bit stealing game

Chapter 14 Ali’s God

Ali arrived early the next day.

He was very happy when he saw us. He said "my friend" and gave Lao Zhang a hug enthusiastically. Looking at his eagerness, it really felt like we were reunited after a long absence.

After breakfast we went to the Valley of the Kings.

The straight-line distance from the east bank to the west bank is not long, but there is no bridge on the Nile River, so if you drive, you need to make a long detour. Fortunately, Ali was smart. He parked the car on the west bank, and we took a boat across from the east bank.

It only took a few minutes to cross the Nile.

Ali drove his own car today. It was a Jinbei car that is common in Egypt, and this is what our archaeological team rented. He said it was borrowed from one of his buddies, and he usually rides a motorcycle bought from China.

The Nile divides Luxor into east and west banks.

The ancient Egyptians valued the laws of nature, so they regarded the east bank as the residence of the sun god according to the law of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, and built temples; the west bank served as the journey after the sun set behind the horizon, and built the pharaoh's path to rebirth.

The tombs of the Valley of the Kings. In Cairo, most of the pyramids are also built in Giza, located on the west coast.

The Valley of the Kings is a form of burial used since Thutmose I during the New Dynasty. Before each pharaoh is buried in the Valley of the Kings, his body will be laid to rest in his burial temple [or mausoleum].

These ancient Egyptian buildings have become part of the environment for thousands of years. The small animals are also accustomed to the whimpering sound of the Nile River every morning.

It was caused by the wind blowing over the statue of Memnon.

The Memnon statue itself belongs to the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, and was regarded by later Europeans as Memnon in Greek mythology. However, the funerary temple was demolished or destroyed in the years after it was built, and it has long since disappeared.

Only these two giant statues were left, sitting quietly in the wilderness, watching the sunrise on the other side.

Although Amenhotep's funerary temple is nowhere to be found, there are still two interesting funerary temples on the West Bank. One is Ramses II's Ramesses, and the other is Egypt's first female

The funerary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsot.

When we arrived at the Hatshepsut Temple, it happened to be a certain time of the day. The two employees responsible for the security check at the door stood and knelt down to worship devoutly.

Upon seeing this, Lao Zhang whispered to Ali: "If you need to pray, we don't mind waiting."

Ali smiled in surprise and patted Lao Zhang: "Thank you my friend, Allah won't mind if I pray later. Let's go see this pharaoh's building first."

After visiting the two funeral temples, Ali took us to a nearby village for lunch. Although I have been here countless times, I have never gone deep into the living area of ​​​​the locals. Even though there was still no pork for lunch, the farmhouse was better than

The restaurant that I have been tired of eating for a long time needs to be delicious.

After dinner we went to the Valley of the Kings.

Now open to tourists is the East Valley, where pharaohs such as Tutankhamen and Ramses II rest. The West Valley is still open to the public because it is still being excavated. I have not even visited it with the archaeological team. In fact, it is not open to the public.

Speaking of the West Valley, there are even many tombs in the East Valley that are not allowed to be visited and are only reserved for research purposes.

When we entered the scenic spot, it was still a certain distance away from the real Valley of the Kings. We bought tickets and took the sightseeing bus in the scenic spot and it took a few minutes to arrive.

The Valley of the Kings uses mountains as mausoleums, just like the pyramids are large mounds of earth. Seeing the rolling mountains from a distance, I have to sigh that this pharaoh's burial place is quite particular.

After getting off the bus, Ali pointed to the peak of the Valley of the Kings and asked us if we knew why Thutmose I chose this location for his tomb?

Lao Zhang said: "You learned from the experience that the pyramid is too conspicuous and easy to be robbed, so you buried your own tomb in the mountain?"

Ali said that this was also the reason. He looked at A Tian and me and motioned for us to guess too.

"Didn't I say when I was in Giza that the pyramids were made like that to imitate the way the sun shines? Is there something special about the Valley of the Kings?" Although A Tian didn't answer, she got to the point.

Ali asked us to take a look at the peak at the top. Is it similar to the shape of a pyramid? Lao Zhang squinted his eyes and said that it is indeed. "If you think of that peak as a form of sunlight scattering, the entire Valley of the Kings will look like a pyramid."

They are all under the protection of the Sun God." Ali said proudly. This is similar to the rhetoric I hear every time I come to the Valley of the Kings, and tourists all accept this.

