Pharaoh Rising

I yawned, glancing at the clock. 11:30?! Why did this report have to be so long? And about Ancient Egypt of all things. If there was ever a subject to send a person to sleep, it was studying the rise and fall of the Egyptian pharaohs.

I give up.

Switching off my light, I climb into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin in an attempt to fight off the creeping chill of a poorly heated dorm room. Sleep finds me instantly.

“Class, we have a surprise change in schedule today. I have decided to waive the end-of-term report that I previously assigned in the light of a new opportunity. This class has been chosen by a program that organizes research trips for college students to foreign countries in order to allow them to research their topics in the true cultural landscape. Since our class is currently studying Ancient Egypt, we will be visiting several small villages near Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. At these villages, you will be researching the effects of Ancient Egyptian culture on the present-day Egyptian culture. Due to the time-consuming and engaging nature of this trip, you will not be required to take the final exam either. Any student who decides to join will be provided with meals, lodging, transportation, and research supplies, and then will be required to complete a breif report with his or her group on their findings. However, the trip is optional – but if you choose to remain, you will be required to complete the assigned report and take the exam. Is there anybody who does not wish to come?” Our teacher scanned the room.

A few hands raised in the air, but then waivered. The teacher, noticing this, remarked that we still had a couple days to decide. In the end, no one (including me) had decided to stay yet. As Ms. Reckit turns to another student, my friend Jaz leans over.

“So, Ilyra, are you going?”

“Are you kidding? A chance to skip exam? Any trip would be better than exam, especially in a subject this boring.”

Jaz rolls her eyes. “Come on, Ilyra, its not that horrible of a subject. Just wait until we’re in Egypt and you’ll see for yourself! You’ll find something that interests you!”

I shrug. “My report was going horribly anyway. At least this way I won’t have to do it alone.”

“You’re insufferable,” she sighs. “There’s really nothing you can find remotely interesting about Ancient Egypt?”

“Nope, nothing at all.”

The plane touches down, sending a cloud of dust into the air behind us. Already the cabin of the small passenger plane heats up from the unrelenting sun and dry, stifling heat of the desert climate. After landing in Cairo, we spent the night in a luxury hotel and then took this early morning flight down to Luxor (which was once Thebes, the great city of the pharaoh). Tomorrow, we will split into three groups and each travel to a small village in the surrounding area to get a taste of Egyptian life. My group – me, Jaz, James, and Halim – were assigned the village of Armant.

But we only set out tomorrow. For today, we are instructed to explore the city at our leisure. My group decides to head out and visit the markets before returning to our lodgings for lunch. As we walk down the dusty, dirty streets, I feel like I’m going deaf from all of the noise. Cows bellowing, vendors shouting, camels hooting, bells clanging, and children shrieking. Ugh. At least Jaz has nothing to complain about. She looks like she couldn’t enjoy herself more, visiting the vendors, buying rare trinkets (probably fakes), tasting exotic fruits, and jabbering away about how excited she is. The only thing that puts a damper on her enthusiasm is when we nearly lose James and Halim. But we soon find them and she’s back at it again.

That night we return to our hotel and head to our rooms, completely exhausted. It turns out that we are not to stay in another luxury hotel, but instead have booked rooms in a dinghy, back-street borading house that dates to the Medeival times. Jaz and I share a room with two other girls, who complain unceasingly about the beds, the lack of running water, the bathrooms, etc. I’m feeling rather inclined to join them, but Jaz shoots me a warning glare.

Fine. I’ll suffer in silence, then.

The next morning, we wake to a breakfast of eggs rolled in some kind of flatbread and a mysterious date sauce that actually tastes pretty good. But the good part of the morning doesn’t last long.

Two hours later, the four of us are in a clunky, rattling van that sounds like its about to fall apart, with no air conditioning, nobody who speaks English, and a driver with two lead feet. I’m feeling rather nauseous by the time we make it to our first stop, due to the hairpin turns that I am absolutely sure were not necessary on a deserted desert road.

I’m grumbling as I climb out of the van, along with all of the several other passengers. All Jaz says is “That was an interesting ride.” I glower at her. But at this stop, I get another surprise. Thanks to the limited English of the director of this “way station,” it takes us a while to understand that no buses go to Armant. The only way to get there from here is by – guess what? Camels.

Once again, Jaz is excited.

Once again, I’m not.

As our small amount of luggage is loaded onto a pack camel, we are instructed in the fine art of camel riding. Namely just sit in the saddle and hold on for dear life. Soon we are all loaded up and are on our way. It takes me a while to figure out why camel riding is not more common, but I get it as soon the camel starts to trot, and I start to get extremely sore. Pretty soon I am wincing and groaning at every movement.

Looking over, Jaz grins at me wickedly. “Isn’t this so much fun, Ilyra?”

“I would love to be as chipper and optimistic as you are, Jaz,” I say, “but unfortunately not all of us can be excited about such things.”

