The Egyptologist (6 page)

touche is the royal seal, one of the king's five names (the Son of Ra
name) written in hieroglyphs and enclosed in an oval.

Epigraph
after the frontispiece:

"It is the intelligence and resolution of man in overcoming physical
difficulty which are to be the source of our pleasure and subject of our
praise." John Ruskin,
The Stoned of Venice

Or: "Although we have not yet discovered the tomb of Atum-hadu,
we can be fairly certain it is within our reach." Ralph M. Trilipush,
Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt
(Collins Amorous Literature, 1920; new
edition from Harvard University Press projected for 1923)

Or: "Ralph Trilipush will never convince anyone with a brain that
King Atum-hadu ever existed, let alone wrote the so-called Atum¬
haduan Admonitions." Prof. Lars-Philip Thurm, in the
Journal of Egyp•
tological Studied,
1921. This epigraph would have an amusing effect
when placed next to a photograph of me standing in front of the tomb
of King Atum-hadu, holding a complete papyrus of his Admonitions.

Or: perhaps an excerpt from the Admonitions, from the profound
mind and naughty reed brush of King Atum-hadu himself. For exam•
ple, the first line of Quatrain 30 (found in Fragments B & C only):
"Atum-hadu smiles upon his brother." Actually, a bit misleading as to
its original context, as the complete Quatrain 30 describes the discov•
ery of an impostor claiming kinship to the king:

Atum-badu smiled upon his brother,

Overjoyed to meet another fallen from the same mother!
Until he learns the claim is but a lie,

And now with fire and asps the liar will die.

— (From
Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt,
Collins Amorous
Literature, 1920; new edition by Harvard University Press
projected for 1923)

No, better still, to begin this adventure at its proper beginning, let
us open the book with a tantalising glimpse of the discovery to come,
and offer as epigraph a thrilling episode not too far off in the future, an

excerpt of events described in the book itself. We shall extract a tri•
umphan t moment and place it at the front, a shocking jewel in the
crown, a zesty appetiser to tickle the reader' s tongue for the vast feast
to come and to prepare his digestion, lining his stomach for riches for

which his dull daily fare has not prepared him. We shall tentatively use
the events of—to make a conservative guess and present myself on that
date with a nice birthday gift—
24
November, six and a half weeks from
now, neither too optimistic nor too stodgy, something like: "page ii:

24 November, 1922. At the Deir et Bahari site. I cleared away the loose rocks and
descended to my knees, and began slowly
—
painstakingly slowly, despite my
pounding heart
—
to widen the hole in the millennia-old heaped rubble. The light
shook in the hands of the irrationally frightened Abdullah. 'It's all right, man.
Just give me the torch, 'I whispered, and held my eye to the narrow aperture. "Yes,
yes...' 'Please, what does His Lordship see?' 'Immortality, Abdullah, I see 'im•
mortality.'"

Cover d
esign:
photo of RM T standing alongside Atum-hadu' s
golden (one safely projects) sarcophagus. Native labourers in wor k
robes standing off to the side.
Ralph M. Trilipush and the Discovery of the
Tomb of King Atum-hadu by Ralph M. Trilipush.
Subtitle:
Including the ar•
chaeologist's private diary, notes, and sketches. Harvard University Press, 1923.
Dedication page:
A discovery of this magnitude simply cannot be
achieved without the tireless help and inspirational example of several
other contributors. To my team of nearly 500 Egyptian workers, whose
diligence was matched only by their devotion to me and our common
effort, wh o suspended wha t for them must have been an excruciating
disbelief and instead displayed a simple faith that the objects I un•
earthed had significance beyond their shiny lustre, I offer my sincerest
gratitude. And, in particular, to my headman, Abdullah, wh o knew how
to dispense to the men discipline and
baksheesh
in just the right propor•
tions, and whose fierce loyalty to me and quaint efforts to wrestle with
the complexities of English touched and amused me in equal measure
during our weeks of great toil and peril, I offer a hearty
salaam!
Mr.

Chester Crawford Finneran, of Finneran' s Finer Finery, is a gentleman
of magnificent depth and parts, a discerning collector of ancient art, a

man of force but also of finesse, not at all what one would have ex•
pected to find in an American, let alone a vaunted 'captain of com•
merce.' But our 'CCF' has proven himself worthy of the noble, ancient
Egyptian title of Master of Largesse, that generous and trusted dis•
penser of wisdom and wealth in times of need, and the title that Atum-
hadu himself used in his poetic Admonitions to refer to his own trusted
prime minister. The tomb of Atum-hadu is known to us thanks to CCF,
my Master of Largesse, as well as my other partners in Hand-of-Atum
Explorations, Limited. To my beloved fiancee, Margaret Finneran,
words are insufficient to express my love, admiration, and gratitude.