However, when the Pharaoh's rule ended, this form of tombs that was originally conducive to protection actually provided convenience for tomb robbers. There were those who held open fires, and there were also those who guarded and robbed. There are even court records in the archaeological discoveries of the 20th Dynasty.

About tomb robbing.

Since there are many tourists in the Valley of the Kings, we are afraid that explanations in the narrow tomb passages will cause congestion, so the tour guides will explain in the open space outside the tombs. There is a middle-aged tour group next to us who speaks English, and the tourists are listening to the tour guide's explanations with great interest.

How the Valley of the Kings was excavated. When it comes to Tutankhamun, everyone is particularly serious. After all, this is one of the few tombs that was completely left to be 'excavated' by the British. The rest have been looted countless times as early as the ancient Egyptian period.

Not to mention the Europeans who came later to withdraw money arbitrarily.

Every time I see Egyptians telling the descendants of modern plunderers about the history of their country being plundered, I find it ridiculous.

"I felt uncomfortable watching that Howard Carter ordering the Egyptians to move things into the tombs of their ancestors," Lao Zhang said in a low voice in Chinese. "If these people have the nerve to go to Dunhuang, they probably need to be educated.

”.

I shrugged: "After all, Egyptians are Arabs, not ancient Egyptians. So their feelings are different from ours."

Because Ali was present, the three of us tried to speak in English as much as possible to show respect, and only in this situation where it was difficult for him to hear us would we whisper a few words in Chinese.

Ali said that he was not very interested in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, so he did not go down with him and let us go around on our own. Anyway, we didn’t really need him to be a tour guide, so we did some summing up and picked a few representative ones.

I went inside and took a look at the tomb.

In fact, although there are more than sixty tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the contents are similar. The difference lies in the level and degree of preservation. So we chose the tomb of Thutmose III as the opening, and the tombs of Seti I and Ramesses III were also there.

Within the scope of the tour, Tutankhamun’s tomb has long been emptied, but even this bare tomb requires extra money to go in. None of the three of us wanted to be taken advantage of, so we just stood at the door and looked inside.

Son.

The first thing we went to see was the tomb of Thutmose III.

When I came last year, I had the opportunity to follow the Italian archaeological team to visit the tomb of Thutmose III, but I was unable to move after a fall. This time I found that the tomb of Thutmose III was actually open to the public.

It was an unexpected surprise when it opened.

This pharaoh who was loved by the god Thoth was one of the most famous pharaohs in ancient Egypt. He was thrown into the temple by Hatshepsot when he was a child. He later regained the kingship with the help of the priests and brought the Egyptians back to Egypt.

The territory has expanded unprecedentedly. In terms of merit, he led the army north to the Euphrates River, and the military camp went deep into the Sahara Desert in the west, guarding Egypt. In addition, he also repaired the Karnak Temple, which is both a military achievement and a religious achievement.

Correct.

"There is another interesting fact about the expansion of Thutmose III's military territory." I said while walking in the tomb passage that was as long as a flute. "The Nile itself has no name because this river has an unparalleled status in Egypt. In ancient Egypt, it was used

The name "River" is similar to The River in English. When Thutmose led his army to Syria and saw the Euphrates River, he was shocked. I didn't expect that there are other rivers in the world besides our Egyptian rivers.

There was a river, and it actually flowed from north to south. So he named this river that flows in the opposite direction to the Nile River [The Upside Down River]."

A Tian and Lao Zhang both smiled.

I got away with it in Cairo and went to the Valley of the Kings to tell A Tian and Lao Zhang about the afterlife of the Egyptians. So I went down to the tomb of Thutmose III and taught them about the Book of the Dead based on the murals.

The Book of the Dead is actually more like an "Ancient Egyptian Guide to the Afterlife", which teaches people how to pass judgment and obtain eternal life. The Book of the Dead actually does not have a specific version, it is basically customized, but the contents are similar.

In the tomb of Thutmose III, the Book of the Dead records that the pharaoh was brought to Osiris by Anubis, and the scales of Maat, the goddess of justice, stood between the pharaoh and eternal life. The pharaoh who passed the trial was able to pass through the Duat

, that is, the underworld in Egypt, boarding the golden boat of the sun. Although the ancient Egyptians were well prepared for judgment, they have yet to see a pharaoh who failed the judgment. After all, they tried their best to please the gods during their lifetime, just to achieve eternal life. In this

In this story, Seth helped the sun god Ra defeat the serpent Apep at night when he was at his weakest, so that the sun could rise again.

