I can’t read any of those modern iterations
of James Bond written by stand-ins.
I’ve tried.
Nothing against some highly regarded authors.
It’s not even that that I resent the creative
licence to kill they take.
The films take far greater licence and I mostly enjoy those.
It’s just that of course when I’m reading
James Bond I want Fleming. His verve and vivacity.
I make a few nods to Fleming in my
Egyptology novels.
Did you know that beneath the man-made mountain of Abu Simbel
is a hollow dome?
It’s like a James Bond villain’s lair in there.
It impressed me so much that I used it a scene of my novel The Smiting Texts about a renegade, alternative Egyptologist Anson Hunter
Abu Simbel villain’s lair..
 |
| The hidden dome under construction |
The
statues of Rameses gave no clues as they gazed out complacently over the
shimmering lake.
“How is
your fact-finding tour going, gentlemen?” Anson said to the Americans, who were
squinting in the sunshine.
A group of
intelligence community folk was not the most appreciative audience for a
journey through ancient history. They looked hot and out of their element.
“Maybe you’d prefer a change of scene,” he said. “Come with me. I’ll show you
something that is pure spy movie territory.”
Anson had
a word with the SCA woman who arranged for them to enter an anonymous doorway
at the side of the giant statues of Rameses that was closed to the public. They
entered a narrow tube-like passageway. It led them, footsteps ringing, into the
heart of an artificially created mountain, a vast dome of reinforced concrete,
built to house the entire structure of the temple.
It was
like walking onto the set of a sixties James Bond movie – the wide-screen
spectacle of a villain's lair hidden inside an island volcano, under a gigantic
concrete roof and ringed by skeletal gantries and walkways
The young Egyptian SCA woman explained.
“The dome
above this Great Temple is the largest man-made concrete dome in the world,
with a circumference of sixty metres and a height of twenty-two metres. An
artificially created mountain supports the temple complex and is covered with
rock, soil and sand, to form the mountain, which holds these massive temples.”
They stood
on a high walkway and gaped around the echoing space of the dome.
“Cool,”
Ears said, impressed. “Where’s Doctor Evil?”
The
Americans squinted up at the curving concrete vault as if expecting to see a
sliding roof that could grind open under hydraulics to release a missile from a
silo below. Here was the spectre of a threat that they could believe in.
From the
walkway they could also gaze down on the interior of the temple. From their
position they could see how the temple had been reassembled like a monster Lego
kit. Humming air-conditioning plants explained the relative coolness of the
temple interior.
Even Bloem
looked impressed.
Several
maintenance people were at work in the building, he noticed.
It
happened in a blur, yet Anson saw it in slow motion.
Bloem
moved aside to the edge of the walkway to let two Egyptian men go past. They
looked like workmen, dressed in grimy blue galabeas. As Bloem leaned out at the
rail, they bent. One grabbed his leg and the other grabbed him under the arm
and they hefted him like a big sack over the rail, fully intending him to land
head first on the concrete below. Bloem gave a yell that batted around the dome
and made a wild grab with one hand as he went over. He hooked on the rail and
it put a brake on his fall. His body slammed against the outside of the walkway
and set it ringing....
Footnote. I understand that way back before its rescue, when Abu Simbel was likely to drown beneath the rising waters of Lake Aswan, Fleming toyed with the idea of James Bond swimming frogman style out of a single giant eye-ball of the sunken colossus.
I would like to have seen that.
Nefertiti James Bond girl...
Neues
Museum, Museum Island, Berlin
“WHAT THE GERMAN people have, they keep,”
Adolf Hitler famously responded when Egyptian authorities suggested that the
famous bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin ought to be returned to Cairo.
Anson was standing among other admiring
visitors in front of the bust of the iconic queen in a long gallery at the
north cupola of the Neues Museum, when he recalled the Fuehrer’s response. The
suggestions from the Egyptian authorities had risen to the level of rancorous
clamour in recent years, yet there were still no signs that Nefertiti was going
back to Egypt anytime soon. The queen’s image was everywhere, on postcards, in
books and on publicity posters. Nefertiti had the pulling power of a superstar.
Was it James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming
who’d remarked that the ancient queen of Egypt could make an entrance today in
a designer gown and give the beautiful people a run for their money?
I never thought I’d agree with Hitler on
any subject, Anson reflected, shaking his head in wonder at her beauty. The
timeless elegance, lovely neck and airborne eyebrows produced a powerful effect
on the beholder. If I had Nefertiti I wouldn’t part with her either...
(Excerpt from The Ibis Apocalypse)
