17. THE DEATH OF TUTANKHAMEN 
		
		And thus went the days of ruling; 
		the tenuous tenure of Tutankhamen. 
		However he tried to placate the priesthood, 
		they were still hostile, and would then 
		demand that he go even further. 
		Their thirst for reprisal would not relent. 
		There would be demands before him 
		that there would be no way could be meant, 	
		for they would seek contempt for his father 
		and for the humanity which he stood for, 
		and they began to see that as he grew older, 
		and stronger, the things they abhorred 
		and that the young Tutankhamen believed in 
		-- nay, they were the essence of his soul -- 
		would not mesh with their programs; 
		he would stand between them and their goal. 
		In truth, what Tut was doing 
		was simply trying to buy the time 
		to grow stronger and older, believing 
		that the ideas would work their rhyme 
		







		over Egypt and fully undermine so 
		the feudal power of the Isis Cult. 
		And the name of the god would mean little 
		if all the magic and sorcery would halt. 
		Yet, now Tut was beginning to consider 
		that under the tutelage of Horemheb and Ai, 
		given the pressure of Isis and the tradition 
		they would invoke, that the Renaissance would die, 
		and he was faced with the impending ruin 
		of the most civilized people on earth, 
		hardly the role that this Pharaoh 
		had been prepared for even from birth. 
		The people of Egypt were raised in nakedness 
		from the time they were young. When they grew, 
		it seemed a sacrilege for women 
		to hide their beautiful forms from view, 
		but if that was true, there was much 
		they could not see, or ignored, or could not 
		do much about, for the nation-state, 
		Renaissance, and King Tut, and the lot 
		






		would all soon perish from Egypt, 
		though, indeed, the thoughts would not die. 
		If Tutankhamen made Aton into Amen, 
		there are those who hold that is why 
		in the Judeo-Christian tradition, 
		as we offer prayer up to the one God, when 
		we conclude our praise or beseeching, 
		the words are addended "Amen." 
		Meanwhile, back at the Palace, 
		Tutankhamen had begun to fall ill, 
		surrounded by the priests of the temple 
		and their 'physicians' who worked their will 
		of remedies that turned to cantations 
		and their magic and then sorcery, 
		while the malady advanced in stages 
		growing worse and worse steadily. 
		And in the eighth year of his reign, 
		in the third month of the Akhet, 
		with his teen-aged Queen beside him, 
		and in spite of all the doctors had set 
		








		of their 'science,' which was only magic, 
		upon him -- indeed, undoubtedly, 
		they hastened the work of the poison with a blow 
		to the head, and Tut's life ceased to be. 
		"The God enters into his double horizon, 
		King Tutankhamen soars into the sky, 
		taking the form of the great Sun-disk, 
		and the limbs of the God drawing nigh 
		are absorbed in him who had created them. 
		The Palace is silent, in mourning, are hearts; 
		the Double Great Door is sealed; in grief, 
		the people lament as he departs." 
		Whatever else the High Priest gave Tutankhamen, 
		he gave him a papyrus sixty feet long, 
		containing four hundred and fifty three chapters, 
		so as to guide Tutankhamen along 
		the journey he would now be taking 
		-- this Egyptian Book of the Dead 
		would lead his way into paradise -- 
		as his earthly shell of man was shed. 
		










	18. "GOING OUT INTO THE DAY" 
		
		"I am he who existed in Nothingness, 
		I am he who creates, I am he 
		who will create himself. I am yesterday, 
		I know tomorrow and forever what will be." 
		He knew in the end he would be merged 
		in the divine with freedom "to dwell 
		in or leave the tomb and Paradise, 
		to come down to Earth, to sail 
		in the sky in the boat of the gods, 
		to visit the stars in the shape of a man 
		or as a god," the Book told him, 
	 	and now Tut belonged to the land, 
		for his brown eyes closed forever. 
		The stern face of the most beautiful Pharaoh 
		gently relaxed as the great sleep began. 
		Death took Tutankhamen back to go 
		to the divine home from which he had been 
		exiled during his sojourn on the earth. 
		The Queen wept alongside Nefertiti, 
		barely twenty years now from her birth. 
		







		Tutankhamen was stretched out naked 
		in the darkness of a chamber underground. 
		The light of red candles set in gold sticks 
		was flickering its light all around. 
		With prayers and the sacred instruments, 
		the masters marked and cut and withdrew 
		the internal organs, washed the cavities 
		with palm wine and then into 
		them they inserted spices, with prayer. 
		And then they dipped the body in a great vat 
		of liquid natron. Then they went out, 
		walking backwards from where they were at,  
		to allow the sacred remains of their master 
		to macerate for seventy days. 
		When they returned, they lifted Pharaoh, 
		and stuffed the abdomen and face by way 
		of the incisions, which had remained open, 
		as the natron took rigidity from the limbs, 
		with fine linen and sawdust of scented wood, 
		and crossed the arms as all Pharaohs like him. 
		








