The Secret Affair of a Mummy

By Subrata Dev Roy

While some Egyptian myths explained nature's phenomena, others were told to make sense of the human condition - death and dying, love, deceit, and treachery. Regardless of their aim, myths are full of beautiful symbolism, often touting some virtue or human quality to aspire to the mystery. a story about a woman who knows she deserves more than a common girl.Our heroine, the Egyptian beauty the only woman featured in this story. 

 

"Removing the last wrapping, the young woman showed herself in the chaste nakedness of her beautiful figure, preserving, despite so many centuries that passed, the fullness of her contours and the easy grace of her pure lines. Her pose, uncommon in the case of mummies, was that of the Venus de Medici as if the embalmers had wanted to save this beautiful body from the fixed attitude of death and soften the inflexible rigidity of the corpse."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Subrata Dev Roy
• Release date: May 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201526306

Subrata Dev Roy

Subrata was born and brought up in Kolkata(India). And started his carrier in Singapore in the year 1995, as a software professional he traveled to many countries.At the age of 47yrs. He achieved a 3rd-degree black belt in karate and trained many persons to learn self-defense. His eldest student was a retired bank officer who owned a Black belt at the age of 67yrs.  In the path of giving personal coaching to the multifarious pupil, he understood that many of them have some sort of hidden talent which is not expressed or nourished properly, apart from teaching software and martial art, he started to encourage and motivate his pupil to unfold their particular talents. Therefore someday a deep thought came into his mind, why not writing a book for those who have a tremendous talent unexplored, or got stuck in between the journey of their life.  He knows the pain of living with hidden talents, which are not explored or nourished properly, and losing their precious time. Hence this is the reason he crafted the book "RELAUNCH AND TOUCH THE SKY" This book is dedicated to those, who are just looking for a life-changing opportunity. And also who wants to explore the secret and unveil the God-gifted talent they are born with. This is not a typical inspirational book that motivates you theoretically, rather steers you to the ultimate destination of achievement, success, and happiness. Subrata's mission is to inspire and mentor others around the world to become published authors. As everyone has a hidden story inside him.

Book preview

The secret affair of a mummy

Prologue

I have a presentiment that we will find an intact tomb in the Biban el Molûk valley, a much more humble character said to a young Englishman of the great race, who wiped his bald spot with a large blue checkered handkerchief. sweat, as if it were made of porous clay and filled with water like a Theban vessel.

May Osiris hear you! replied the English nobleman to the German scholar. "Such invocation may be allowed in the presence of ancient Diospolis Magna (Egypt, known as Diospolis Magna, Great City of Zeus). But so far we have been so often deceived; treasure hunters have told us that we are always warned.

A tomb that neither the shepherd kings nor the Medes of Cambyses, nor the Greeks, nor the Romans nor the Arabs has explored, and that will give us its wealth intact, continued the sweaty scientist, with an enthusiasm that made his thoughts shine. the eyes. behind the lenses of his blue glasses.

And in which you will print a very academic dissertation that will give you a place alongside Champollion, Rosellini, Wilkinson, Lepsius, and Belzoni, said the young nobleman.

"I dedicate it to you, my lord because if I had not been treated with royal munificence, I could not have supported my system with an examination of the monuments, and I should have died in my small town in Germany without having seen the wonders of this ancient land. the scientist replied excitedly.

This conversation took place not far from the Nile, at the entrance to the Biban el Molûk valley, between Lord Alvertos, riding an Arabian horse, and Dr. Engelbert, more modestly perched on a donkey whose slender hindquarters were occupied by a fellah. The ship that had brought the two travelers, and which would be his home during their stay, was moored on the other side of the Nile, off the town of Luxor. His sweeps were dispatched, his great lateen sails rolled up at construction sites. After spending a few days visiting and studying the astonishing ruins of Thebes, gigantic vestiges of a mighty world, they had crossed the river in a sandal, a light native boat, and were heading towards the arid region that it contains within its depths. . In the distance the mysterious hypogeum, the ancient inhabitants of the palaces on the other shore. Some members of the crew accompanied Lord Alvertos and Dr.Engelbert into the distance, while the others, lying on the deck in the shade of the cabin, peacefully smoked their pipes and watched the craft.

