Adam Palmer - The Moses Legacy

‘Is that new?’ asked Daniel. ‘Or more of what we already know?’

‘A mixture,’ said Gabrielle cautiously.

‘But why didn’t Horemheb simply tell Akhenaten about the murder of King Tut’s mother? Why this elaborate, roundabout response?’

Gabrielle had to think about this.

‘Well, we do know that from the twelfth year of Akhenaten’s reign, Egypt was in turmoil. They stopped building in Amarna and Egypt was economically strapped. Their new enemy, the Hittites, were becoming more powerful. And Akhenaten may not have had all his marbles. From what it said earlier in the papyrus, Nefertiti was ruling as co-regent. Although co-regencies were quite common in ancient Egypt at that time, it was rare for it to be with a woman. Not unprecedented, but rare. It was more likely to be with a son, in order to prepare him for leadership. If he ruled with Nefertiti as co-regent, instead of waiting for his son to get older, that could suggest that he was no longer able to rule by himself. Maybe the death of his beloved wife/sister affected his mind in some way.’

‘That’s logical,’ said Daniel.

He looked at the high priest to see if he wanted to add anything. The high priest nodded towards the papyrus, making it clear that all he wanted to do was get this over with. He could have told them to stop, but it was clear that he had no intention of running away from the truth. He would go wherever the truth took him. Daniel continued. And when Tutankhaten heard this he became bitter and angry and he summoned Neferayim and cursed him and threatened him with death. But Neferayim begged for his life and told the king that it was his daughter and not he who had killed the mother of the king. And so Tutankhaten spared his life but ordered him to prove he was true by cutting out the words that praised the Aten from his tomb.

Daniel looked at Gabrielle. ‘That was at the other tomb, right? The Amarna tomb, not the one we were locked in.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And was it erased? The Great Hymn to Aten, I mean.’

‘Parts of it were chiselled out. Let’s talk about it later. Carry on.’ And Pharaoh restored the old gods and ordered the city of Akhetaten abandoned and changed his name to Tutankhamen to show his support for the old gods and their priests. Then Tutankhamen appointed Horemheb to be his heir.

‘Now we’re getting to things that are quite familiar,’ said Daniel.

‘Very familiar,’ Gabrielle agreed. ‘The counter-revolution, the abandonment of Akhetaten, the restoration of the Amun priests in Luxor. And that was only the beginning.’

‘Which bus do I need for the Hebrew University?’ Goliath asked a random Israeli as he stepped out of the central bus station in Jerusalem.

‘What campus you want?’ asked the Israeli in broken English. ‘Givat Ram or Mount Scopus?’

‘I don’t know. The one with the library.’

‘They both have library.’

‘I mean the National Library.’

‘Ah, you want Givat Ram. It’s near here. You need number nine.’

And with that, Goliath was abandoned and left to wait for the bus. When it arrived at the university it made a sweep round the car park before coming to a stop in a forecourt outside the gates and everyone poured out of the bus.

He had to pass through a cursory security check, but they were only looking for weapons and no one checked his identity. Once inside the campus, he asked the way to the National Library. He was told that it was at the end of the long row of buildings to his right. He walked in the shade, instead of on the grass to the left, and all the while he was thinking about how he was going to do this. How would they react? How good was the security? Was he going to kill them all?

‘Maybe we should wait until they come back,’ said Daniel.

He sensed that the high priest was letting him continue, maintaining a stoic bearing even in the face of what must have been the most horrendous revelations in his eyes. But the fact that this old man had to face it on his own somehow made it all the worse. Here was a man who had devoted all his life to a belief system – already having confronted many who denied his people’s history and their suffering.

Yet now he was having to face an attack on his ancestral history from a different perspective. Instead of the long-standing Jewish denial that his people were true Israelites, he found himself confronted by evidence that the ancestors of the Israelites were not as good a people as their self-penned history had implied.

And it was the ancestors of the Samaritans in particular who were being singled out. Not Judah, from whom the Jews claim descent, but rather Joseph and Ephraim. Moreover, whilst Joseph was being portrayed as a forerunner to the modern-day political spin doctor, Ephraim was being portrayed as a Machiavellian schemer who resorted to murder to get his way, and who was ready to sacrifice his own daughter to save his own miserable skin.

Strictly speaking, this did not impact directly on the Samaritan priests, because they were a separate branch who officially descended from the tribe of Levi. But this thought gave neither the high priest nor Daniel any comfort. Indeed, what made it worse, in Daniel’s eyes, was that he had become the agent of this revelation. Circumstances had caused him to be the one who was inflicting this mental anguish on this kind and gentle man who had agreed to share the innermost secrets of his ancient sect with this outsider. Daniel felt as if he was betraying a sacred trust by revealing these awful secrets.

True, he hadn’t known when he set out on this venture what these ancient texts would reveal, and as a man of the ivory tower of academia, his ultimate duty was to the truth. And now he had already told the priest the painful facts, as recorded in this papyrus. He could not take it back. Perhaps if he had translated it in writing first and then had to decide whether or not to reveal it, he would have acted differently. But now it was too late.

‘I don’t think either of them are ready to hear the rest just yet,’ said the elder.

‘Then maybe I should just stop.’

‘No!’

The interruption was Gabrielle’s. He could see the look in her eyes: the academic fervour and thirst for knowledge. To him, the ultimate duty to the truth was a painful reality that as a scholar he had to accept. To her it was a passion – a bludgeon to beat down the wishful thinker or a steamroller to drive over the sceptic.

A final glance at the priest… a final nod from the priest… told Daniel to continue. Then Tutankhamen died in his illness. But before Horemheb, the chief of the army, claimed the throne, Neferayim married the widow of Tutankhamen, though she was his own granddaughter and daughter, and claimed the throne for himself. Now Neferayim wanted to restore worship of Aten, the disk of the sun, and forbid the worship of the old gods. But he was an old man and he was weak and the priests of the old gods were strong and Horemheb was strong and Neferayim knew that he could not impose his will upon them. So he allowed the worship of the old gods. And he chose his son to be his heir. But when he died, Horemheb claimed the throne by force with the aid of his soldiers and killed the son of Neferayim and he forbade the worship of Aten and he punished those who had worshipped him. But to those who worshipped the old god Amun he gave great rewards and he appointed them to the highest ranks in the land. And he struck the names of the pharaohs who had worshipped Aten from the names of kings so that their names were forgotten and their memory was cursed and their tombs were defiled. But the tomb of Tutankhamen was spared because he had appointed him to be his heir and because he was loved by the people.