She snorts and urges her camel faster, to go catch up with the boys. I’m left at the back of the line with only the pack camel for company. Traitor.

We spend the day trying to find an English speaking resident in the market place of Armant. But it is only as we are getting ready to leave that an old man approaches us.

“You are the English students, yes? Asking about our ancestors?” he says.

We all nod in affirmation.

“ I have… knowledge about such things. I am the storyteller of this small village. Come, and I will tell you about what you are looking for.”

I am not too excited about this, but everybody else in my group agrees to go with him. I grudgingly follow.

At a table near one of the few, sparse trees that grace the barren, ramshackle street of the village, we all sit down. And then the man begins his tale.

“Many years ago, an English explorer came wandering through the desert towns. No one knew his name, but everyone knew what he was searching for. It was never any secret that this man was hunting for the tombs of ancient rulers, the great Egyptian Pharaohs. He had found the tombs of some of the minor Egyptian nobility, but no one knew where the greatest among them were buried. For many years, he searched until he came across a vast valley.

“Now, for several years, we — the people of this land — had stayed away from that valley, because of tales of evil spirits and the trapped souls who never made it to the Field of Reeds. But he wished to dig in that valley, and it was my many-times-over great-grandfather who helped excavate what would become the first tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Of course, now this valley is very well known and well excavated, but back in my ancestor’s day, this was a monumental find. For several years, my ancestor helped the man dig up chamber after chamber in the buried stone, going against the ideals of my people, which were that we let the dead rest in peace.

“And for several years, my ancestor saw the great wealth that was taken from those tombs. And yet he never took anything for himself, other than the money the English man paid him. Until one day. He was starting to dig a new site, but the man whom he helped decided to leave, and the dig was abandoned. My ancestor packed up and left, but he found in the rubble a small brooch. It was pure gold, fashioned in the shape of the sacred scarab beetle, all weathered and tarnished with dirt. He took it home thinking it was merely a trinket one of the diggers had dropped in the rubble.”

All this while, I had been leaning closer and listening intently to the man, interested in his story despite myself.

“It wasn’t until many years later,” the man continued, “that my family discovered the origins of the brooch. Carved on the back was a set of hieroglyphs in a cartouche. A name. The hieroglyphs were deciphered to read Seti I. Seti I was one of the early rulers of Egypt, a pharaoh I his own right, although a minor one, very much uncelebrated. And this was his brooch. For several years it has been passed down through my family, who have cherished it for its importance. But now, it won’t be.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small object. It is tarnished, and scratched, but gleams faintly and is in the shape of a beetle. The brooch?

He extends his hand towards us. “I would like you to have it,” he says. “It has been in my family for years, — some say it has magical powers to rouse the mummy of Seti I — but I want it to be preserved better than that. I want you to take it with you and make it known.”

We all sit there stunned. “Magical powers?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, “the superstitious ones in my family have always thought that there is a magic in it – that Set I will one day return to reclaim it. They say he is angry that it was never entombed with him, and will come to fetch it back, even though his entire tomb has know been emptied.”

Slowly, we pack up and rise to leave. I take the brooch from him and tuck it into an inner pouch in my backpack. “Thank you,” I say, and we all bid him farewell.

A few days later, we make it back to Cairo and prepare for the flight back home. Jaz has been pretending to be astounded that I finally found something interesting about Ancient Egypt, but I just pretend to ignore her. But before we leave, we have one more trip planned: to the Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.

We all wander through the artifact rooms for a few hours, staring at ancient pots, dishes, murals, and organ jars. Some of us, including me, decide to visit the mummy room. Most of us, including me, are a bit bored by all of it, but I stick with them. I’m ready to head back to the others when I see it.

On the side of a glass case, a brass plaque reads:

SETI I, PHARAOH

I move closer, intrigued. It is the same pharaoh that the old man from Armant said the brooch belonged to. I dig in my backpack to pull out the brooch. On the back is a set of hieroglyphs. Looking once more at the brass plaque, I see that his name has been engraved in hieroglyphs that pretty much match the ones on the back of the brooch.

Fascinating. So the old man was actually telling us the truth!

But everyone else has left now, and I turn hurriedly to catch up with them. Bending over, I stuff the brooch back into my backpack, and then sling it on my back. And that’s when I see it.

In the glass case in front of me, I can see a reflection of the mummy of Seti I.

It’s glowing.

I watch, frozen, as the light slowly fades. And then the mummy stands up.

Oh no.

This can’t be happening.

I jerk awake with a start, to find that I had been drooling on my textbooks. I glance at the clock. 11:30?! I must have fallen asleep. If ever there was a subject to send a person to sleep, it is studying the rise and fall of the Egyptian pharaohs. What an interesting dream, though. Maybe it means there is some hope of me liking the subject that I somehow signed up for. Switching off my light, I climb into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin in an attempt to fight off the creeping chill of a poorly heated dorm room. I’ll have to finish the report tomorrow.

Sleep finds me instantly.