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A funerary mask hides a secret
She
switched on a light and an overhead fan stirred the heavy, dusty air.
“So
this is where your father wove his web of theories.”
The
dead historian’s studio in Alexandria looked like a mixture between a museum
basement and a book storeroom after a minor explosion.
On
a cloth-draped desk at the back of the area they found the painted Ptah-Seker-Osiris
figure and beside it the funerary mask.
Anson
ignored the painted wooden figure and turned his attention to the mask. Like
many later period funerary masks, it lacked the serene refinement of the
classical dynastic periods. Covered in gold leaf, the face was expressive with
upraised eyebrows and a quizzically intelligent expression in the eyes. Painted
decoration and embossing covered much of the surface, even on the parted wig, showing
images of a seated Osiris.
“You
think there’s a clue in the funerary mask?” she said.
“Literally
in the mask. Something you said earlier about the resting place of the hidden
gods being in front of his face. Like many funerary masks in the later period,
this one was made not of wood but of cartonnage, layers of linen or papyrus
stuck together, then plastered and painted or gilded, or both. Sometimes the
priests used recycled papyrus documents and valuable lost texts have come to
light, hidden in the layers. Maybe the dead man’s eyes were looking at a clue
written inside the layers of this mask.”
She snapped on a desk lamp and gazed into the dark eyes in the mask.
She snapped on a desk lamp and gazed into the dark eyes in the mask.
“Hidden
right in front of his eyes? My father would have loved that.”
He
turned the mask around. To his disappointment, the first layer was made of linen,
badly stained and rusted with age.
She
found a soft cushion and put it on the table and they set the mask on its face and
together peeled away the linen. It came away easily, as if it had been opened
before and revealed another layer of linen, and then beneath it a finely
ribbed, mustard coloured surface.
Papyrus.
More
than that. He peeled a corner back.
Persephone
gave an exultant whoop as squiggles of text jumped into view underneath their
fingers.
“Script!
It’s Egyptian demotic, late demotic,” she said. “That fits. Clear away some
more.”
They
lifted the veil of linen to reveal the words of the long-dead priest.
Anson
used his iPhone to take photos of the mask, along with the painted wooden
statue of the Ptah-Seker-Osiris figure.
