The Sleeper in the Sands Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.’ I gestured towards the exquisite paintings. ‘For anyone who could have delighted in the beauty of such animals and birds is surely worthy of further study’
    Petrie laughed suddenly, and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Well, you are a good-natured lad,’ he exclaimed, ‘and if you are concerned to know more about the Heretic King, then I shall tell you what I can, for so much at least is public property’
    ‘ “The Heretic King”?’ I asked.
    ‘Indeed,’ Petrie answered. ‘For it was not in his taste alone that Akh-en-Aten was a rebel.’ He clapped me on the shoulder again; then, with a sideways glance at Newberry, he began to steer me down the side of the mound and towards a further series of planks and tents. ‘We found it this morning,’ he said, as he lifted a flap and gestured towards a fragment of stone resting against the far side of the tent. ‘Sadly damaged, but not without interest all the same.’
    I approached it uncertainly, Newberry with an eagerness he did not bother to conceal. We gazed at it together in silence; and then, after an interval of several moments, Newberry glanced at me. ‘You see?’ he whispered. ‘Did I not tell you it was remarkably grotesque?’
    I did not reply, but continued to stare at the carving with astonishment. It represented a group of figures, clearly Egyptian but unlike anything I had ever seen before. There was a Pharaoh -- I could tell as much from the insignia of his rank -- but this one did not seem like a hero or a god. Instead he appeared strangely, almost cruelly deformed: his belly and thighs were rounded like a woman’s, his calves and arms preternaturally thin, while his skull was domed and his face very long, his lips very fleshy, and his eyes like almonds. Gazing upon this extraordinary figure, I felt the touch of something icy running down my spine, for it seemed more like the portrait of a eunuch than a man, and I could not deny that it was indeed repellent and -- yes -- grotesque. Yet its grotesqueness did not fully explain my response to it; for there seemed something more, something which was serving to counter my initial feelings of disgust. It took me a moment to realise what this was - and then I understood. For the Pharaoh was not the only figure represented on the tablet; he was surrounded by three girls, strange-skulled like himself, two by his feet, and one in his arms, whom the Pharaoh was kissing very gently on her brow. I thought of the tombs in which I had been working, and of the books I had studied; and of how I had seen nothing in Egyptian art, nothing at all, to compare with such a tender and domestic scene of love. ‘They are his daughters?’ I asked.
    Petrie nodded. ‘Affection for his family, it would appear, was held up as the Pharaoh’s great ideal of life. In the context of royal portraiture, that is something utterly extraordinary and new.’
    ‘And why is the style of art so very strange?’
    Petrie shrugged. ‘Who can know what the reason was? Something remarkable, certainly, to have overturned the ancient traditions of his people.’
    ‘There are clues,’ said Newberry hurriedly. ‘Scattered all about us.’ He glanced at Petrie. ‘Is that not so?’
    ‘Why’ -- Petrie swept with his hand -- ‘this whole vast site is a clue.’
    ‘Indeed?’ I gazed out through the tent at the sands and scrub of the plain beyond. ‘But I can see nothing.’
    ‘Exactly!’ Petrie nodded, then swept his hand again towards the barren plain. ‘You can see nothing - just as Akh-en-Aten himself would have seen nothing when he first arrived here to have his city built. Yet he already had a rich and splendid capital in Thebes, beautified by his forefathers over many years -- for Akh-en-Aten was the heir to Egypt’s greatest kings, and Thebes itself was at its very apogee of wealth. Why, then, did Akh-en-Aten choose to abandon it? Why come to this barren spot, more than two hundred miles from any city at all?’
    I gazed at