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,” Anson Hunter said.
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.”
 |
| Excerpt from THE GOD DIG - AMAZON |
A
secret archaeology investigation in Egypt. A suppressed ancient secret that
threatens the world’s stability and belief systems.