		The ceremony was conducted according 
		to the same pious unchangeable canon 
		that had been used for millennia in Egypt, 
		guaranteeing eternity for Tutankhamen. 
		They closed each toe in a gold case 
		and set a small cup of white linen 
		which bore the symbols of Aton 
		on the head of the mummy, and then 
		laid a mask of pitch upon the face 
		and then a light piece of lawn, 
		spreading soft material all along the body, 
		which they swaddled in a web drawn 
		tightly that was of mystical wrappings. 
		As they did all this, the priest with the roll 
		said the appropriate prayer over each 
		to open happy roads to his body and soul. 
		And the priest chanted while they wound 
		a strip of papyrus around Pharaoh's neck, 
		sealed by a scarab of green paper 
		with an inscription which bade to protect 
		






		his human heart bearing witness against him 
		at the last judgment. Wrappings were laid on, 
		crossing over and over again Pharaoh 
		as jewels were added. The diadem 
		which Tutankhamen had so often worn 
		was, by the Master, placed on the King's head. 
		Still more wrappings and a gold mask 
		were placed on, and the Ba Bird was spread 
		on the arms, and daggers at both sides. 
		Finally, the officiates wrapped the mummy 
		in bank after band of gold tissue. 
		Then the priests with the roll gently, 
		and aided by Ai, lifted the mummy 
		and laid it in the first coffin, 
		the precious wood of which was hidden 
		by gold plating. And within 
		the coffin, under the pillow 
		was Pharaoh's own Book of the Dead. 
		By his side was the Queen's perfume box, 
		placed there by her request, it is said. 
		











	19. KING TUT'S TOMB 
		
		The priests anointed the mummy with ointment 
		and covered it with a gold wrought lid. 
		The gold mask was an impression of his face. 
		A whip and crook into each hand were then slid. 
		They wrapped him up in a sheet which they 
		covered with garlands of flowers, and then, 
	 	it was laid into a second gold coffin 
		and then another third coffin again; 
		each one, a replica enlarged of the first. 
		He was then carried to the Palace where 
		the little Queen observed all the rites 
		for seventy days. Before he was there, 
		she had been searching for a new husband, 
		which she had only three months to do 
		so she could reign and he would be Pharaoh 
		-- something she was unable to do. 
		After eighty days, the great procession 
		proceeded out of Thebes and to the west, 
	        crossing the Nile crowded with barges 
		to the Valley of the Kings for his rest. 
		






		At the foot of the peak dedicated to Mersker, 
		the form of Tut stood before its tomb. 
		The high priest and Ai, Tut's successor, 
		performed, without the cover of a chapel room 
		-- for in the haste and political climate, 
		none had been built as tradition required -- 
		the celebration of the divine mystery 
		of the Opening of the Mouth. Thus acquired 
		was freedom for his soul to go with the gods. 
		Two priests took the mummy on down 
		the sixteen steps of the porch and into 
		the House of Eternity, a small cell abound 
		with splendor, and in its very center 
		was the sarcophagus made of quartzite, 
		over which its pink granite lid was hung 
		from the ceiling by pulleys, and right 
		above them also hung each of the lids 
		of the four shrines, each of which fit 
		into the next. The light of torches 
	        flickered about the chamber and lit 









	        the dazzling spectacle of the House of Eternity. 
		The mummy, borne on a lion-shaped bier, 
		and secured in the triple gold coffin, 
		was gently laid on the sarcophagus here, 
		covered with a great sheet over which 
		flowers and perfumes were ritually cast, 
		and then slaves lowered each of the lids 
		which the priests joined and sealed steadfast 
		with gold panels. By now the chamber 
		was so crowded, it was increasingly 
		difficult to breath let alone to move, 
		so as slaves went about busily 
		filling the chamber and the antechamber 
		with an exquisite array of artifacts, 
		the priests recited the last prayers 
		and along with the throng pulled back. 
		All the crowd withdrew for the banquet 
		and they watched as Ai now withdrew, 
		and the tomb was sealed up by slaves 
		ritually and under the priests' overview. 
		







