TIMELESS ancient Egypt? Tomb scenes have hidden clocks

It was a banquet scene. The beautiful young partygoer held a water lily in front of her nose. “Not all their art is timeless,” he said. “This one has a hidden clock in it. Do you see it? You can tell from this clock that it’s a daytime party. Look at the flower she’s holding. It’s a blue water lily and the flower is open.” Egyptian water lilies appeared in frescoes in tombs and on monuments all over Egypt, but they were more than decorations to an archaeologist’s eye. They were floral clocks. You could always tell the time of day when a scene took place. He pointed to the water lily in the lady’s fingers, the petals clearly open. The flower appeared flattened in profile, as objects were always shown in carvings and frescoes, a triangle with delicate blue points spraying out in a starburst, like a living graphic of Egypt’s delta. The blue Egyptian water lily had the peculiar habit of opening up in the morning and closing in early afternoon. This scene of a lady at a banquet, inhaling the fragrance of a blue Egyptian water lily, was not only locked in time, it was also locked into a specific time - the daylight hours. “Since the petals are open, the banquet must have taken place at noon or early afternoon,” he said. “By contrast, the Egyptian white lily opens at sunset and closed at sunrise, so when you see open white lilies in a painted scene it tells you that the event is taking place at night, lit by the glow of oil lamps.”

Excerpt from the Roy Lester Pond Egyptian archaeology and mystery thriller collection. Amazon Kindle and Paperback.