Gods of the Pharaohs

By Jason Payne

Through time, generation after generation, people have questioned the true meaning of the pyramids of Egypt. They have marveled and wondered at the beauty and the culture of the ancient Egyptians. The Pharaohs were honored as Kings and sometimes revered as Gods themselves.

In Gods of the Pharaohs, author Jason Payne lets the reader peer in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641117333

Jason Payne

Jason Payne, a resident of Columbus, Ohio, is a security supervisor for Securitas Security Services. He is currently involved in the leadership of First Church of God?s youth ministry.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

the first mission 
to the dig

a

s I hold a handful of hot Egyptian sand, I am thinking of home. How I miss my family, my wife, and my kids. It's going on a year now. I have not physically seen them. I Skype and email daily, but I miss physical touch. I am getting excited because in three days, my wife and children will be joining me here at the site of the dig. I am just hoping and praying my family, like always, will turn out to be a good luck charm.

As night falls on our camp, our crew, which is made up of my students, packs it in for the night—on my orders, of course. Then the nighttime rituals start. I always find them amusing. The crew is made up of a good mixture of men and women. They are a playful bunch and always make me laugh. The equipment and tools are brought back, trucked in, and locked up in our equipment shed. This is done by the usual responsible student crew members.

As the campfires are set for the night, the smell of dinner starts to fill the air. The social interaction starts. The laughing and playful jokingly fills the air. I just sit back in my chair and listen to all the commotion. I watch all of the students socialize and have their fun. I sit by my tent in my normal nightly spot, drinking my fill of water before dinner to rehydrate myself. I also like to take care of the daily paperwork and anything that needs to be cataloged from the day's dig. Today there wasn't anything but the normal sand and dirt from the dig. That of course is a small joke that everyone makes who works in the desert. The paperwork is no more than logging in the hours at the dig site for the crew and myself, which is simple. I hear a voice in the distance calling, Dr. McConnor! It was one of my students, Lisa Hobbis, asking if I would like a beer and also letting me know dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Lisa is a total sweetheart; I can only wish that my own daughter one day turns out to be like her. She is sweet, kind, thoughtful, extremely intelligent, and most of all, a great cook on the site.

No, I am not stereotyping her or saying that because she is a woman, she can cook; she is the only one who can. She is one of the better ones out of the rest of us. We all look forward to her cooking. The students also say they enjoy my cooking as well. I am still not sold on that. I wonder if they are just being nice.

Lisa hands me a beer and walks back off to our kitchen area to handle the cooking duty for the night. A few of the other students are aiding her in the kitchen, of course. We have a large table set in the middle of camp where we all eat. I hate to leave my seat though. I feel the cool breeze coming from my tent flap. My air conditioner is pumping away and chilling my tent nicely so I can sleep in comfort. Dave Harrison, the loudmouth of the crew, yells like every night, "Dinner!" It's funny to see everyone scamper toward the dinner table. Everyone normally has their normal seating arrangements at the table, as I do as myself. I sit at the head of the table. I feel like the father of a large family of children when I do. Tonight as I take my seat at the head of the table, I notice a gift is sitting there. The crew is standing there looking at me with cheesy smiles. Of course I am surprised. Lisa tells me the gift was for the warmth and the father's love I showed each and every one of them out there at the dig so far from home.

I never really, truly thought to myself at that point about the sacrifices that these students have made themselves. True this is a learning experience for them and is going toward their education in archaeology. I guess in my heart, I never took into consideration that these kids were leaving their own homes and families. I knew, but I was so concerned about leaving my own and missing my own family that I forgot the big picture. These kids are missing theirs just as much, if not more. Some of them have never been away from home. I have been that father away from home. It is the role I have taken gladly; they are a great group. I couldn't wish for a better team.

I just miss my wife and children worse now than ever. It's all memories flashing in my head now. The memories of when my wife and I got together and got married. The birth of my children and the birthday parties. Suddenly I heard a voice from a distance saying, Doctor, is there something wrong? I snapped out of a complete stare to the wrapping on the gift. I looked up from my present to see everyone looking at me with anticipation. The only thing I could say was Yes. I was at a loss for words. I also said that I didn't know why I was receiving a gift at that present time. Lisa and the group informed me that it was a gift for me to say thank you for all the hard work and for just being there for them. I was so touched by their token of affection. I gladly opened my gift with joy. When I got the box open, I noticed it was a gold compass. When I opened it, the inside lid it was inscribed, May you never lose your way and remember us always. When looking at this, I was so touched that I teared up.

