From a time early in the dawn of our civilisation, even before the reign of the legendary King Menes, exulted as the first ruler to unite Upper and Lower Egypt, the people of the Nile valley believed they would attain an eternal afterlife, if their mortal existence was judged to have been righteous. From the pharaoh down to the most humble peasant, the need to arrange the preservation of their bodies and a burial site appropriate to their station in life was, for most, the pre-eminent consideration of their time on earth. Egyptians viewed their life as merely a transient period of preparation for the immortality awaiting them after their death.
This belief was of paramount importance to those who ruled the kingdom. The pharaoh was acknowledged as the earthly manifestation of the hawk-headed god Horus,son of Isis and Osiris, and his soul would be granted the eternal companionship of the gods. It was his destiny to be a faithful servitor to Amun-Re and spend his days amidst the royal oarsmen who propelled the solar barque across the sky.
The first royal necropolis had been established centuries earlier at Abydos. Even though the seat of government had moved many times, each king sought to build an elaborate tomb in preparation for the liturgy surrounding his death and his passage, first to the court of judgement before Osiris, and then onto an immortal life basking in the endless radiance of the solar disc. The sacred falcon, bearer of his ba, or soul, flew between heaven and earth, returning to the royal burial chamber in an act of perpetual re-unification between his preserved remains and eternity.
In the years before his accession, Ramesses had purposely visited the principal necropolises throughout the kingdom. He keenly studied royal tombs whilst offered private veneration to his predecessors, a responsibility that would only become an imperative when he was crowned the Pharaoh. He examined the simple subterranean grave sites of the earliest kings, noting their decayed circumstances, and the subsequent mud brick tombs. He stood in awe before the massive pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure on the Giza plateau and contemplated the lesser pyramids strewn like scattered jewels in the great Memphite necropolis. He reflected often on his own death and tomb.
He admired the new style of mortuary temple created by Mentuhotep in the eleventh era and so gracefully emulated, in more recent times, by Queen Hatshepsut in the stark, arid bay beneath the towering ramparts of the Theban Hills. The most recently built royal mortuary temples, clustered thickly on the western plain opposite Thebes, provided much of the inspiration he would later use when it came to creating his own Temple of a Million Years. Nor did he fail to notice the grandeur with which certain kings sought to perpetuate their power through their monuments and he was intimately aware of every attempt, successful or otherwise, to immortalise their legacy.
He knew that King Djoser built the first pyramid some 1,400 years before his own birth. Djoser and his architect son, Imhotep, were the first to build massively in stone, a revolutionary departure from traditional practice when mud brick was the only material used in building.
The three overwhelming limestone and granite clad pyramids at Giza, together with the smaller pyramids to the north and south of Memphis, were the first truly visible manifestations of the pharaonic power. The earlier style of mausoleum entombed their occupants in structures of little architectural significance, whereas the pyramids served not only as seemingly indestructible testaments to the imperium of the kings but, in Ramesses mind, they also performed another more significant function.
He believed they offered unassailable protection to the king’s body in its life eternal because buried deep under the enormous mass of stone lay the burial chambers of the kings who dictated their creation. He also entertained an irreverent thought. Nobody would forget the names of the rulers who built the Giza pyramids. Their names would be known for as long as their monuments endured and he thought that would be a very long time.
The monuments were a spectacular statement of regal power frozen in stone. Built on a ridge high above the Nile and safe from floodwater damage, they stood sharply etched against the sky, their sides clad in finely cut limestone and polished granite and crowned with a pyramidion sheathed in precious electrum, the alloy of gold and silver. When bathed in the rays of the sun shining down from the Barque of Re on its daily voyage across the heavens, they gleamed like immense beacons. He filed away in his mind that these were the most impressive monuments anywhere in Egypt whilst wondering why no subsequent pharaoh had not built as massively.
