Chapter31
Luxury in Luxor
Later that night during dinner in the hotel
Having bathed and dressed for dinner, Barbara and Will headed down to the hotel’s dining room to discover the rest of the family and the Tennisons already seated at a rectangular table.Their animated conversation and the glasses set before them suggested they had been enjoying drinks before dinner.Although he was not at their table, Mahmood sat with one of his crew at an adjacent table.
The men all stood and waited until Barbara was seated before they sat down.“Forgive us for not waiting, but we have been plotting,” Harry said, his comment directed to Will.
“For tomorrow or beyond?”
“Tomorrow.It seems we would all like to see the Colossi of Memnon,” Harry replied.
“What are these Colossi of Memnon?”Barbara asked.
“They are giant statues.Two of them, and they are not far from here,” David replied.“It is said that due to a crack in one of them, it sings in the mornings.”
“Tell them the story you told me,” Randy said, directing his request to Diana.“The one about the Romans.”
Suddenly on the spot, Diana’s cheeks bloomed with color.“Uh, all right,” she agreed.“The Romans—we’re talking over fifteen-hundred years ago—used to take elaborate holidays to Egypt.The wealthy ones would sail down to Alexandria, where they could see the lighthouse.After that, they would visit the pyramids at Giza, then board a boat, and cruise up the Nile.”
“Two of the Seven Wonders of the World,” Randy interjected.
“Exactly.And they must have had some sort of guide book or learned from someone what they should see whilst in Egypt, because they obviously saw the Colossi of Memnon.Those statues are absolutely covered in Latin graffiti.Even the Emperor Hadrian saw them,” she claimed.
“Oh, do go on,” Barbara encouraged.
“Well, imagine you’re a wealthy Roman citizen,” Diana continued.“You sail across the Mediterranean for an exotic Egyptian adventure, seek out all the sights, attend some amazing Egyptian festivals, and drink copious amounts of beer.”
“Oh, I don’t think I would drink the beer,” Stella murmured, much to her husband’s amusement.
“So of course you’re going to see those two huge statues.Listen to them singing in the morning,” Diana mused.“Believing them to be statues of Memnon.”
“Memnon as in the hero from the Trojan War?”Tom asked in disbelief.“The king of Aethiopia?The one who was slain by Achilles?”
“Yes,” Diana affirmed.
Tom frowned.“Are they not of him?”he asked in confusion.
She shook her head.“They are of the pharaoh Amenhotep the Third,” she stated.“The Romans thought they were of Memnon because he shared one of his names with a name found inside the Tomb of Ramesses the Fifth and Sixth, so they thought the tomb was his as well.”
Randy leaned forward.“Think of the timing.We’re talking about athousand-yeardifference between their deaths and when the Romans would have visited these statues,” he said with excitement.
“The Egyptians must have known the Romans had it all wrong,” David claimed, his brows furrowing as he sorted the timeframe.
“Yes!”Diana agreed enthusiastically, nodding her head for emphasis.
“So...why didn’t the Egyptians correct the Romans?”
Chuckling softly, Diana dipped her head.“Would you?You had all these rich Romans—including emperors—giving you their gold coins.Why correct their mistaken assumptions?”
“So history wouldn’t get it wrong?”David replied rhetorically, obviously annoyed.After a moment, he scoffed.“The Egyptians were probably laughing behind their backs,” he guessed.
“No doubt,” she agreed.
“How far away are these statues?”Barbara asked.
They all turned to Mahmood, who had been listening intently to their conversation
