Valley of the Kings Read Free Page A

to the west bank, the two tremendous statues of Amenhotep III dominate the approach. They are so huge and so ruined by time that they no longer look human but, rather, like vast primeval brutes, enthroned beside the river, their heavy hands on their thighs. Behind them the alluvial plain runs back to the cliffs. Here the ruins are piled almost on top of one another. Some are no more than a square foundation, some are nearly whole. The long horizon of the desert shelf frames them.
    Here one can ignore the slight modern presence and imagine oneself living at the dawn of time.
    At the ferry stage there are donkeys for hire. I rode back past Deir el-Bahri, the great temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and onto the road that leads into the Valley of the Kings. As soon as I crossed into the desert I seemed to have left the modern world behind me. The barren ground, scoured by the wind, was ridged and hollowed like rock ribs. Dust hung perpetually in the air. My donkey had the frantic, steady trot of a rented hack whom everybody beats to death. The trail climbed. On my lips I tasted the acrid, poisonous dust of the desert.
    The slopes of the gaunt hills had collapsed into ranks of sheer cliffs. Taking off my jacket, I folded it cleverly over my head against the bright sun. I sang a little, although I don’t know many songs. I was happy to be back in the valley. I have always enjoyed this place, all honeycombed with tunnels and caves and rooms hacked into the rock.
    I passed the square mouth of a minor tomb cut into the cliffside by the trail. Another appeared, halfway up the opposite slope. To the west, one lone peak reared above the flat tablelands like a natural pyramid. The ravine swerved again, and, rounding the turn, I came within sight of the tremendous scarp that stands behind the tomb of Rameses VI. It is a favorite site for people on the tour, and one can see why, although the magnificent rooms are empty and the mummy of the King is in Cairo.
    In the broad yellow face of the cliff the opening of the tomb, neatly shaped and shored up to make smooth the path of the tourist, was oddly out of place: too square, too false. It always made me nervous: it looked as if it undermined that part of the cliff, as if the gigantic palisade might collapse before my eyes.
    Four or five donkeys were waiting nearby as I approached. One carried panniers, doubtless full of a picnic lunch. Across the valley from them was a string of fellahin, handing up baskets of rubble from a pit in the ground.
    This was Davis’s dig. I took the jacket off my head.
    Davis himself was sitting above the dig in the shade of a huge blue beach umbrella, one gaitered leg crossed over the other. I left my donkey and climbed a short steep path toward him. The slope was treacherous, covered with broken rock and gravel; the whole valley here is half-buried in bits of rock, the chip from the many tombs hollowed out of the cliff on either side.
    â€œCarter,” Davis said, sharply. “What are you doing here?” He stood up, his hands on his hips.
    â€œI understand you’re on to something,” I said. I stopped on the path. My gaze went to the fellahin at their work, bending and swaying over the baskets of dirt.
    They were working around the edge of a square pit that seemed to me to be already empty. I glanced around me for signs that they had removed anything other than rock: artifacts, for example, or pottery. The only thing on the slope was a pile of empty blue mineral-water bottles behind Davis’s beach umbrella. He was glowering at me.
    â€œNobody asked you here, Carter,” he said.
    â€œI am your supervisor, aren’t I?” I took a step toward the pit. He grabbed my elbow.
    â€œWhat do you think you’re doing?”
    â€œWell, let’s have a look at what you’ve found,” I said. “Or aren’t you proud of this one?”
    He grunted. His hat was pushed back a little, exposing a strip of bright red sunburn