“True enough.” He slapped his leg in mock surprise at my correct answer. “Although she did become the royal child with the strongest bloodline after her father’s death. Let’s talk about the events leading up to her marriage and queenship and then her eventual ascension to the throne.”
My reflection is interrupted by the sound of my name being called. I cannot play the whole memory through to the end, whenMr. Carter and I would follow along with Hatshepsut as she became queen; then regent to her stepson Thutmose III when her husband, Thutmose II, died; and finally when she assumed the title of pharaoh. Archaeologists had been largely unaware of Hatshepsut’s existence until hieroglyphics were decoded in the mid-1800s and remnants of destroyed statues and tablets were discovered in a ditch near her temple. Mr. Carter informed me that, when Hatshepsut’s title and reign became known, archaeologists labeled her as a deviant and usurper who stole the throne from its rightful owner, her stepson-nephew, Thutmose III. How else could a woman become a pharaoh? And, the theory goes, why else would someone have gone around and chiseled out every mention of her in statuary and monuments, other than as a form of retribution against power-hungry evildoer Hatshepsut? But Mr. Carter never believed that, and neither did I. I think it’s more likely that she became a pharaoh to serve her people, not unlike our Queen Victoria. Invariably, we’d end by discussing the way Hatshepsut’s name had been systematically eliminated from structures and objects. Could it be, we’d theorized, that the people of her time could not tolerate a woman with power? Not that the ancient Egyptians loathed her personally?
I hear my name again. Startled out of my memories, I glance over at Mr. Carter’s worktable. “Eve, would you come over here?” Papa asks.
I walk the few steps across the Music Room to two unrolled maps over which they are peering. Each contains a different view of the Valley of the Kings. Tacks of various colors have been stuck into different areas. Are those artifact locations? I’d been engaged in a similar task myself regarding Hatshepsut objects, and it would have been efficient to combine efforts.
“What do you think?” my father asks. “Does one of these tacks speak to you?”
“I’m not sure what I am looking at. Other than these are obviously maps of the Valley of the Kings.”
“These are potential sites for our dig this season.” He rubs his hands together in anticipation as he gazes down at the maps. “I am ready to get out there again.”
Papa hasn’t been back to Egypt since the war began. He returned to England immediately upon the outbreak and offered his services to the War Department, advising on aerial photography. He is something of a self-taught expert in the field. Mr. Carter remained in Egypt, working for British Intelligence and keeping an eye on the Valley of the Kings, which had been left largely unguarded when Egyptian men were called up to assist in a war of which they weren’t officially a part.
I glance at Papa and then at Mr. Carter, waiting for one or both of them to grin. Surely this is a joke. Neither man would defer such a momentous decision to me.
But no one smiles.
“I thought the process for selecting a site was a bit more logical than magical tacks,” I say in jest. Both men chuckle, but I can see they are in earnest.Strange, I think,that after all their digs and all their discoveries, they still rely on intuition to help make their site choice.
Papa squeezes my hand, and says, “Eve, you could be our lucky charm this season, proving Davis wrong. Pick us a winner.”
My stomach clenches. Theodore Davis relinquished his Valley of the Kings concession—a renewable annual permit—to my father after a public proclamation that he believed he’d exhausted the valley of significant finds. How can I possibly bear the weight of choosing a fruitful location in such an area? This is not what drew me to the pursuit of the past, but I suppose I should not be surprised. My father has always been a gambling man—automobile races, horses at the track, and archaeology.
“Why don’t I show you the map I’ve been working on?” I suggest.If we can simply return to a scientific assessment, I think,perhaps we can make an educated decision together.And put aside this notion of “lucky charms,” the sort of magical talk Papa uses at Newbury Racecourse or on pheasant shoots.
Without waiting for them to answer, I lead them over to my work area. Gesturing to my own much smaller map, I say, “I’ve been charting spots in the valley where objects related to Hatshepsut have been found, focusing on the ones you dug up and then put in storage. As you can see, they were all found in this area just north of KV 20 andKV60. Might we not dig in this region? Hatshepsut’s tomb could be found there.”
Mr. Carter draws closer to the map, nodding as he studies it. Papa doesn’t even look at it. Instead, he stands frozen, his eyes searing into mine.
“Why would we bother looking for Hatshepsut?” he asks, his eyes narrowing quizzically.
I don’t know what reaction I expected, but it wasn’t this. A patronizing chuckle perhaps. A soft dismissal at the amateur state of my survey maybe. But outright dismissal of Hatshepsut, arguably the most successful pharaoh of the New Kingdom? Never.
“Well, Papa, you’ve always said there’s at least one more important tomb in the valley. Why wouldn’t it be hers?”
A small, almost sad, smile appears on his lips, as he pats my shoulder. “My sweet Eve, I don’t think a woman pharaoh would generate a splashy burial, do you? Especially not one whose ambition fomented such hatred in her citizens that they went around with picks and chipped out all reference to her. Do you truly think that she’d be buried in a gold sarcophagus or that the usual pharaonic funerary trappings would be lavished upon her? I doubt it.”
I do not reply. I can’t. Why would Papa think Hatshepsut any less worthy of the extravagant final send-offs afforded to all pharaohs? Especially since the general consensus is that the destruction of her name occurred sometime after her death.
He continues. “And anyway, it’s more than likely that if KV60 or KV20 were her tombs, they were plundered in antiquity.”
Mr. Carter, who stands behind Papa, shifts his gaze from my map to me. His brows furrow, uncommon for his usually implacable face. “I would disagree, sir. I share Lady Evelyn’s opinion that Hatshepsut’s tomb is still out there.”
Papa pivots to stare at Mr. Carter, holding fast to his opinion. “Regardless of your beliefs, Howard, I am financing this excavation, and I will dictate its course. We have combed the records, and there are very few royal tombs left, undiscovered or plundered. And we will be searching for the most likely candidate—Tutankhamun.”
Before he gave up the Valley of the Kings concession, Davis foundsome peculiar objects near the tomb of Ramses III, including embalming strips with Tutankhamun’s cartouche. But I cannot believe Papa would put all our efforts on the boy king—a pharaoh late in the New Kingdom’s Eighteenth Dynasty—based upon such flimsy evidence.
“Tutankhamun?” I blurt out. “Why would we focus on him? I doubt his tomb would be more lavish than Hatshepsut’s. He was barely even a pharaoh. He only ruled for perhaps eight years, and it doesn’t seem like he accomplished much in his reign. After all, he was barely more than a child when he died.”
Papa’s eyebrow rises, stunned that his sweet, docile daughter should talk back to him. After watching years of altercations and loud yelling and the occasional spanking between Papa and Porchey because my brotherwasn’tpliable, I’d carefully cultivated a gentle demeanor. I doubt Papa has ever seen the persistent Eve that hides beneath.
Still, I can see that, while he’s not pleased I’ve contradicted him, he’s impressed with my knowledge. This latter reaction wins out, and he says, “He did reinstate polytheism after his father, Akhenaten, died. I would hardly describe that as nothing, Eve. This season, we will be hunting for Tutankhamun’s tomb, and that decision is final.” He stares at each of us in turn, and I think his lecture is over. But I am wrong.
“And bywe, I mean Howard and myself. I know you are desirious of coming to Egypt as well, Eve, but your place is here. Your mother absolutely insists you participate in the Season, and the political situation in Egypt is hardly settled. Although things do seem a far sight better now that General Allenby has been named High Commissioner of Egypt.”
“We will proceed as you wish, Lord Carnarvon,” Mr. Carter says, uncharacteristically using Papa’s full name. He typically calls him Lord C.
