“Most of the buildings at Amarna were built in a hurry. They used a combination of smaller limestone blocks that were faster to transport and build with than the larger blocks used in older sites to the south, and these poor quality clay bricks. The outside walls were then plastered and painted so that their outward appearance would have been no different.” He pointed to a particular brick, thickly coated along one edge with plaster. “Have you ever been to the old Soviet Union or one of its satellite states?”
The USSR had disappeared over ten years before Gail had even been born, in another century. She had never heard anyone refer to it before as if it had actually existed. It was as if someone had just asked her if she had ever visited the old Roman Empire. She shook her head in reply and looked at Mamdouh curiously.
“At the end of the Second World War, the Russians occupied many countries on its western front,” he explained, “a buffer-zone between it and capitalism, more specifically the Americans. Many of these countries had been at the very centre of European politics and economics for hundreds of years, countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. This was replaced with Communism, a harsh, unforgiving regime controlled by Stalin in Moscow.” He was now walking towards where the new trench was being started, Gail followed. “You can’t take everything away from people and give them nothing in return. You have to win hearts and minds, you have to make them believe that everything is alright, while at the same time re-asserting your power and authority. They tried to achieve this partly by constructing huge ostentatious buildings, government offices, and monuments. They built them quickly and poorly, weak concrete blocks covered in cheap plaster.”
As he said this, he pointed behind him, towards the pile of clay bricks next to the first trench. “I went to Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, many years ago at the end of the last century. As I arrived at the main train station, I was awestruck by the sheer scale of the platforms, as wide as motorways and stretching far away into the distance. Leaving the station’s huge main building, you could see whole sections of plaster that had simply peeled away, leaving the rough concrete visible beneath, and breaking the illusion of a monumental stone block structure. ”
Gail looked around at the barren terrain they were in: the sun was already high in the morning sky and the temperature was rising rapidly. She tried to imagine a city of elaborate buildings dominating the skyline, but found it quite difficult. It was hard even to imagine the fertile plains on the other side of the Nile that had been there barely twenty years earlier.
“Do you think that Akhenaten was like Stalin?”
Mamdouh laughed and gave her a friendly pat on the back. “There are parallels, certainly. Akhenaten didn’t run a democracy, that’s for sure, but all evidence points to his rule being above all peaceful and happy.” He looked across the sands at a group of palm trees, motionless in the still air. “It’s almost as if this were a twenty-year vacation away from normality, ignoring duties such as pleas for help from other kings, including Shuwardata.”
“So he was a pacifist?” she asked.
“Or an idealist, or a religious fanatic, or a lunatic, take your pick.”
Gail thought about this for a moment. “That would be a good thesis title: ‘Akhenaten: Idealist or Lunatic?’” she laughed. “By the way,” as if joking around had jolted her memory, “David sends his regards.”
“Ah, yes. He had good things to say about you, Gail,” he said looking at her with interest. “He said you were struggling for inspiration, that you wanted something exciting: a good mystery to sink your teeth into,” he laughed. “And he did mention that you didn’t fancy classifying pottery sherds.”
She blushed.
“There are many questions you can ask yourself about this place, many mysteries that have no answers yet, and only some of them have established theories. Why did Akhenaten change religion? Why did Akhenaten change the site of Egypt’s capital city? Why did Akhenaten remove himself from the outside world?” he looked at Gail and smiled. “But I think the question you are most interested in is not regarding Akhenaten, is it?”
“No,” she replied.
“Social archaeology is about people, not events. So if it isn’t about him, it must be about –” he left the sentence hanging in the hot air for her to finish.
“Nefertiti,” she looked Mamdouh in the eyes. “They say that behind every successful man there is a woman.” Pushing him out of bed and nagging him, George would have added. “I’ve been reading about Akhenaten ever since I heard about this dig, and I don’t know why but I feel that all of the changes he made were linked to her. We don’t know where she is from and we don’t even know where she is now. To me, she is the mystery.”
Mamdouh laughed heartily and put his hand on Gail’s shoulder. He led her away from the trenches and towards the tents. “Come with me and I will show you what I think you should do this week.”
Gail’s heart sank as they approached the large square tents: she was going to be cataloguing finds. “In here?” she asked. She could hear Ellie giggling childishly in the back of her mind.
“Yes, in here.” He smiled as he led her under the white canvas, towards a trestle table covered with paperwork and laptop computers.
She approached the table and looked down at the mess of forms and maps and computer hardware. An A3 pad of fresh graph paper sat on top. The Professor put it to one side and uncovered a map of the area, the Nile running up the left hand side. Gail’s hopes rose slightly as she saw this: cataloguing finds should involve diagrams of the trenches, not larger scale maps like this.
“I feel the same as you do about Nefertiti,” he started. He was looking at her intently, as if what he was about to say was of utmost importance. “I feel that she was at the heart of Akhetaten.” He paused and looked down at the map before continuing. “And I believe she still is.”
“You think she is buried here?”
“I do.”
Gail looked down at the map. It was covered with spidery writing, Arabic shorthand, with crosses and circles highlighting what she assumed were archaeological finds.
“Gail, whatever the subject of your thesis, I am thrilled that it will be centred on this great, ancient city and its people. But before you can write even one sentence, you have to feel Akhetaten. You have to know this place, its air, its soil and its mountains, before you can come close to understanding the people who lived and died here, and that includes Nefertiti.” Pointing to several large circles on the map, he continued. “There are many famous excavations around here, a palace here, some small dwellings there, the tombs in the cliffs. There are even some columns that stand out from the sand, which you will have noticed on your way here.”
Gail nodded. The previous evening it had been too dark to see them in the dying light. But in the morning, she and George had easily picked out the low lying remains.
“This is your first visit to Amarna, and I do not want to throw you in a trench or hide you in a tent for the whole of your four weeks.” Gail’s sigh of relief was noticeable, and he laughed. “Your enthusiasm for this excavation has been apparent from your constant emails and has yet to be matched by any one of my students.”
Gail blushed. She had not been aware of having sent constant emails, but on reflection she had probably become a little too chatty over the past few weeks as her excitement for the upcoming dig grew.
“I was once like you, though not quite as attractive,” he smiled, “a young Sherlock Holmes of the ancient world wanting to find mysteries and solve them.”
He studied the map for several seconds, during which time she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words. It seemed to her that Mamdouh was opening up on quite a personal level, possibly a result of the rapport built between them by the constant emailing, possibly as a result of something more sinister.