Dinner was so tasty. Lisa sure could throw together a great stew. The conversations that hit the table were funny and amusing. As much as the conversation was great, my mind was totally somewhere else. It was home; it was with my family, wondering what they were doing. Wondering how close they were to me now. It was like I could feel them getting closer, closer than I could feel them ever before. My insides were jumping with excitement, knowing that I would have them close to me from now on.

I pulled myself out of my daydream, only to notice dinner crew was breaking up and going their separate ways in their small little groups. You had to know the ones who were couples and the ones who were just good friends. Then the sports nuts would talk football or baseball until dark. I would go back to my tent to meet up with my partner, Dr. John Rodgers, and discuss the architectural design of Egyptian pyramids and archaeological finds over the years. So many long conversations came from these topics. I guess to most people, these topics would be sleepers. Speaking of sleep, I felt it is time that I needed to find those counting sheep.

The next morning I was awoken by the sound of my students fighting verbally outside my tent. I rushed outside to see what was going on. It was a matter of clothing that one student claimed that was theirs, the norm of tent living. Oh, happy day! I settled the disturbance the same way I would my own children: Is it yours? No? Is it yours? Yes! Give it back! Case closed! Off to the showers. Get dressed for work. I don't want to hear another thing about it!

After breakfast and the normal morning hustle-bustle, I loaded the equipment and was off to the dig. Right before I jumped into the truck, I crossed off another day on the calendar. Two more days and my family was going to be here with me. It made my working day more exciting. On to the truck.

According to our plans, we were going to zone 3 to dig today. Today was going to be a real barn burner here in Giza. The Egyptian sun was going to be a killer. I warned the crew to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated. When we arrived at the dig area, I noticed that there must have been a small sandstorm in this area. It had covered up a small area we'd uncovered a few days ago. So it was back to the drawing board. I know in my heart that we didn't want to have to excavate to whole zone over again, but what other choice did we have?

The day was getting hotter, and it seemed like everyone was getting more irritable. I knew the damn heat was getting to me too. One of the students called me over to where they were digging and showed me something odd that we had not seen in the earlier dig. It looked like a large stone tablet. Max, my student, commented that it was the largest he had ever seen. At this point, I had to agree with him. I employed other students from other areas of the dig to help him. I had a feeling this was going to be something big and important. We all got excited over this new find. I told Max right then and there, this was going to be a great credit to him and his work as well.

CHAPTER 2

the stone

t

he students rushed over as instructed, dug in, and started to find the corners of the stone tablet. As it was finally formed out, I noticed, as Max believed, it was massive, the biggest we had seen yet. All focus was now on the tablet, and the equipment was all moved to Max's area. I made Max the area dig-site manager because it was his find. That is the way it works. I stepped back and became foreman for the site. Max would get full credit for the find, and the students who helped will also get recognized. I stood there as the proud teacher and mentor; of course, I was head archaeologist on the dig. After the corners were exposed, the crew measured the stone. It measured forty feet; it was huge and it was truly amazing. Now came the hard work of uncovering the writing of the story it had to tell. Buckets and buckets of sand were unloaded off the stone to uncover the history of many thousands of years of stories, or history of a culture of people we knew so much about but again so little at the same time.

There were so many mysteries about these people who lived so many years ago called the Egyptians. The pharaohs and the kings and queens who held thrones. To me it was the true excitement of the stone before us. The only problem was that we were having at this point was that the day was going to shortly come to an end. We had to think about wrapping it up for the day, which meant we had to stop, secure the site, and cover the stone up so we could work on it more tomorrow. I knew that we would see a lot on it tomorrow. We had done a ton of work today. I knew the crew was satisfied with the work they had done today, but they want to work more. Still we need to do what is best and secure the site for the night. I made the announcement to stop for the day and wrap it up and break things down for the night. The crew was upset; I knew that. I could see that in their faces. I was too. Their apprehensiveness was duly noted, as was mine. I wish we could have worked longer and done more, but of course there are only so many hours in the day. Tomorrow is another day, as my wife always tells me. Patience is a virtue. So yes! I was going to take her advice and pack it in for the night and go home. The crew did follow my advice and listened to me.

