking up at the cave. The sides of the stream valley rose in a gentle but steepening curve from the trickle of water gurgling over the rocks in the stream bed up to a narrow ledge in front of the cave entrance. A narrow path zigzagged its uneven way toward the cave and Dani's heart sank when she saw the flicker of movement in the shadows beneath the rocky overhang.

  "They've let goats into the cave, Marc," she complained. "The owners of the land assured me they wouldn't."

  A tall, young man with a full beard of chestnut hair jumped down from the bed of the truck. "So what are a few goats? We'll clear them out before the others get here." He stretched and yawned, looking around.

  The truck was parked at the end of the dirt road that led back to the Hims-Tudmur highway. Several tents of varying sizes had been set up over the past few days by the Syrian crew of the British archaeological expedition. Small two-person tents would house the members of the expedition and larger ones would contain stores, a kitchen cum dining room and the equipment necessary to run the archaeological dig over the next four months. The tents of the Syrian crew occupied a level area fifty metres upstream. Despite the reasonably cordial relations that existed between the Syrian government and the Midlands University running the dig, the predominantly Moslem crew was under orders not to fraternize with the foreigners. They worked around Dani and Marc, nodding politely if they caught a glance but otherwise ignoring them.

  "At least we have better weather this season," Marc commented. "That bloody rain we got last year drove me bonkers."

  Dani smiled. "It will be pleasant without the mud," she agreed. She gestured toward the cave. "Coming up to have a look at the dig site?"

  "Sure, though I think I have a wee bit more interest in our chamber." Marc glanced around to make sure they were not overheard. "Any news on that, by the way? I'm guessing not as we've been allowed back."

  Dani led the way up the rough track to the cave. "Well," she said over her shoulder. "The minister was a bit curious as to why we would be interested in continuing a dig that yielded so few results last season, but I spun him a yarn about how a negative result would be just as important scientifically as a definite presence. I said that if we found nothing at such a good site, it was a reasonable conclusion that the Neanderthal migration did not follow the Orontes Valley."

  "And he bought it?"

  "Yes, though I had more trouble from the university authorities back home, especially as I couldn't tell them exactly why I wanted to return. However, in the end they trusted my judgment and funded us for another year."

  "Excellent."

  Dani grunted. "Except that the minister here will be ordering more random inspections, spot checks really, at intervals. I think he's suspicious about something."

  Marc muttered an imprecation under his breath. "That's going to make it harder to work on the chamber."

  "I've had a few thoughts about that. Let's see what the inside of the cave is like first."

  A goat ran past them when they walked under the overhang, bleating as it bolted out into the bright sunlight. The interior of the cave was dry, with a thick layer of earth and dried mud extending over the entire floor. The earth was patterned with hoof prints and small mounds of dry dung. Apart from a slight farmyard smell, the goats appeared not to have done any damage. A hard-packed track disappeared into the gloomy recesses where last year's dig had taken place.

  "Damn, I forgot to bring a torch."

  Marc shrugged. "Never mind, we only really came up here to check on the chamber." He walked along the track for about twenty paces before turning and facing a sheer wall of rock. He grunted, but nodded with satisfaction. "Doesn't seem to have been disturbed."

  Dani came and stood beside him, staring at the rock face. "Only because nobody who saw it had any curiosity. That mortar we used really stands out."

  "What do you expect? Modern cement over ancient brickwork. We were lucky."

  Dani's hand went to the pocket of her jeans and she drew out a heavy object that glinted despite the dim light. "Lucky?" she whispered. "I don't think so."

  Marc glanced at her and saw the gold in her hand. "Jeez, Dani. You brought it back? I would have thought it would be in a museum back home. Can I have a look?"

  Dani hesitated then passed the object across.

  Marc examined the object in his hand. It was a large gold scarab beetle, its legs and head tucked under a carapace which was carved and lined in a way as to make the artifact extremely lifelike. He turned it over to reveal a symbol carved into the belly of the beetle, nestled between its legs. The symbol looked like a circle with lines extending from it, each one ending in a tiny hand. Marc recognized the symbol as that of the ancient Egyptian god Aten, which for some reason had been carved into the belly of the sacred scarab beetle, symbol of the god Khepri. The carving was fine and delicate, the whole a work of art.

  "This belongs in a museum, Dani. It's an incredible piece of work."

  Dani took back the scarab, clutching it tightly in her hand. "It's not going to a museum. It...it has always been in my family, Marc. Don't ask me to explain. Not yet."

  "How can it have been in your family? We only found it here last year. In fact it was in the mud beside where we found the chamber." Marc turned and looked at Dani, his forehead furrowed in puzzlement. After a moment he nodded. "All right. You tell me when you're ready."

  Dani slipped the scarab back into her pocket and pointed at the wall. "As soon as anybody with a bit of technical know-how sees that they will know that's artificial. My idea was to put up one of the larger tents in here, ostensibly so we don't have to cart everything down to the camp. We can have trestle tables in it and set out a few artifacts so anyone popping in--the minister, for example--will only see what we want him to see."

  Marc grinned, his teeth white in his gleaming chestnut beard. "Not bad. We can rig the back flap of the tent so we can draw it up to allow us access to the chamber."

  The other members of the expedition arrived the next morning. Another truck with the logo of the National History Ministry pulled up and four men and two women clambered down from the back. While the support staff emptied the truck and took the baggage and personal belongings to the tents, Dani led them all to one of the larger tents that would serve as a conference room. She sat them down on the camp chairs and officially greeted them, after which she smiled warmly, hugging the women and shaking hands with the men.

  "Welcome to all of you," she said softly. "I'm hoping you had successful university years and you're all raring to go on the dig this summer."

  A small, dapper man with a shock of wavy black hair leaned back on his chair and put his feet up on another. He started rolling himself a cigarette. "Thank you for that delightful welcome, Dr Hanser," he said in a lilting Welsh voice. "But I think I speak for everyone here in saying we'd like to know what's happening about that other matter."

  "I'm sure you would, Daffyd," Dani said. "I'm sure you all would." She looked around the tent then went to the entrance and looked out at the camp before returning to her chair. "We are all going to have to be very careful what we say, especially around camp." She told them about the proposed visits by the minister and the idea she had about erecting a t
ent within the cave, backing on to the chamber wall.

  "We're all really excited about this," smiled a tall blond girl. She looked like she would be more at home on a catwalk than grubbing in the dirt after stone and bone. "We talked it over in the truck on the way up and Doris and I," she put her hand on the shoulder of a smaller, less overtly demonstrative woman with short mousey-brown hair. "Well, Doris and I just want to assure you of our support, no matter what."

  "Come off it, Angela," drawled one of the men. "We all agreed on that last season. Majority rules and we all voted on it."

  "Al's right," added one of the other men. "We're in this together."

  "Hey, guys," Marc interrupted. "It's okay. We all made our promises and I'm sure we've all kept them. Not a word to anyone until we know what we've found. That's right, isn't it?" He looked around the little group. "Daffyd, Angela, Doris? Al, Will, Bob?"

  The others nodded or murmured agreements. "Er, well, not quite," Bob muttered.

  Dani stared at the man. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

  "I...I told my brother. I'm sorry guys." Bob looked around the group apologetically. "I just had to tell somebody, but he didn't believe me, so it's okay."