To my fellow explorers, who labour in the hot sands of our beloved
adopted mother, I offer you my thanks for your collective example,
your tireless and too often unrewarded dedication. In particular, I wish
to mention that paragon of Egyptological exploration, my dear friend,
Mr. Howard Carter, who as I set pen to paper here, is deep into his
sixth season in an apparently fruitless quest for a chimerical tomb, that
of a minor XVIIIth-Dynasty king called Tut-ankh-Amen. I now state
publicly in these pages, that—fail or succeed—Mr. Carter's nearly
senseless dedication (six years!) is a model to us all, and that for it I
have admired him, even before I knew him and called him friend. I
salute my elder comrade in dust, my mentor and the dominant figure of
the passing generation, reluctantly yielding us the torch. Finally, this
book must certainly be dedicated to that great king Atum-hadu, and to
his patron-god, the first Creator, Atum. The existence of Atum-hadu's
tomb (and of Atum-hadu himself) was long doubted by many, but
Atum-hadu's genius, his reign, his poetry: all of these I honour as I greet
him across more than 3500 years, I, who never doubted him. Majesty,
the world gazes upon you now, in your golden tomb, amidst your vast
treasures, in your cracking brown mummy wraps. The world marvels at

your life, your words, your brilliance. The world in respectful awe gazes
upon your noble organs in their canopic jars. This is the very immortal•
ity you pursued and deserved, eternal glory and celebrity.

About the Author:
Professor Ralph M. Trilipush was born 24
November, 1892, the only child of the renowned soldier and explorer

Ecgbert Trilipush, and was raised a well-adored, if not positively spoilt,
only child in the green, idyllic comfort of Trilipush Hall in Kent, En•
gland. Educated at home by tutors, he displayed at a precocious age a
staggering aptitude for language and an uncanny absorption in ancient
Egypt. By the age of ten, he had mastered the three written forms of
ancient Egyptian, and had begun translating ancient documents into
English. By twelve, he had recalculated the accepted dates of the
Egyptian dynasties and kingly reigns, pinpointing with greater accu•
racy than any acknowledged scholar the gaps in modern Egyptological
understanding. Admired by his peers, remarked upon by his elders, he
went early up to Balliol, Oxford, where he was widely viewed as Egyp•
tology's greatest hope, along with his dear friend, Hugo St. John Mar•
lowe. At Oxford, the two students worked under the guidance of the
late Professor Clement Wexler, participating in his efforts to prove or
disprove definitively the existence of the then-apocryphal XIIIth-
Dynasty king and erotic poet Atum-hadu. His master's work complete,
Trilipush's doctoral studies were cut short by the Great War, during
which both he and Marlowe were stationed in Egypt as officers in
counterintelligence. There, under enemy fire, the two explorers man•
aged to unearth Fragment C of Atum-hadu's
Admonitions
from a cliff-
side path near Deir el Bahari, taking a giant's step towards proving
that king's existence and identity as the poet of the previously trans•
lated Fragments A and B. Shortly after this discovery, Trilipush was
sent along to advise Australian forces invading Gallipoli, in which
combat he was wounded and for some time missing and believed dead.
Entirely alone, he trekked back to Egypt, arriving after the Armistice,
only to learn that his great friend Marlowe had been killed while on
expedition in an unsecured part of the Egyptian desert. After demobil•
isation, Trilipush secured Fragment C, bringing it to the United States
of America, where he launched a brilliant academic career. He pro•
duced the definitive, if controversial, translation and analysis of all
three Atum-haduan fragments, published under the title
Desire and De•
ceit in Ancient Egypt
(Collins Amorous Literature, 1920). The extraordi•
nary sales of this short masterwork confirmed Trilipush's unique

position as both an impeccable scholar and a popular interpreter of
Egyptian studies.

His full professorship and subsequent quick ascension to Chair of
the Egyptology Department at Harvard University followed his dis•
covery on his thirtieth birthday, 24 November, 1922, of the tomb of
Atum-hadu himself, and the publication of the gripping but academi•
cally flawless work you now hold in your perspiring hands. The discov•
ery of Atum-hadu's tomb was quickly hailed as unprecedented, the
most financially and scientifically rewarding discovery in the history of
Egyptian excavation.

Professor Trilipush was knighted in 1923 and has been honoured by
governments and universities throughout the civilised world.

He is married to the former Margaret Finneran of Boston, Massa•
chusetts, USA, the fantastically wealthy department store heiress.

Wednesday, 11 October, 1922

Journal:
Rise late. Luncheon in town. Refresh my 'warm memories
of splendid Cairo. Explore markets. Purchase maps of Cairo, Luxor,
Theban Valley. Purchase extra dominoes. Incredible fruit stands, the
round fruit stacked in perfect multi-coloured rows like a giant's abacus.
Fresh yellow dates. Nearly black plums whose skins resemble maps of
the night sky, vague clouds and twinkling stars. Discover a shop selling
gramophone styluses which the bizarre bazaar-man claimed would fit
my Victrola 50 suitcase model, but which, in fact, upon my return to
the hotel, did nothing but ruin the first few seconds of "You're a Dream
(and If I Wake I'll Cry)." Return to my writing; continue preparing
documentation and plans, edit yesterday's work.

A Letter to the Reader:
The book you now hold is unlike any in
the history of Egyptology, for in order to provide a context for the dis•
covery our team has made, this volume offers both an historical intro•
duction to the reign of King Atum-hadu as well as the actual journal I

kept throughout the expedition, daily—almost hourly—from my arrival