The Mummy: The Tomb Robbers' Secret

Gold

Roma drew a handkerchief from her pocket and wrapped the pectoral carefully then replaced it. "Come," she told Evelyn, called Mohammed, and said something to him in her fluent Arabic.

"He'll keep the workers away for us and let us know if they find anything. In the meantime, I think we deserve that drink. We can have a better look at it in daylight.

The pavilion provided scant relief from the desert sun, yet its shade seemed like a refuge. Roma mixed two excellent gin and tonics then sat down, handing one to Evelyn. She then took a deep drink of hers before pulling the pectoral out of her pocket.

"Look," she said, "It says 'Ramesses Heqaiunu', the throne name of Ramesses III and on the other side," she flipped it over, "Usermaatre Meriamun, his 'maat' name. How did this end up in Penteweret's tomb?"

"Maybe it was a gift from his father when he was a boy?" suggested Evelyn, "I wonder how much secrecy surrounded this tomb? It took so long to carve them, decorate them, even one that was simple like this would have been at least ten years in the making.

"Someone must have been looking after his interests, maybe even before the Harem Conspiracy. I wonder how long his mother had been making plans? She must have known the price they'd pay if their plans failed. She took such a risk..."

"And paid such an awful price," finished Evelyn, "Just think, they succeed in killing Ramesses only to find themselves with no allies although there were several people who were involved—I've read the papyrus, my teacher assigned it for practice reading hieroglyphics and hieratic."

"I always wondered if she had a backup plan in case things went awry, like someone helping her escape so she could go into hiding. It would be an awful fate for the wife of a pharaoh, even a secondary one, but it would be better than what she knew she would face. Once caught, she would have known her fate was sealed."

"Yes, that would be a comedown for a wife of a living god," said Evelyn in a wry voice, "But if it were me, I'd rather escape than face execution, for I'm sure that's what her fate would have been."

Rick and Ardeth came into the pavilion for water and a break from the sun. Rick's eyes lit up when he saw the gold pectoral and he took it from Roma's hand, saying, "Say, what's this? How much will this fetch in the antiquities market?"

She took the pendant back. "It would fetch a lot if it were to be sold, but it won't be sold. Everything I find is being handed over to the Egyptian government. We'll receive our ten percent recompense. This dig is not being done for profit, but for the sake of discovery. Evelyn and I will share publishing rights, but the government gets any finds we discover."

"Too bad," said Rick, "What are the chances we'll find anything else?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "We should not even have found this, but this has given me an idea. We need to clear the tomb floor. Sometimes these tombs have shafts that go down 40 feet or more. I'm wondering if any family was buried here. Maybe we can find a burial that hasn't been disturbed. The tomb is only one chamber, but it's large. We don't know what we'll find beneath the sand covering the floor until we clear it."

"Maybe more coffins?" suggested Evelyn, "maybe this was intended to be a family burial. He probably had at least one wife, maybe more. If we find royal burials, undisturbed, we may find them intact. That may mean gilded coffins and grave goods, valuable grave goods. The Egyptians would love that."

"You people," said Ardeth, "Digging up the bodies of the dead, why not let them lie?"

"Because if we don't, looters will," Roma replied, "We've found one disturbed burial, and look what the thieves left! Why shouldn't Egypt have the artifacts instead of their being sold on the black market and lost forever? I had more than one professor say that we are racing the tomb robbers and too often losing."