The Egyptians believed that animals were divine, so there were many animal elements in the tomb murals. For example, Horus, the god of the sky, had the head of an eagle, and Thoth, the god of wisdom, had the head of a heron.

I told Lao Zhang: "This Thoth is also the god of medicine. You have to pay your respects properly."

Lao Zhang bowed exaggeratedly. He was more interested in these small animal elements and asked if the scarab on the mural was the scarab in the movie The Mummy. I said it was indeed, but you could call it the dung beetle, the prototype of the scarab.

.

"Most ancient civilizations respected nature, and the ancient Egyptians especially respected the sun god. The combination of the dung beetle and the sun is because they thought the sun was pushed up like a dung beetle rolling a ball of dung." Both Lao Zhang and A Tian were exposed by me

A disgusted expression. I chuckled and continued: "Then do you know why there are so many baboons painted here?" The two shook their heads. I said: "Because baboons beat their chests happily when the sun rises, so in ancient Egypt

It is believed that baboons can feel the sun god and are divine."

Lao Zhang said: "That's because baboons have no hair on their chests. They feel warm when the sun rises."

I glanced at him sideways: "You know a lot, maybe you've also hit the sun on your chest?"

A Tian also picked up the challenge, "Well, no wonder he is the most active when getting up every day."

As we looked at it, a piece of the mural was suddenly missing. Thutmose III himself should have been standing there. This mural belongs to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. To be honest, there are not many mummies in Western museums that dare not care about it.

It’s called a museum, let alone a mural. There are even a few lying under the University of Sydney building.

Lao Zhang sighed: "What the hell, they didn't even spare the murals?"

"Actually, isn't there an entire Egyptian tomb in Oxford?" A Tian answered, "Lao Wang took us to see it before we came here."

We kept looking forward in silence.

After visiting the tomb of Thutmose III, Atian asked me: "Where is the tomb of Akhenaten?"

I said it should be in Almana. Although many people claim that they have found Akhenaten's tomb, it seems that there is no conclusion yet.

"Why isn't he buried in the Valley of the Kings? Aren't his father and son buried here?" Lao Zhang asked.

"Because he carried out the religious reform. Akhenaten's original name was Amenhotep IV, but he changed his belief from the god Amun to the god Aten, and also changed his name. Since ancient times, no matter what civilization,

The struggle for religious power and royal power was a big deal. Didn't Thutmose III fight back from the temple at that time? After all, priests had great power in the New Kingdom.

The religious reform carried out by Akhenaten was more like a political struggle in nature, which fundamentally weakened the rights of the original priest group of Amun. After all, if the whole of Egypt really worshiped Aten under his promotion, then Amun would

What's the use of priests? But it didn't work out in the end. His son Tutankhamun was also called Tutankhamun at first, and as the name suggests, he respected the god Aten. But later he changed back to the original beliefs of the Egyptians.

As long as any reform touches the original interests, even if it is beneficial to the country, there will be many obstacles. Even for the pharaoh. After the failure of the religious reform, some buildings from the Amarna period were appropriated by later pharaohs to other places.

The place and that era fell silent. As for the losers in this struggle, there is no record of Akhenaten even in the history of ancient Egypt. It was only discovered later after the Europeans came."

A Tian said "Oh" and said to himself that he didn't know what shape his tomb would be in.

"Can that sarcophagus be touched?" she asked, pointing to the middle of the tomb.

I frowned: "Theoretically, it's not possible. But the sarcophagus is not a mural after all, so it should be fine if it is touched. You see, many people have touched it."

A Tian nodded and raised his chin towards the sarcophagus: "Go and touch it."

I didn't know why, but I took advantage of the fact that no one was around and touched the sarcophagus carefully. The rough surface was a bit cold, which was quite comfortable in the stuffy tomb. I twitched my hand under A Tian's gaze.

When she came back, she asked: "You didn't feel anything this time?"

I said: "I feel a little guilty."

A Tian glanced at Nut on the ceiling, turned around and walked out. "At least we know that you won't enter the small theater if you touch anything from ancient Egypt."

We then went to the tomb of Seti I, which was also charged separately. However, the extra charge made sense.

The Greeks who first saw the pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings called it the Flute Tomb. Because the tomb passage was very long, like a flute. Among them, the tomb of Seti I was the largest among the open tombs in the Valley of the Kings. When you go down to the tomb passage, both sides and the top of the head

They are all murals. Although it has been looted several times, the tomb itself is a treasure.

Seti's name is "the favorite of god Set". It can be seen that Set has not been stigmatized at this time.