Lord Alvertos was one of those perfectly innocent young noblemen that Britain's upper classes bring into civilization. He carried with him everywhere the disdainful sense of security that comes from great hereditary wealth, a historical name inscribed in the Peerage and Baronetage - a book second only to the Bible in England - and a beauty against which nothing can be pushed. Except it was too big for a man. His clean, cold features seemed to be a wax copy of the head of Meleager or Antinous; His glowing complexion seemed to be the result of blush and powder, and his somewhat reddish hair naturally curled with as much precision as a skilled hairdresser or skilled valet could have curled it. On the other hand, the steady look in her steel blue eyes and the slightly teasing expression on his lower lip corrected what might have been effeminate in his overall appearance.

As a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the young nobleman occasionally sailed on his speedy Puck yacht, built-in teak, fitted out as a boudoir and run by a small crew of select sailors. During the previous year he had visited Iceland; this year he was visiting Egypt, and his yacht was waiting for him on the roads of Alexandria. He had with him a scientist, a doctor, a naturalist, an artist, and a photographer so that his journey would not be fruitless. He was highly educated, and his successes in society had not made her forget his successes at Cambridge University. He was dressed with that precision and neatness that characterizes the English, who traverse the desert sands in the same suit they would wear when walking down Ramsgate Pier or the pavements of the West End. A white duck coat, vest, and trousers, intended to repel the sun's rays, he composed his suit, which was completed with a narrow blue tie with white spots, and a very fine Panama hat with a veil.

Engelbert, the Egyptologist, preserved even in this warm climate the scholar's traditional black coat with its loose skirts, ruffled collar, worn buttons, some of which had been freed from their silk covering. His black pants gleamed in places and showed the deformation. Near his right knee, an attentive observer might have noticed on the gray background of the material a systematic series of lines of a richer hue, showing that he was in the habit of cleaning this part of his clothing with his pen. His muslin tie, rolled up into a cord, hung loosely around his neck, where Adam's apple stood out strongly. Although he was dressed in scientific carelessness, Engelbert was no more handsome for that reason. Some reddish hair, streaked with gray, was combed behind his protruding ears and was puffed up by the high collar of his coat. His perfectly bald skull, shiny as bone, protruded from a prodigiously long nose, fluffy and bulbous at the tip so that with the blue discs on his lens it looked like an ibis, a resemblance increased by the head. sunk between the shoulders. . This appearance was, of course, totally adequate and providential for someone who was engaged in deciphering hieroglyphic inscriptions and scrolls. He looked like a bird-headed god, as seen in funerary frescoes, who had transmigrated into the body of a scholar.

The lord and the doctor were heading towards the cliffs that surround the gloomy valley of Biban el Molûk, the royal necropolis of ancient Thebes, indulging in the conversation of which we have related a part, when, rising like a troglodyte from the black mouth From an empty tomb, the ordinary room of the fellahs, another person, dressed in a somewhat theatrical manner, abruptly entered the scene, stood before the travelers and greeted them with the gracious greeting of the Orientals, which is at once humble, loving, and noble.

This man was a Greek who was in charge of directing excavations, who manufactured and sold antiques, selling new when the supply of old ones failed. Yet nothing about him smelled like a vulgar exploiter of strangers. He wore a red felt fez from which hung a long blue silk tassel; under the narrow brim of a linen inner cap, he showed his temples, evidently freshly shaved. His olive complexion, his black eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his eyes like those of a bird of prey, his large whiskers, his chin almost divided into two parts by a mark that looked very much like a saber cut. He would have made of his face that of a bandit if the harshness of his features had not been tempered by the supposed amenity and the servile smile of a speculator who has many dealings with the public. He was dressed very neatly in a tan jacket embroidered with silk of the same color, leggings of the same fabric, a white waistcoat adorned with buttons like chamomile flowers, a wide red belt, and baggy pants with countless pleats.