Securing the site was a lot of work, sometimes as much work as finding what you were looking for. It meant covering and securing the stone so no sand could cover it overnight. Then breaking down equipment and loading it back in the trucks and taking it home for the night. As everything was finished up, I went through the final walk-through to make sure everything was done and packed up. Then I made sure the stone was secured correctly for the night. I started to look at the stone and daydream and wonder what the hell was the mystery in the inscriptions. I was so excited to find out. I knew that if I told the crew it was going to be an early day tomorrow, I wouldn't run into many problems or complaints from them. Back to base camp. The talk was massive, the wonderment and possibilities of the stone mystery was the topic of discussion.

I was nothing but smiles. It looked like all my teaching and education and myself rubbed off on my students, I was happy to see this. My heart was warm, and the feeling of joy was overwhelming. I was nothing but smiles on the way back.

I went back to my tent and cracked open a well-deserved beer. I sat on my bed and looked at my picture of my family and said, I think we are onto something big here. I looked up, and there was John Rodgers looking down at me and smiling. I couldn't wait to tell him what we had found. Max was the finder of course; it was his find, and he got the credit, but it was amazing, and it was the crew that was going to dig it up tomorrow. John was just excited as I over the whole thing. He told me, Tomorrow I will go with you guys. He wasn't really a field dig kind of person, but I knew he was excited about the whole thing if he wanted to go. Of course I agreed. Why would I not want my best friend and partner out on the dig with me?

I made an announcement that it was going to be an early morning; we were going to get out to the site at sunrise. So there were early bedtimes for everyone including me. John and my discussion were just like everything I could have imagined, full of wonder and thoughts of what the tablet would say and what secrets it would hold. I was like a kid at Christmas. I guess I was like the rest of my students. I was so wanting to get back out there and see what the hell it had to say. I just had a feeling it was going to be a sleepless night for all of us.

It was a quick dinner and off to bed. There was a lot of talking in small groups all through camp. I did fall asleep that night, but I don't know how. I woke up with my small alarm clock set for 4:00 a.m., and off to the shower I went. Some of the crew was up even before I; I imagined they couldn't sleep. I smiled with a little laugh as I walked by them. They had already loaded the trucks and were ready for the day. They greeted me as I walked by them. I rushed to dress and get ready myself. The only thing that was going to hold us up was John. I walked by his tent and yelled out, Hey, John, we are rolling out in ten! I heard John say, What the fuck! I had to laugh because it was earlier than he was ever used to getting up. Next thing I knew, he was coming out of his tent combing his hair, shirt in hand. The crew was laughing because he was complaining that he didn't even have coffee this morning. It was like poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick in the morning.

I had to calm John down on the way to the site. It was way too funny. He finally calmed down ten minutes into the ride to the site. I guess he woke up without the aid of his favorite caffeine stimulant. Not to say that it isn't ours either. Lisa, our favorite caretaker and cook, leaned over and said, No one is going to have to go without coffee this morning. I packed it with the gear this morning along with breakfast. When we got to the site, Lisa got to work on coffee and breakfast.

CHAPTER 3

the tomb

t

he crew uncovered the site and started brushing sand off the stone. No one even wanted to break for breakfast. So it was a sandwich and coffee in one hand all around for everyone and a shovel or pick in the other hand.

The procedure of the clearing was going great. The sand was all cleaned off in a couple of hours. Now the crew was going at it with paintbrushes and picks, cleaning out the hieroglyphs. John and I stepped off to the side and talked for a minute or two about the next process. We would have to move the stone to a more secure location after we finished cleaning, reading, and processing it. After about an hour or two, right before the lunch break, the crew was finished with the cleaning. They all seemed to step back and look at their handiwork. I took out my camera and took pictures of the stone to start the translation of the hieroglyphics. I knew it was going to take some time.

John and I looked over the stone, and it was odd. The writing was difficult and so different then we