The sixteen rulers who succeeded Menkaure also built pyramidal tombs but none emulated the colossi standing side by side on the isolated plateau. Because he was still young and unlearned in the ways of architecture and had, as yet, little taste of the absolute power of Egyptian kingship, he was nonplussed that one king, Sneferu, could build three pyramids in his lifetime and, in doing so, consume millions of tonnes of stone, expend countless years of manpower and spend rivers of gold just to create his final tomb.
His thoughts kept turning to the Great Place where he would ultimately repose. Due to the religious significance of the Amun Temples, Thebes had always been an eminent city. For centuries, the plains in front of the western hills had served as the cemetery for the kings and nobility who ruled in the heartland of Upper Egypt. There was a mystic spirituality to the ridges and hollows fronting the brooding hills across the river from the temples but, until the burial of King Ahmose, the ravine behind the steep escarpment had been ignored. Ramesses knew not why Ahmose chose the hidden valley as his place of rest. Had it been the virtue of seclusion or had Ahmose valued its proximity to the western horizon beneath which lay the Palace of Osiris? No matter - it was now the hallowed sanctuary for the entombment of kings. Years later, Ramesses admitted to me, he had speculated on building a massive pyramid on the banks of the Nile near Thebes as he could not see the merit of hiding such a building in the narrow confines of the valley.
Ramesses believed no plans existed for the royal mausoleums in Ta Set Aat. He conjectured that information concerning their design was only known in anecdotal information passed on by word of mouth within the families in the tomb builder’s village. It was from this settlement that came generations of masons and artisans possessed of all the building and artistic skills required to quarry and adorn a king’s final resting place. He wondered how each royal architect developed a final design as none were ever allowed to enter a royal tomb once it was sealed. Assuredly, he thought, he would find an answer to this question when he was the king.
After the death of the last pyramid building kings, Egypt endured long, turbulent years under minor rulers whose names were mostly forgotten. Then came a golden age of three centuries of construction and stability under the eleventh and twelve era pharaohs. The gods then turned their back to the kingdom again and the paralysing decline in royal authority forced Lower Egypt to suffer the humiliation of a hundred inundations of foreign rule beneath the unforgiving yoke of the foreign Hykos kings who ruled from Avaris in the Delta down to the northern boundaries of the Theban region. Finally goaded by shame, the kings of Upper Egypt girded up their loins, took up their weapons and streamed out of Thebes under the noble King Ta’a, his warrior successor, Kahmose, whose valiant son, Ahmose, finally overcame and expelled the Hykos, expunging the blight of barbarian domination.
From their stronghold in Thebes, successive kings created an epoch of prosperity and extended regional influence. The hand of Egyptian power was felt from Nubia in the south to Palestine in the north and in many coastal centres on the fringe of the Great Sea through a skilful combination of military campaigning and commercial expansion. Many rulers built considerable monuments, fortresses and temples reflecting the kingdom’s new found wealth and stability, a stability only momentarily disturbed by the heresies of King Akhenaton and his naive attempt to force a new religion onto his subjects. Akhenaten’s timely death ultimately gave rise to Pharaoh Horemheb, who restored the sacred role of the priesthood and rebuilt royal authority through illustrious statesmanship.
Ramesses studied the royal chronicles, noting well the temperament of the achievers, whilst analysing the weaknesses of those less successful. As a prince of the blood, he was rigorously tutored in the arts of war in his father’s chariot during campaigns in Nubia and at the Pi-Ramess garrison. Though Seti favoured Pi-Ramess as the royal city, the centre of religious authority lay in Thebes in the two temples dedicated to the national deities, Amun, Mut and Khonsu. Ramesses noted all he saw, particularly admiring the works of Amenhotep III, who had built on a grandiose scale leaving a legacy worthy of emulation.
A month after the internment of his father, Ramesses, now wearing the double crown for the first time, officiated at the Opet Festival at the Karnak temple at a ceremony which he chose to mark both the beginning of his reign and twentieth birthday. Despite his youth, the new king’s demeanour drew praise for his mature dignity and the degree of solemnity professed in his devotions. The festival was the most important religious event in the country’s annual cycle of festivals and it is the only time the statues of the principal divinities are removed from the seclusion of their sanctuaries and widely exhibited to the king’s subjects.
