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National Geographic : 2002 Oct
Contents
HAPPENED. THE MORE WE LOOK, THE MORE EVIDENCE MANY PEOPLE WERE PUNISHED."-NAGUIB KANAWATI S A BITTER WINTER WIND whips across the desert one morning, Naguib Kanawati and I take shelter in another mortuary chapel that was Prepared by one person and used by someone else. "The original name was chiseled off and another was substituted Seshemnefer," Kanawati says, directing me to a line of hieroglyphs in the depression left by the erasure. "He was a very minor official, and he says the tomb was assigned to him by the king." "Now, look above the doorway." I see noth ing, blinded by the sun streaming in. Kanawati takes off his wide gray scarf and blocks as much of the light as he can. Immediately, hieroglyphs pop out across the stone. "It's the name of the original owner of the tomb Hezi, vizier of King Teti. Whoever was in charge of changing the reliefs probably missed this one." Just as I did. I feel like I'm visiting a crime scene with a first-rate detective. Outside there's more. A series of gouges scars the two pillars of a portico and the boat ing scenes that flank the door. I had dismissed the damage as vandalism. Wrong again. "Hezi was depicted in those places, but he was chiseled out very meticulously," says Kana wati. "The figures in these tombs are not just art. They're functional. The deceased lives through them. So to punish someone in the afterlife, you have to mutilate every figure." A man in Hezi's position likely understood that after death his ka, or life force, could return to this world through the figures in his tomb. He hoped relatives and priests would bring fresh offerings to sustain his ka, but in case they forgot or slacked off, he had his tomb filled with scenes that the ka could use. Pro vided with this magic in stone-food and drink, the support of servants, the company of singers and dancers, and opportunities to fish and hunt-the ka (Continued on page 18) DEATH ON THE NILE
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