An Incredible Discovery

Day 29 of month Ipet-hemet in Shemu, season of the harvest

Hori’s days grew long since he had little to think about while working. The dead from wealthy families were not only washed at their arrival but a second time after the embalmers had removed the inner organs. Then Hori had to remove the traces at the abdominal cut on the side. The head also had to be attended to because often a slimy substance stuck to the nostrils. Poorer folks couldn’t afford such an elaborate treatment. They headed directly for the natron chamber after the first purification, where the rich were also taken after the second washing. All corpses remained there for forty days. Afterward they returned to the ibu for a last clean-up. Hori had to remove the remains of salt from the natron-parched skins of the bodies.

On the morning of the fifteenth day since Hori had entered the weryt, Kheper thought the time had come to instruct him on the next steps in the secret procedure of mummification. He led him to another small yard in which several stone tables stood. Servants in teams of two carried fresh, washed bodies to the tables and laid them down.

“Here we remove the inner organs,” Kheper explained.

“What for?”

“Often putrescence sprouts in the entrails. Drying with natron can’t draw all the moisture from the bodies. If there are juices left in the entrails, these can alter and destroy the mummy. Therefore we treat the organs separately and entomb them in special containers with the dead since they’ll need them in the afterlife, of course. Naturally, we attend to the hearts with the utmost diligence.”

“For the Judgment of the Dead,” Hori blurted.

Kheper nodded. “Exactly. How else should the hearts of the deceased be weighed against the feather of Maat if they don’t have one anymore?”

Hori thought of all the people who couldn’t afford this expensive procedure. “What happens to those people, whose mummies rot because their organs weren’t removed? Will the devourer open her jaws for them?” He shuddered.

Kheper flashed a sly grin. “No worries, that’s what heart scarabs are for. Pretty much anyone can afford those.”

“Heart scarabs?” Hori echoed.

“Oh, you know the dung beetle, after which I’m named, is the holy symbol for rebirth because it creates itself from dust.”

Hori nodded.

“That’s why it represents the human heart. In our workshops, we produce small figurines of the beetle, some made of precious stones, some of clay. On the bottom, the following words are engraved: ‘O my heart that I received from my mother, my heart that I have had since birth, my heart that was with me through all the stages of my life, do not stand up against me as a witness! Do not oppose me at the tribunal! Do not tip the scales against me in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance! You are the ka of my body, you are the creator god Khnum who makes my limbs sound. Go forth to the Hereafter...’

“So even if the body should be destroyed, the deceased can still pass the Judgment of the Dead. Of course only if he or she lies in a properly equipped and inscribed grave.”

“How clever!” Hori cried. “And the Gods can be tricked that way?”

Kheper cackled. “Some people don’t even want their hearts to be entombed with them but request a heart scarab to be placed in their chest.”

“Because they think the burden of their evil deeds will never let them pass the weighing of their hearts?”

“Why else? I’d rather live as an honest man, though, not harming anyone, and then I don’t have to fear the Judgment of the Dead.”

Hori wanted to agree, but then he remembered why he was here and swallowed all comments.

“All right, enough chitchat. Today, we’ll work on this man here.” He turned toward one of the tables and fumbled a leather bundle from his shendyt before he spread it on the stone surface.

Hori recognized several instruments wrapped in the leather. Some looked just like the ones he’d used as a doctor, others vaguely resembled medical tools, but Hori had no clue what purpose they served. There were bronze hooks of varying lengths and curves, tweezers, something that looked like a mason’s scoop, only smaller, and a knife with an obsidian blade. To his surprise, he saw a leaden needle among Kheper’s implements as well as a kind of spoon and an awl-like tool. Kheper bent to lift a fist-size stone from a cavity under the tabletop.

“First we need to remove the gray matter from the skull,” Kheper explained. “That’s the only difficult thing since the face of the deceased must not be disfigured. So, pay close attention.”

Hori watched as Kheper inserted the awl into a nostril. “Now I’ve hit an obstruction. Here, feel for yourself.”

Hori took the end of the awl and probed around inside the nose. Yes, there seemed to be a bone in the way.

“We’ve got to break through.” Kheper grabbed the awl and slammed the stone hard and with good aim on the tool’s end, producing a crunching noise. He did the same with the other nostril. “In a moment, we’ll have access to the gray substance. It’s surrounded by a tough skin, which I have to cut with the knife first.”

Hori handed him the thin blade. Now he understood why the stone knife wasn’t any broader. It needed to fit into the nose without harming the facial tissue.