Ramesses offered Amum, Mut and Khonsu gifts to revivify their presence in the tabernacle deep within the Karnak temple before the statues of the divine family were removed from their shrine rooms by priests. Following a public offering of symbolic gifts to the trilogy, their images were mounted on sacred barques, borne aloft on priestly shoulders and taken to vessels for conveyance downriver to Luxor for another devotional service. The sacred procession traversed the river to Seti’s mortuary temple, where the ritual of worship and adoration was iterated, then returned by way of the Nile and the deities were restored to their darkened abodes within the great temple. In recompense for his dedication, Ramesses was richly ennobled with blessings granted by the sacred triad. The behaviour of the young king was impressive and he was favourably acclaimed by his subjects.
The pharaoh requested I join him late one afternoon at the conclusion of the highly demanding rituals. At the time, I was a long way from developing the relationship I was to enjoy with him later. Ramesses was a remote figure whom I had met briefly just after being chosen by his father to join The Overseer of Works as the Royal Architect. I had little opportunity to assess the character and attitudes of the young prince though he seemed possessed of great self-confidence and, as I ventured to tell him years later, a manner bordering on imperious.
He had removed his crown but was still fully dressed in the customary apparel of the pharaoh. Stiff white kilt, an elaborate bejewelled gold pectoral depicting a falcon with outspread wings, arm bracelets, gilded sandals, fine gold and inlaid necklaces and pendant ear rings in the form of scarabs completed his regalia. The symbols of royalty, the flail and crook, lay on a table beside him. I attended his chamber, bowed low and remained standing whilst he sat at leisure in a gilded chair. He observed me closely.
“Royal Architect, my father conceived considerable extensions to the Amun temples. He also planned new monuments elsewhere. It is my intention to not only complete his work but to elaborate his ideas. You were involved with these matters towards the end of my father’s life and received approval for the plans you prepared. Arrange to have those plans delivered to my quarters early tomorrow morning. Tonight, there is insufficient time to review these commissions because I wish to discuss a matter of importance with you.”
I remained standing.
“Sennefer, Vizier Paser assures me the shipments of bullion from the Nubian gold mines continue to flow like water. Thus I am not constricted by a lack of funds. I greatly admire the works of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and wish to build on a more lavish scale than envisaged by Divine Seti. My quarries are to be enlarged. You will build a fleet of larger vessels to transport greater quantities from the quarries. I have given orders to the vizier to build more workshops for an enlarged force of royal artisans. You are to work closely with Paser to ensure this expansion runs smoothly and quickly. Do you have any doubts about your ability to work with Paser, show initiative and meet my expectations?”
“None, Master.”
“Bravely spoken and, hopefully, not foolishly so. You may sit. Some time ago, I asked the Keeper of the King List to calculate the length of the regnal years of my ancestors. Since King Ahmose, the average reign of my predecessors was only eighteen years. True, there have been exceptions. Thutmosis III ruled for fifty-four years and Amenhotep III enjoyed some forty years. However, Thutmosis II only reigned for twelve and the silly child, Tutankhamen, ten. Ay and my grandfather were granted very brief reigns by the gods.”
I ventured “You are only a young man, Master. The Opet Festival was celebrated with becoming dignity and the gods will bless you with many decades of robust good health. You are favoured with excellent health and many will be the women who warm your bed.” I had enjoyed some moments of humour with his father and hoped his son possessed the same attribute. My career might be a short one if I incurred imperial displeasure.
“Well spoken, Sennefer.” Ramesses responded with a smile. “However, I must be realistic. Many of my ancestors ascended to the throne at an early age and yet died young. Who knows for how many years the gods will bestow their blessings on me as the measure of my life is known only to the Great Lord Osiris. Architect, you must commence work on my mortuary chapel and the place from where I begin my journey to the Afterlife in the Great Place. Whilst these are being built, we will see what further glory I can bring to the kingdom’s gods.”