The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are intricate, and many of them have secret chambers that lead to other places. Hatshepsut’s burial temple is connected to the tomb, and there is a hidden space behind Tutankhamun’s tomb.

There was an unfinished passage left in the tomb of Seti I. I pointed to the darkness at the end and said, "There might be something behind this."

Lao Zhang didn't like to hear this. He said that if he couldn't sleep at night, he would squat in front of our door and play games without headphones. He asked me to continue talking if I had the ability. Then I responded to their request and told them a few stories about tomb robbers in history.

Ending. A Tian listened with great interest, and Lao Zhang covered his ears and started humming.

The mural on the top of the tomb of Seti I depicts the "Book of the Earth" and the sun traveling through the body of Nut, the god of the sky.

The original intention of the pharaohs in building the tombs was to board the Sun Golden Boat at night and be reborn with the god Ra. However, contrary to expectations, he could not even get a good night's sleep. Most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings have experienced bad treatment such as tomb robberies. Some of the pharaohs' tombs even have murals in them.

There is also a statue of Jesus, which was painted during the Coptic period. During World War I, Italian soldiers contracted an infectious disease in Egypt. In order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, they even stuffed corpses into corridors and burned people's tombs.

They are all those who kick in the widow's door and dig out the graves of extinct families. Aren't they targeting the ancient Egyptian civilization that has no successors?

When we came out of the deep and long tomb of Seti I, we saw Ali leaning on a stone on the side and smoking. When he saw us, he put out his cigarette, grinned and asked us if it was nice inside.

"These tombs are very interesting and super cool." Lao Zhang spared no effort when he praised ancient Egypt.

Ali added: "So it is convenient for the current Egyptians to use ancient Egypt as a favor."

When I heard this, I felt something was wrong. A Tian happened to look over, and as soon as our eyes made contact, I knew that the other person also thought this was a bit subtle.

Soon it was time for me to report to the archaeological team.

Before I came here, I planned that Lao Zhang and A Tian would go back to school when I returned to the team. After all, they couldn't spend time in Egypt with me all the time.

Ali came to say goodbye to his good friends the night before Lao Zhang and A Tian left. During this time, Ali accompanied us to many places and took us to experience the life of real locals.

"I really hope you can stay a few more days, my friend." Ali said sincerely and pulled Lao Zhang into a hug again. This time Lao Zhang also patted him on the back and said he was welcome to come to China to find us later.

Play. Ali kept nodding.

A Tian took out a parting gift, which was the tea we brought from England. Ali declined and refused to accept it.

"If we had known that we would meet you, we would definitely have brought tea leaves from China." Lao Zhang couldn't help but push the tea leaves to Ali, and then took out a whole box of cooling oil for him, "This is brought from China."

Ali does like our cooling oil, and he said he has family members working at an archaeological site here in Upper Egypt who would use it.

The three of us looked at each other.

I asked Ali which archaeological site he was talking about.

He said proudly: "It's right inside the Ma'at Temple and the Karnak Temple. Speaking of which, the Chinese archaeological team is currently conducting excavations there. Do you know?"

A Tian looked at me, I nodded, and she told me that I was going there for archaeology.

Ali's amber eyes lit up when he heard that I was doing some archeology at the Ma'at Temple. "Do you remember that I told you that in the village where I grew up, the old people said that there had been gods?"

We all nodded.

"In my hometown, everyone worships the gods who come from the desert. Ladders are lowered from the sky, and the gods come from the depths of the desert. The blood of those who are favored by the gods will turn into gold." Ali said with a smile on his face.

With a complicated expression, "I have seen with my own eyes the golden blood flowing out of her wounds."

Lao Zhang shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and A Tian also raised his eyebrows slightly.

Ali didn't say who "she" was, and we didn't ask.

"It is said that there is a temple of Him buried under the Ma'at Temple." Ali lowered his voice mysteriously: "I heard from the old people that the god is about to come to the world again."

The Last Judgment of Ancient Egypt:

Ma'at is the wife of Thoth, the god of wisdom, the daughter of the sun god, and the embodiment of truth. She determines whether the pharaoh can pass the trial by measuring the weight of the pharaoh's heart and feathers. Under the scales squats Amit, who is

A chaotic little monster, which is composed of the head of a crocodile, the forelimbs of a lion and the lower limbs of Homer. Amit looked back at Osiris under the scales, as if waiting for His judgment, those who are not virtuous enough will be his.

It's dinner.

(End of chapter)