I follow him into the earth, with Ahmed in our wake. He insisted on coming with us; perhaps he didn’t trust us to be safe without him. We pass the pit where he dug out the foundation deposits bearingHatshepsut’s name, when he first “discovered” KV20 nearly twenty years ago, a misnomer because Hatshepsut herself constructed the tomb and Napoleon’s men stumbled upon it again in 1799.
Chambers branch off from the corridor as we go deeper into the cliff. We don’t stop. Each of these has been fully excavated, and none will contain the evidence we seek.
The air grows closer and hotter, and I begin to wonder about the wisdom of this decision. The hallway becomes narrower, and then suddenly bends back upon itself. Howard had warned me about this doubling back, but the effect is dizzying. I pause, placing my hand on the rock wall—too soft for the decoration usually found in royal tombs—and Howard calls back, “Are you quite all right, Eve?”
I cannot show weakness. This brief deviation from the season’s plan is all my idea. “Fine, just steadying my feet.”
I push myself ahead, and we enter a corridor with a different architectural design than those we’ve passed. Its pillars are evocative of Hatshepsut’s temple, and I know we are about to reach the burial chamber where Howard had found the sarcophagi all those years ago. This area had been added to her father’s original tomb by Hatshepsut herself, and since it contains coffins for Thutmose I and Queen Hatshepsut but no mummies, its purpose remains a mystery. But is it possible that the Pharaoh Hatshepsut had planned to be buried here in a separate chamber hidden near this one?
I know this is a reach. I realize that it’s an extrapolation of an idea planted by Madame Zaghloul in an entirely different context. But we have little else to go on.
We step into the burial chamber proper. Howard and Ahmed light the oil lanterns at the corners of the room, and the space comes alive. I squint as my eyes adjust after nearly an hour in relative darkness. Since the shale walls cannot support decoration, the room is lined with blocks etched in black and red paint that show the pantheon of the gods and scenes from the Book of the Dead. Otherwise, it is now devoid of objects. The sarcophagi Howard found were dispersed to museums.
Three known rooms jut off this chamber. The only way out appears to be the way we came; this is the standard understanding,anyway. But Howard and I are here to test this belief, to see if there is any validity to the idea that jolted me awake after meeting Madame Zaghloul: Could another undiscovered antechamber exist?
The beads of sweat that had formed during our progress coalesce and form rivulets that drip down my face. Wiping them away from my eyes with my sleeve, I crouch down to inspect the base of the walls, and Howard does the same. Running our fingers along the surface, we read it like braille.
Fifteen minutes pass. Then thirty. When my pocket watch shows an hour has gone by and Howard, Ahmed, and I have covered the entire room, I ask, “Anything?”
“No,” Ahmed calls over to me.
“Nothing,” Howard answers, sounding dejected. I hadn’t realized he is so invested in this plan. In part, I thought he’d been humoring me. But I suppose we’ve both grown desperate.
“Should we go over it one more time? Perhaps higher up the walls?” I ask. Howard has explained the process of how these tombs are built many times over, and I’m aware that, if there’s a secret antechamber, Hatshepsut’s workers would have gone to great lengths to hide the opening. But if we are very lucky, the hint of a seam might show somewhere along the length of the wall. Or perhaps a rough patch of plaster.
“That was my next suggestion.” Howard chuckles, then says, “The student becomes the teacher.”
We start at opposite ends of the room and spend another hour in this manner. Once we meet back at the center point, Ahmed asks, “Any joints or breaks in the wall?”
“No,” I answer and allow myself to collapse to the floor and lean against the ancient wall. “This is it. My last idea. Our last chance. Sorry I dragged you both down here.”
“Never apologize, Lady Evelyn,” Ahmed says, then retreats to the farthest corner for one last investigation.
Howard sits next to me and reaches for my hand. “There’s always another chance.”
“You know as well as I do that we needed to find something—findher—thisseason. Who knows if there will be another?”
I don’t need to list for Howard all the many variables that could prevent us from coming back. Papa’s finances. My relationship status. The encroachment of “professional” archaeologists in the concessions. The Egyptian political situation. The changing perspective on who should own ancient Egyptian artifacts. We both know our window is nearly closed.
My fingers smooth the ground beneath me, almost as a means of soothing myself. When my nail catches on a rough corner, I assume it’s a stone, and abstractedly, I begin to pick it out of the soil. But it’s too large and irregularly shaped to be a stone, and when I bring my lantern close and root it out, I realize it’s a portion of a figurine.
Howard looks over my shoulder, and I hand him the object. “It looks like a mummy,” I observe.
“It’s part of aushabti,” he says, referring to the grave statues intended to be used as servants in the afterlife. Royal tombs contain them in multitudes. “And look here—there’s part of a cartouche that could belong to Hatshepsut. I don’t think aushabtihas ever been found with ties to her.”
“Not exactly the antechamber we were looking for, is it?”
“Eve, it’s something. Perhaps thereisa tomb here somewhere.”
“Or perhaps there was. Perhaps all the funerary objects have been taken to her actual tomb, which is still hidden.”
He returns theushabtito me, and I place it in my pocket. The oil lanterns are growing dimmer, and I realize that we cannot linger. As Howard, Ahmed, and I retrace our steps through the ancient corridors, I wonder what will happen next.
Because I know it’s not enough. A singleushabtiwill not buy me a career; it won’t even buy me another season searching for the most powerful woman in history. By not finding Hatshepsut and revealing her for all the world to see—in all her splendor—I’ve let everyone down. My family. Myself. Madame Zaghloul. Women everywhere.
The Pharaoh
Chapter Forty-Nine