For a while Kheper labored with a concentrated expression on his face, then he announced, “Done!”

Hori took the knife from him. “And now?”

“Hand me the hook with the spiral end, please. Yes, that’s the one. I’ll shove it up the nose and all the way into the gray matter. Here, try for yourself.”

Hori took over and moved the tool around. “Feels like mash,” he said.

“You must stir the mash until there are no more lumps in it. It’s strenuous work, and you have to mind the dead man’s nose. And don’t forget to scrape off everything sticking to the skull bones. I’ll leave you to it now and get started on the next corpse. Same procedure. I’ll be back later. By then you should have finished, too.”

Hori nodded and continued with his assignment. The mass was quite tough in places, and soon he broke into a sweat. Finally, Kheper returned and relieved him.

“In the summer heat, the mush will quickly liquefy and seep from the nose as soon as we turn the body around. But first we’ll remove the organs from the visceral cavity. Get us five of the jugs stacked against the wall over there. Take care, they are heavy. Only carry one at a time.”

Hori set to work and when all five jugs lined the table, he asked, “What’s the white powder in them?”

“Oh,” Kheper replied, “that’s natron, our magic salt. It draws moisture from the corpse, like the potash you rubbed on the bodies after washing them.” He lifted an arm, and a lector priest stepped from the shadows of a doorway.

“While cutting the abdomen, prayers and evocations need to be spoken, and that’s what the heriu-heb are here for.”

He grabbed the knife, and the heri-heb immediately began to drone words that held little meaning for Hori, likely spells in the ancient language.

“Pay attention, Hori. See where I place the knife? We cut along the left side. Do you feel the last rib?”

Dutifully, Hori touched the bone though he knew its exact position.

“One has to place the blade two fingers’ width under the costal arch and cut two hands’ width down.” Kheper cut in one smooth move then put the knife aside. His hand slipped into the opening. “Intestines first.”

Hori’s eyes widened as he watched cubit after cubit of entwined intestine spill from the wound. At last, Kheper pulled out his arm.

“The bowel is fixed in two spots, the stomach on one end, and the anus on the other. We need to sever the connection, but first you feel around the secrets of the body. Your hands must be your eyes. Tell me what you notice.”

Hori swallowed. As a doctor he’d often wished to be able to see under the skin to better recognize a disease. Today, he got the chance for the very first time. Slowly and carefully, he felt around the already fairly empty cavity, cold and slimy to his touch. The organs weren’t soft and yielding but hard and unwieldy. He oriented himself along both ends of the bowel, still hanging from the cut, used them like a rope to guide him. He felt the spot where the intestine widened to a bag—had to be the stomach. “I found the transition from stomach to bowel,” he called.

“Good. Before we cut, we need to knot both ends with a sinew.”

“Why?”

“The intestines hold excrement. If we’d simply cut it loose, feces would spill into the cavity. The stomach bag also needs to be tied in the same fashion. Likely it still holds the last meal of the man.”

“Oh, right.” Of course Hori should have known that. “But I’ll need both hands for that. How else to make a knot?”

Kheper clicked his tongue. “No way can we make such a long cut. You’ll need to learn tying with one hand. I’ll show you how. Look.” With nimble fingers, he wound a sinew around a part of the intestine, using only his right hand, and formed a simple knot. “The most difficult part is getting it tight. Needs the most practice. Try it, while I prepare our friend here.”

Hori managed the one-handed knot but to pull tight, he needed his left. He considered the problem. If the sinew were long enough, he could keep the one end dangling from the cut and pull with his other hand if necessary. Yes, that should work. “All right, let me make a stab at it,” he said.

Kheper darted him a surprised glance. “You think you can do it? Well, you can take care of the anus.”

Once again Hori slid his hand into the abdomen while holding the end of a long sinew between his fingers, feeling his way to the right spot. Without eyesight in the cramped, slick environment, the task turned out far more challenging than before, but after some fumbling he succeeded. After pulling tight the first knot, he tied a second one. “Done.”

Kheper lifted his eyebrows, looking rather doubtful. After he’d checked up on Hori’s work, he nodded his appreciation. “Not bad, my boy. I’ll let you make the cuts then. Take care to chop right between the two bindings. Start at the stomach.”

Removing the rest of the organs proved much easier. Soon intestine, stomach, lungs, liver and heart lay each in a different jug, covered in natron.

