Why had the Egyptian antiquities man been murdered with axe blows at the foot of the tomb gateway?

“Axe marks the spot,” Daniel muttered. The subversion of word play helped undermine the confronting reality of violent death. His nostrils flared at the tang of blood. The man’s battered and crumpled fedora lay on the floor beside his silvery head that had been cracked open by sharp blows from the bronze bladed axe. “An axe, the hieroglyph for the word ‘god’ in ancient Egyptian script,” Daniel murmured to his Egyptian companion. “Nine axes represented The Great Ennead.”