He had long ago noticed the ship anchored off Luxor. Its size, the number of rowers, the luxury of the attachments, and, above all, the English flag that floated at the stern, had led his mercantile instincts to expect a wealthy traveler whose scientific curiosity could be exploited and who would not settle for statuettes ceramic glazed in blue or green, engraved scarabs, hieroglyphic panel paper traces and other trifles of Egyptian art.

He had followed the comings and goings of the travelers among the ruins, and knowing that they would not cease, after satiating his curiosity, to cross the stream to visit the royal tombs, he awaited them on his ground, sure to fleece them to some extent. He regarded the whole of this funerary kingdom as his own, and treated little subaltern jackals who dared to dig into graves with scant courtesy.

With the speedy perception characteristic of the Greeks, he had barely set his eyes on Lord Alvertos, he quickly calculated the probable income of the lordship from him and resolved not to mislead him, reasoning that he would gain more from telling the truth than from lying. So he gave up his intention of leading the English nobleman through hypogea he had already traversed hundreds of times, and he despised allowing him to begin excavations in places where he knew nothing would be found; because he had long ago taken out and sold the curiosities they contained.

Argyropoulos (such as the name of the Greek), while exploring the part of the valley that had been sounded less frequently than others because up to that moment the search had never been rewarded by any find, had concluded that in a certain place, Behind some rocks whose position seemed to be due to chance, there was certainly the entrance to a passageway masked with peculiar care, which his great experience in this type of search had allowed him to recognize by a thousand signs imperceptible to eyes less clairvoyant than his own, which were as sharp and penetrating as those of the vultures perched on the entablature of the temples. Since he made that discovery two years earlier, he had vowed not to walk or look in that direction so as not to give a clue to grave robbers.

Does your lordship of him intend to attempt excavations? he said in a kind of cosmopolitan dialect that those who have been to the ports of the Levant and have resorted to the services of the polyglot Dragomans, who end up not knowing any language, know well. Fortunately, both Lord Alvertos and his scholarly companion knew the various languages ​​from which Argyropoulos borrowed. I can put at your disposal, he continued, a hundred energetic fellahs who, under the prodding of the whip and the bakshîsh, would dig their fingernails down to the very center of the earth. to clean a buried sphinx or a shrine, or to open a hypogeum.

Seeing that his lordship remained impassive before this tempting enumeration and that a skeptical smile crossed the doctor's face, Argyropoulos realized that he did not have to deal with easy deceptions and confirmed in his intention to sell to the English. the discovery he was counting on to complete his fortune and give his daughter a dowry.

I see that you are scholars, not ordinary tourists, and that vulgar curiosity does not bring you here, he continued, speaking in English less mixed with Greek, Arabic, and Italian. I will show you a tomb that has so far escaped all seekers, that no one knows but me. It is a treasure that I have carefully preserved for a person worthy of him.

And for what he will have to pay a high price, the lordship said of him, smiling.

"I am too honest to contradict your lordship; I hope to get a good price for my discovery. Everyone in this world lives off his trade. Mine is to exhume the pharaohs and sell them to strangers. The pharaohs are becoming scarce at the rate in the world. that are being unearthed; there is not enough left for everyone.

Very good, said the scholar; A few centuries have passed since undertakers, dissections, and embalmers closed their shops, and Memnonia, peaceful abodes of the dead, were abandoned for the living.

The Greek, hearing these words, glanced at the German, but imagining from his miserable dress that he had no say in the matter, he continued to address himself exclusively to the young nobleman.