“We’ll keep them in those for forty days, just as long as the bodies stay in the natron chamber.” From the space under the table Kheper fetched small tablets hanging on a piece of sinew as well as ink stone, rush and a small water jug. “On these slabs, please note the name of the dead together with the symbols for heart, lung and so on. We want him to have his own organs in the afterlife, not someone else’s, don’t we?”

The heri-heb’s work was also done. The murmured prayers ceased, and the priest retreated to the shadows. While Hori wrote, Kheper fetched a shallow bowl and placed it on the table. Then he took the plaques and fixed them to the necks of the jars before plugging them.

“Now you can help me turn the body around. Later you’ll have to manage on your own. It’s not that hard. Just make sure the face remains over the bowl because the gray matter will start running from the nose as soon as we turn the head.”

“And it’ll also be placed in natron?” Hori guessed.

Kheper laughed. “No, why should we do that? It’s not a vital organ a human being might need. Now it’s turned to mush anyway. We don’t have running water here to clean the tables so we better catch the slime.”

Hori marveled at the amount of liquid pouring from the man’s nose. When the flow stopped, Kheper used a long hook to pull a large skin flap through one nostril. “This is the skin that envelopes the gray stuff. Removing that is very important.”

Hori nodded, and Kheper lifted a funnel from under the table. “Now we need to rinse the skull and afterward pour in anointing oil. Please empty the bowl and bring it back. Over there you’ll also find jars with oil and water. Bring one of each.”

Carefully balancing the shallow bowl, Hori crossed the yard and dodged other utu also removing organs from bodies. When he returned with the things Kheper had requested, he watched intently as the older man rolled the dead man on his back again and inserted the nozzle in one of the nostrils. Together they lifted the jug and poured water into the funnel until it spilled out the other nostril. Then he turned the body onto its side and let the water flow into the bowl, together with the last remains of gray mush. After rolling the man over again, they poured anointment oil into the skull.

“The oil remains in the head to protect it from decomposition.” He inserted linen wads into both nostrils to keep the oil in.

Hori remembered that vegetables were preserved in oil.

Kheper gestured and some servants approached. Two men lifted the prepared corpse onto a stretcher and carried him off—to the second washing, as Hori knew. The others hauled the jugs away.

With all these interesting new things going on, time flew. When Hori looked around, the shadows had already grown long.

The following days he assisted Kheper removing organs until the old man said, “You’re ready to prepare your first body on your own.”

Hori beamed. This treatment of the corpses fascinated him most, and his probing hands had already made interesting discoveries that spoke to the doctor in him. The organs were connected via vessels, and each body seemed to be a giant circuit. In some bodies, he’d noticed organ alterations. An ulcer had eaten a hole in one stomach bag, and food had dripped into the visceral cavity—certainly the cause of the man’s death. Though he would have been powerless to save him as a doctor, such knowledge might help find cures in the future. Every evening in the solitude of his house, he took notes of his discoveries on shards of clay, which he tended to collect. If only he could share his findings with other doctors! Although he’d settled in quite well here, the closed borders of the weryt were still hard to accept.

One day the body of another young woman ended up on his table. She reminded him of Merit-Neith. Potash had already made her face look hollow, so he checked the name slab. Hetepet, daughter of Ameny. He staggered back. Oh no, not Hetepet! Not long ago, he’d seen her pick up her father at the temple of Amun.

Ameny was the second prophet of Amun and therefore responsible for the organization of the House of Life within the large temple compound. Hetepet had smiled at Hori. A whole life seemed to have passed between then and now, hers and his. Gently, he stroked her forehead. For the first time, his hands trembled as he put the awl in place. How strange that two young women from noble families had died in such a short time. Was an incurable disease spreading in Itj-tawy? No, the utu would certainly have noticed, and not only girls would fall prey to it. But young adults didn’t just die without apparent cause! He’d scrutinize Hetepet’s organs.

Finally, time to perform the abdominal cut had come. Intestines and stomach looked the way they should. Then he removed the heart and found what he’d been looking for. Congealed blood surrounded the firm muscle tissue as if the heart had been injured. He fetched a water jug and washed off the brownish lumps. Now he could discern a puncture where the flesh was raised and discolored, like in the case of an infection. Very odd. After an injury, such sickness demons usually didn’t appear straight away. Where did the puncture come from? He put the heart aside and examined the girl’s skin. At first, he didn’t see anything, but when he pushed the left breast up a little, he discovered a purple bruise right in the fold. It almost looked like a blossom with a hole in its center. Hori gasped. Hetepet must have been murdered! How? What blade barely left any trace?