		Ai, whose claim to the throne of Egypt 
	        was secured by his marriage to Ti, 
		the Royal Nurse, reigned for but five years. 
		To do the work of his young master, he would try. 
		His was followed by that of Horemheb 
		-- an astute politician he had become, 
		so much so as to turn the recantation 
		of Tutankhamen into persecution which, in sum, 
		not only restored Amen and the priesthood 
		and rooted out the vestiges of heresy, 
		but, in a frenzy, removed all its followers 
		and obliterated meticulously 
		all statues or marks of the religion 
		and defaced those of Ikhanaton 
		and was even directed against Tutankhamen 
		-- Horemheb restored the kingdom. 
		Yet, he was the first to issue an edict 
		for the maintenance of the army 
		and the administration of his nation of Egypt 
		"in perfect order and with honesty." 
		










	20. APOTHEOSIS 
		
		Across the dry sands and Nile in Egypt, 
		one may yet hear the voice of Ikhanaton 
	        reciting the ancient Dialogue of an Egyptian 
		with his Spirit through these generations: 
		"Brethren are cruel and the friends of today 
		love no more. The hearts of men are violent. 
		There are no longer any just men. 
		The gentle perish and the strong are triumphant. 
		And the earth is delivered over to the sinner. 
		Death appears to me as the great cure 
		of a sick man, death with the sweet smell 
		of the lotus. Death will rest secure, 
		on the shore of a land of drunkenness, 
		like to a sailor's homecoming to be. 
		Death I desire as every man desires 
		to see his home after long captivity." 
		Still, if Ikhanaton, and with him Nefertiti 
		and Tutankhamen, went home to dwell, 
		after all of these thirty-four centuries, 
		the history of man since them, as a bell 
		







		rings out of their life, their death, their works, 
		though the priests of Isis, a weakened throne sought, 
		and to obliterate it all from the mind of man. 
                Irony or justice leaves us what they wrought. 
		In their work, they created the first nation-state 
		and led man to understand that he 
		is indeed God or at least God's hand, 
		as the sons of the one God of eternity, 
		on the earth, and through our reason 
		and morality, to create as we do. 
		There have been other nations and renaissances 
	 	since the days of their time, it is true, 
		but they have been all in their image 
		from the Gupta to Shih Huang Ti, 
		from Solomon to Plato to Alexander, 
		from the Timurid to Plethon and da Vinci, 
		and from the Tudors to the Commonwealth 
		and to the work of Benjamin Franklin. 
		When Schiller wrote of the Gotterfunken, 
		the divine spark, and then Beethoven 
		







		sat that Ode to Joy into his music 
		in the higher hypothesis in its foray, 
		they were echoing the work of that Pharaoh 
		Ikhanaton had invoked in his day. 
	        And this was the Word which John spoke of 
	        -- the children of God of Jesus and Paul -- 
		as it was the Golden Soul of Plato 
		and the answer to Dante's divine call. 
		And after Ikhanaton reigned in Egypt, 
		Pharaoh from then on was but a man 
		-- the lock and seal were broken 
		and man would not accept oppression. 
		In their wake came the rule of Rameses 
		and the oppression of the Hebrews, 
		and the chosen people of the One God 
		were brought up and they were caused to 
		be freed from bondage in Egypt, 
		led by one raised up as a Prince 
		of Egypt -- who might have been Pharaoh: 
		Moshe or Moses, who was to rinse 
		








		the sins of Egypt in its own blood, 
		by the power and will of the Lord. 
		Only a century after Ikhanaton, 
		the will of the one true God outpoured. 
		The Cult of Isis was to work its evil 
		against the Word through other days, 
		but the epitaph they set upon the tomb 
		if Ikhanaton through the eons still prays: 
                "I breathe the sweet breath of they mouth, 
		O my God. My desire is that I may 
		hear thy voice even in the North Wind, 
		and that thou mayest one day 
		rejuvenate my body by thy love, 
		and that, by it, I may live eternally, 
		O my God, I admire thy beauty always;" 
		though they meant it contemptuously. 
		For that renaissance is the paradigm 
		of what man is and what he becomes 
		-- our apotheosis ringing or Ikhanaton's life 
		and from the death of Tutankhamen. 
		







ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ronald Gordon Ziegler has been a teacher with the Detroit Public Schools since1967
and also has served as an adjunct faculty member in economics, political science, 
history, and philosophy at Detroit College of Business in Warren, Michigan since 
1987. He is currently completing his PhD in Political Science and Philosophy at 
Wayne State University in Detroit, where he is also an adjunct faculty member. 
He is married to Fayette Jones-Ziegler and they have three children -- Alexander 
who is 9, Sarah who is 7, and Kalani who is 5. Among recent projects he has 
undertaken are this e journal of poetry and the e Journal of Political Science, 
(www.geocities.com:/CapitolHill/Lobby/2897)e Journal of Political Science,
both of which he is editing.He may be contacted at rzieg98717@aol.com. 
To view the editor's resume 
Click here




POeTRY


Volume I Number 1
Spring 1997



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