The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

married to the former Margaret Finneran of Boston, Massa• chusetts, USA, the fantastically wealthy department store heiress.
     
     
    Wednesday, 11 October, 1922
     
    Journal: Rise late. Luncheon in town. Refresh my 'warm memories of splendid Cairo. Explore markets. Purchase maps of Cairo, Luxor, Theban Valley. Purchase extra dominoes. Incredible fruit stands, the round fruit stacked in perfect multi-coloured rows like a giant's abacus. Fresh yellow dates. Nearly black plums whose skins resemble maps of the night sky, vague clouds and twinkling stars. Discover a shop selling gramophone styluses which the bizarre bazaar-man claimed would fit my Victrola 50 suitcase model, but which, in fact, upon my return to the hotel, did nothing but ruin the first few seconds of "You're a Dream (and If I Wake I'll Cry)." Return to my writing; continue preparing documentation and plans, edit yesterday's work.
    A Letter to the Reader: The book you now hold is unlike any in the history of Egyptology, for in order to provide a context for the dis• covery our team has made, this volume offers both an historical intro• duction to the reign of King Atum-hadu as well as the actual journal I
    kept throughout the expedition, daily—almost hourly—from my arrival
    in Cairo until we had cleared, cleaned, and catalogued each breath- stealing treasure from Atum-hadu's tomb.
    Reader, as I sit today, at the humming conclusion of this adventure, with my dear friend and colleague, the explorer Howard Carter, both of us guests in the home of our dear friend, Pierre Lacau, the elegant Director-General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, some three miles from the Hotel of the Sphinx, where I began my journey in Oc• tober, three months ago, I gaze out on the evening Nile and invite you to join me on the magnificent adventure of a lifetime, 3500 years in the making.
     
    Professor Ralph M. Trilipush 18 January, 1923
    Residence of the Director-General of the Antiquities Service Cairo, Egypt
     
    [RMT—Verify 24 November and 18 January before typesetting.]
     
     
    Journal: 11 October, and I have just finished composing certain necessary background elements of this work, to be assembled in the proper order later. I can now begin my log from the beginning, wel• coming you, Reader, to Egypt.
    I reached Cairo yesterday, my first visit to this wondrous city since 1918. I came by rail from Alexandria, after disembarking from the Cridtoforo Colombo, which vessel bore me here (after a train ride from Boston) from New York, via London and Malta, where I passed a very relaxing week in preparation for my coming work. I have now estab• lished my temporary headquarters here in the gold-and-pink Pharaoh Suite of Cairo's veined-marble Hotel of the Sphinx. While I have no taste for luxury, I do need a certain amount of space to perform the myriad tasks I have at hand, and the millions more to come, and the consortium of Boston's wisest and wealthiest Egyptological experts and collectors who are financing this expedition would not wish to have its
    leader worn down—before he had even moved south to the site—by residence in substandard lodging.
    For the extent of an archaeologist's tasks sometimes surprises the layman. By way of example, I shall, when at the site, be the Director of a vast enterprise, commanding an army of workmen, responsible for their salaries, behaviour, honesty, efficiency, and well-being. I shall be measuring, diagramming, cataloguing, and often preserving in some haste several hundred objects, ranging in size from a jewelled earring to the exquisitely carved and painted walls of a massive sepulchre. I shall be negotiating with bureaux of the Egyptian Government, which, for its own protection, is still overseen whenever necessary by the guiding
    wisdom and financial probity of the French and English Governments. I shall simultaneously be composing a scholarly work, detailing events three and a half millennia old, and likely translating newly