No, that’s impossible! There’s no such weapon. Such a thin knife would break. He’d hardly finished the thought when he started to feel around the wound. Maybe a piece of the blade still stuck in it. No matter how much he pressed, though, inside or out, he found nothing. His gaze wandered to his tools. If he straightened one of the hooks, shaped it like a doctor’s puncture needle, he could check if the wound really reached deep enough to injure the heart. He wielded the hammer stone and quickly flattened the curve of a rarely needed hook. With quivering fingers, he inserted the needle in the center of the blossom. It slid through the ribs without resistance. Reaching into the cavity, he touched the needle tip right where the heart used to be. His own heart hammered.

At the table next to him, Kheper bent over another corpse. Hori opened his mouth to call his instructor. Just in time he realized such a revelation would stir anger rather than interest. Not only had he damaged an expensive tool but also injured a dead body in a spot where he wasn’t supposed to. Would Kheper believe it wasn’t him who’d stabbed the girl with the needle? If he told him about his discovery, he risked being dragged before Hut-Nefer, the mer-ut.

Hori had to thank the head of embalmers’ foresight or else he’d be hauling around stinking garbage instead of learning the far more interesting tasks of the embalmers. Just as easily, he could take away the privilege any time. Hori didn’t know Hut-Nefer well enough to anticipate how the old man might react. He needed time to think about it, which he didn’t have right now. If only he could take a look inside the heart and search for clues, but that was unthinkable. He’d destroy Hetepet’s prospects of an afterlife.

Fortunately, he’d already finished work in the visceral cavity because his hands were trembling again. With quite some effort he managed to lift one jug after the other over the funnel and was glad to finish his day’s work, though as one of the last men in the yard.

Since Kheper had already left, he was able to walk to the cleansing hall in silence. When he entered his house, he was still weighing his options in his heart. Should he tell Kheper about his suspicions? During his meal a thought struck him. What if Merit-Neith died the same way? What if she too was murdered? The insect bite on her breast might have been a stab wound!

He shuddered. That would imply the same man had killed both girls. Maybe he’d kill again. He might have killed before and more than once! How daring to pick the noblest young ladies as victims, daughters of the pharaoh’s official and the Gods’ prophet. Hori leaned back and stared unseeing into the sky. If he kept his discovery a secret, all further victims of the killer would also weigh down his heart. He had to tell someone! Would the inhabitants of the weryt take him seriously? Who else could he turn to? Walls barred his way to the outside world. He swore to himself he’d inform Kheper tomorrow. Then it would be his responsibility. However, he fell asleep with the troubling feeling he was taking the easy route.

In the middle of the night, he jerked awake and sensed a stranger’s presence on the roof. The moon shone on a tall figure approaching him: a woman wearing a feather on her head. Tears streamed down her face.

“Maat!” he called.

Without a word, she turned away and climbed down the ladder. Why did the goddess come to him? What did she want? This wasn’t a dream, but Hori felt dazed. He followed the slender apparition out of the house, then through deserted alleys of the settlement. Finally, they reached the part of the wall, where the canal flowed through and to the washing house. The goddess stepped into the water and beckoned him. A smile played around her lips, so beautiful—that moment Hori would do anything for her. Then she plunged into the current and dove under the wall. Hori stood with dangling arms.

When he woke the next morning, he remembered the events of the night so clearly he couldn’t have dreamed them. The goddess of a just world order had sent him a vision. The scales of justice had to be off kilter! Whether his own verdict or Hetepet’s death had caused the imbalance, he couldn’t tell. Maybe both. Either way, the goddess had shown him the way to escape his prison. He only had to brave it.

His ears rushed. If caught outside the weryt, he couldn’t expect any further leniency nor hope for the stone quarries. He didn’t even want to imagine how someone betraying the weryt might be punished. Hut-Nefer and Kheper had treated him well, made the best of the pharaoh’s sentence. His sacrilege would be a bitter disappointment for them. Surely his body wouldn’t receive the honor of mummification. He wouldn’t be granted a grave as his house for eternity.

Would the goddess understand if he was brought to her as a failure that couldn’t carry out her divine order? Fear of the Judgment of the Dead choked Hori. Disregarding the goddess’s wish would be even worse. Then nothing could save him when he approached the divine judge someday. Anubis would feed his heart to the devourer. Hori groaned.