The Pyramid Read Free Page B

Suppiluliuma. Not long before, a system of evil signs had been discovered in his country that was called “writing.” Almost indistinguishable lines and dots were traced on clay tablets, looking like the marks of crows’ feet; apparently these lines and dots had the power to mummify the thoughts of men, just as bodies could be embalmed, And as if that were not quite enough, these tablets were baked in ovens and then sent from one to another as messages. You can imagine what happens in their capital, the Egyptian ambassador gloated when home on leave. All day long chariots full of clay tablets trundle around from one office to another. A letter or a report takes two or three chariots. Street porters unload them, and when perchance a tablet is broken, then there’s a riot! Then other men carry the message to the minister’s office. A whole half-day of unloading in dust and muddle. Upon my word, the country is off its rockers!
    The things that could be heard said in the Foreign Ministry reached such a pitch that Cheops himself had to rebuke his officials. Instead of grinning at their neighbors, they would be better employed deciphering the meanings of these signs.
    From that day on a policeman was on duty outside the Sumerian embassy. Barely did the spy see wisps of smoke rising above the building than he ran to give the alarm: A report! Among the secret policemen there was no doubt that the message had something to do with the pyramid; but when they thought that these devilish signs had nothing to do with sacrosanct Egyptian hieroglyphs, then their exasperation stuck in their gullets. The Canaanite ambassador, on the other hand, deserved to be kissed on the forehead. He was a bit of a plodder, to be sure, like all those desert people,, but he did not lower himself to such madness. He hammered on stone, bang-bang, like an idiot, all week long, he could be heard as far away as the Foreign Ministry, but he did not demean himself with garlic, women’s panties, or oven-baked clay.
    It was henceforth obvious that news of the pyramid’s construction had spread faster than could easily be imagined, not only throughout the two Egypts but also in neighboring lands. The event was judged to be of universal importance, and the first reports from Egyptian plenipotentiaries revealed that the information had everywhere caused great excitement, Cheops himself read and reread these messages many times over. What had surprised him at first, namely the approval of the pyramid plan by Egypt’s very enemies, now seemed, after the explanations given him by Hemiunu and especially by Djedi the magician, perfectly logical. To be sure, Egypt was disliked, and the weakening of the State would be welcomed; nonetheless, an Egypt without pyramids, an apyramidal kingdom (as Egypt’s enemies called it among themselves) would have struck them, at all events, as even more redoubtable. They feared that a slackening of the State, possibly followed by a rebellion might have repercussions for them, as had occurred seventy years earlier, when, before they could rejoice at the weakening of the Pharaoh, the hurricane that had swept their neighbor away had almost carried them off as well.
    The magician was of the view that, instead of subscribing to the arguments of the senile functionaries in the Foreign Ministry, Cheops should cease to disparage the canals of Mesopotamia, Despite being made of water and not at all imposing, he insisted, they were of the same essence as Egyptian stone. Digging them required no less suffering than the building of solid monuments. The exhaustion and stupor that they engendered were of the same order.
    Other reports revealed that everywhere in Egypt people were talking only of the pyramid and that each individual and each event was systematically thought of in its relation to the great work. Some women remained indifferent to these rumors, believing they were not concerned, until one fine morning they discovered that their