Is a thousand guineas too much, my lord, for a tomb of the greatest antiquity, which no human hand has opened in more than three thousand years since the priests rolled stones before his mouth? He is giving it away; because it may contain quantities of gold, diamond, and pearl necklaces, carbuncle earrings, sapphire seals, ancient idols in precious metals, and coins that could be turned into beads.

You are a cunning rogue! Engelbert said, You are praising your wares, but you know better than anyone that none of that is found in Egyptian tombs.

Argyropoulos, understanding that he had to do with intelligent men, stopped boasting and, turning to Lord Alvertos, said, Well, my lord, is the price right for you?

I will give a thousand guineas, replied the young nobleman, if the tomb has not been opened; but I will give nothing if a single stone has been touched by the lever of the diggers

On the additional condition, added Engelbert the prudent, that we take away everything we find in the grave.

Agreed! Argyropoulos said, with a look of complete confidence. His lordship can prepare your banknotes and gold in advance from him.

Dr. Engelbert, Lord Alvertos said to his acolyte, I am surprised that the wish he has just uttered is about to come true. This man seems sure of what he says.

God grant it so! replied the scholar, shaking his head somewhat doubtfully; But the Greeks are more blatant liars, Cretæ mendacious, says the proverb.

No doubt this one comes from the mainland, Lord Alvertos replied, and I think he for once has told the truth.

The Greek walked a few steps ahead of the nobleman and the scholar like a well-educated man who knows what is right. He walked lightly and firmly, like a man on his ground.

He soon came to the narrow gorge that forms the entrance to the Biban el Molûk valley. He had more the appearance of the handiwork of man than of a natural opening in the mighty mountain wall as if the Genie of Solitude had wished to make this realm of death inaccessible. On the perpendicular rock walls, there were barely perceptible, shapeless traces of weathered sculptures that might have been mistaken for the roughness of the stone that mimicked the worn figures of a half-erased basso-relief. Beyond the opening, the valley, which here widened a little, presented the bleakest sight. On both sides rose steep slopes formed by huge masses of calcareous rock, rough, leprous-looking, worn, cracked, turned to sand, in a complete state of decomposition under the merciless sun. They looked like bones burned in the fire, and they yawned with the weariness of eternity from their deep cracks, imploring from their thousand cracks the drop of water that never fell. The walls rose almost vertically to a great height, and their jagged ridges stood out grayish-white against the almost black indigo of the sky, like the broken battlements of a giant ruined fortress. The rays of the sun-warmed one side of the funerary valley to a white heat and the other was bathed in that crude blue tint of the torrid lands that to the people of the North it seems a lie when it is reproduced by painters, and that stands out as sharply as the shadows in an architectural drawing.

The valley sometimes twisted suddenly, sometimes narrowed into gorges as rocks and cliffs approached or separated. The completely dry atmosphere in these climates was perfectly transparent, there was no aerial perspective in this place of desolation. Every detail, sharp, precise, bare, stood out, even in the background, with merciless dryness, and the distance could only be guessed from the smallest dimensions of objects. It seemed as if cruel nature had resolved not to hide any misery, no sadness from this bare land, more deadly even than the dead it contained. Over the sunlit cliff flowed like a cascade of fire a blinding glow like that emitted by molten metal; each rock face, transformed into a fiery crystal, made it even fiercer. These reflections, crossed and crossed, together with the flaming rays that fell from the sky and reflected on the earth, produced a heat equal to that of an oven, and the poor German doctor had to work hard to wipe his face with his handkerchief, which was as wet as if it had been submerged in water.

There was not a speck of marl in the entire valley, thus not a blade of grass, not a bramble, not a vine, not even a patch of moss that broke the uniformly whitish hue of the haunted landscape. The crevices and nooks in the rocks were not cool enough for the thin, hairy roots of the smallest rocky plant. The place seemed to contain the ashes of a mountain range, consumed in a great planetary conflagration, and the precision of the parallel was completed by great black stripes that looked like cauterized scars