“Give thought to the appearance of my mortuary temple and prepare yourself for discussions about my tomb. Your endeavours elicited praise from my father who thought highly of you. Perhaps we will make a fulsome partnership? Present yourself here tomorrow, soon after the ascent of the solar barque. You may now go.”
I stood, bowed low and left, with my position as Royal Architect still secure. At the time of my appointment to the vizier’s staff, I was newly wed. The vizier provided us with a small house near the elegant Temple of Maat, built by Queen Hatshepsut. My wife, the younger daughter of an architect in Memphis, was waiting for me when I returned home in my chariot. Our marriage had only witnessed one inundation and our affection was still in full flower. Ipi greeted me with a kiss and loving embrace when I entered the living area. My elevation to the rank of royal architect was one of Seti’s last acts prior to his death and she was immensely proud of my promotion.
Our house, a single storey clay structure built high enough not to be affected by the floodwaters, was a simple affair. A shaded pond in the front courtyard and separate stables at the rear for my chariot, driver and two horses, were tokens of my enhanced status.
Just before daybreak, the star Sopdet, appeared low on the eastern horizon heralding the flooding of the river valley. The month after the rising of Sopdet was a time of great rejoicing as all awaited the appearance of the life giving waters which foreshadowed the renewal of our land. In settlements lining the river’s banks, on the great estates of the nobility, amongst the priesthood and especially in the household of the king, this season was recognised as the most important of the year. The sediment laden water would deliver new crops, spawn a multitude of fish and allow wildfowl to proliferate. Pastures became verdant with lush grass and the prosperity of the millions who populate Egypt would be assured.
The months of the flood released more men from their agricultural labours to work on royal commissions. A successful inundation would fill the king’s granaries with the products of an abundant harvest so there would be no drain on the royal treasury to meet a shortfall of foodstuffs and the more of the king’s wealth could be devoted to the expansion of his works. Ramesses would complete his father’s legacy and then move to build his own monuments. Greater projects coming into my hands meant a better life for Ipi and the child quickening in her womb. She prayed daily at the household shrine in our living area where the figurine of the goddess Hathor stood beside a statue of Thoth, my guardian deity.
We lived comfortably and dined well. Our servants prepared meat, fish, fowl and vegetables from the market and served fruit from trees overhanging our pond. My position afforded me one luxury. Wine, stored in pottery flasks, lay in the deep cool cellar beneath the house. Just before my marriage, I purchased a large finely woven linen sack filled with duck feathers to serve as our marital bed and we had been fortunate in the acquisition of many beautiful ornaments and pieces of furniture. I was content with my life and our future shone brightly.
As the summer nights were warm, Ipi commanded the feather bed be taken to the flat roof of our house. That night we lay on our pallet, watching the myriad stars shining in a cloudless sky and spoke of my meeting with the king.
“What is the king like?” she asked
“He is tall, muscular, well proportioned and he has reddish hair, like the god Seth. He has almond shaped hazel eyes, a fine almost aquiline nose and small ears. You would find him to be handsome. He possesses the same ironic smile as his father but there is no mistaking his aura of authority. Ramesses has a forceful character and spoke with command in his voice. Happily, as was observed these past weeks, it appears he also has his father’s affinity with the commoners.”
During the Opet Festival, the king sought opportunities to meet his subjects in the temple grounds where he moved freely amongst them, extending greetings and blessings with a generous and warm manner.
“Although his attitude today was almost arrogant, I feel we are well met. Remember, he is two years younger than me and he has much to learn of life.” I said, somewhat pompously.
Ipi poked me in the side. “When my father first met you, he warned me you also had much to learn about humility.” I was about to reproach her for her lack of respect for the office of the royal architect but her kiss silenced my lips and soon all thoughts of the day’s events were lost to our passion.