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Let’s take a step back into the past of thirty-three centuries… they are burying tutankhamun. Tebe is crowded. Groups of ships bump against one another on the Nile, trying to dock. Hundreds of thousands of them, from north and from south have navigated to here, to see the event that for the people isn’t sad at all: the Pharaoh goes to the great West, only the pharaoh’s family is in mourning. In the coffins, one inside the other, the young sovereign lays, he had died suddenly; he’s taken by his courtiers to the boat waiting on the river. Under a canopy, of which the caparisons are moved by the wind, the coffin of pure gold sparkles, as the symbol of another world. The priests of the dead murmur in singsong their prayers: “ Good health to you Osiride, God of eternity, king of the Gods, who has many names, and beautiful forms, and secret essences in the temples”. Hundreds of thousands of people watch open-mouthed, they are enveloped in the perfumes and odors from the Amon-Mut-Ahons temple, on the dock, where they burn incense as a sacrifice. Ornaments, treasures and food follow the coffin and are loaded on five ships. The crowd sees the statues go by and is enthusiastic; miniature servants; one for each smaller task(but also for various entertainments: from the sitro players to the stripper-dancers, to the love girls completely naked), they have everything, except the legs: they will never be able to escape. “Oh helmsman, go toward the great west, toward the land of the just!” a priest shouts on the bow of the first ship. Then, one after the other, the ships leave the banks: the one with priests, the one with the dead pharaoh (incensed by the priest of Sem, completely shaved), the widow with the relatives and friends, the court, the functionaries, the ships with the treasures, the ones with the ornaments and the food. The great crowd watches from the bank. Less are the ones who await the fluvial funeral procession. It is a refined public, divided in small groups. They are the “inhabitants of the west”, the tomb builders, the artists, the priests of the funeral temple, the sepulchral guardians, the functionaries. They all work here: for them the eastern bank of the river is far away. If it’s true that the people know the events of the western bank only because they’ve heard about them, it’s also true that the workers in the necropolis have never seen Tebe of the hundred doors, nor Karnak, its temple city, nor the golden pilasters and the obelisks.
By sled toward the Valley of the Kings
The royal mortal remains are loaded on a sled made of roughly worked wood and poor (this is the impression), pulled by four ox. At a gesture by the priest of Sem, the low vehicle with the gold coffin moves, across the sand, following it, on foot, there is AnkhesemenAmon: she wears a wide whit gown, with long and soft folds; she recites dull sentences learned by heart. “What misfortune1 What misfortune! I am your sister, she who you have loved very much. But why are you so far from me, you who knew how to joke with me so well and who loved me so. Nevertheless this is a beautiful day, because he who is happy will be born again in Osiride’s body…”.
The same dusty road, twenty-six years earlier, had been covered by Amenofi’s body, the great conqueror. The alluvial land is quickly left behind. The green meadows and fields and the little houses are substituted by the Karst rocks. The path is rough for the steep and great rocks. Now the sled creaks over piles of stones, it goes ahead as a snake, going around the dorsal rocks.
“Oh pitiful, pitiful “ AnkhesenAmon murmurs, “now you are silent and say nothing more. You who had so many servants, maybe you are there where nobody else is, except the great burning eyes. But this day is nice, because the man, the jackal, the monkey and the falcon, that are Oro’s four faces, will protect you…”
Let’s turn back: the funeral procession is divided in three courses, the coffin is accompanied by a second and a third procession that unties as great centipedes. They are the Tekenu procession and the canopy one. The Tekenu, a ritual figure, is represented by a priest on a sled, as a mummy, covered with the skin of an animal. Four men pull the vehicle. The Tekenu portrays the sun god symbolized by the beast. “toward west, toward west” the pack-men shout, “the land where it is pleasant to live, the place you are destined”.
The procession with the canopy with Tut’s entrails is not different by the one that precedes it: there is a sled here too, with as many servants who pull it and the funeral vases on top. Behind the third course of the procession, there are two men, each with a long plant of papyrus in their hand. At the entrance of the tomb, which was hastily prepared, almost opposite, Teje has been sleeping the eternal sleep, for a few years.

On a temporary altar a sacrificing fire burns. The participants to the funeral are around the fire. The servants cook the provisions; even the precious vases are put in the fire. A young steer decorated with flowers awaits to be killed. The priest who has the task of performing the sacrifice hurries with an axe in his hand to cut off with a blow the right front leg: the mysterious ritual wants it this way, so the steer collapses. They are immediately on him and cut him in pieces with knives and axes, they throw the pieces on the fire, and the typical smell of roasted meat spreads. Now the men who bring the sepulchral gifts leave the procession and precede it. The muffled knocks of the batons on the wood drums accompany the oscillating censer in the priests’ hands, who sprinkle even milk, while everybody in, enters the sepulchral. First there is a procession of statues, then the bearers of the cases and chests follow; little ornaments are seen, with crockery, vases with ointments and oils.
The widow screams and then there is the dancing
When the “nine friends” come forward to take the coffin with Tut’s mummy, AnkhesenAmon tosses herself on it and screams : “Desperation, desperation! My lament is terrible. You, who were always with me in the gardens in the banks on the Nile, your legs are now motionless in the bandages. Do you recognize me? I am your consort, your loving sister… The joy is only for him who rests in peace. With Osiride’s sign for Djed (the pilaster of Djed is Osiride’s symbol9 he will eat Osiride’s food…. Oh pain, pain! My body has a great desire for yours, but your body is cold. And nevertheless this day is beautiful for the mummy who protects the scarabs. I am your sister and you have abandoned me. I must go back home alone…..”
AnkhesenAmon is accompanied far from her husband; nine men take the coffin. The knocks on the drums increase; the censers oscillate more quickly. The nine friends shout in turn: “ God comes. God comes”. Then the coffin disappears in the tomb. It will see the light again three-thousand-two-hundred and sixty-three years later.
The drums of mourning and sadness are still. Rapidly the scene changes. The mats are arranged, the tables are prepared, the food is distributed and even the drinks: the funeral banquet begins. The music is cheerful. Dancers whose bodies are covered only by a few lotus flowers do everything to banish the sadness. The funeral ritual performed in the tomb will still be long, the sovereign who now belongs to the reign of the dead, has fallen in the priests’ hands. Obscure and mysterious ceremonies are performed in the burial a few hours before it’s closed forever. AnkhesnAmon put last bunch of flowers on the loved consort’s coffin, the same flowers found by Howard Carter.

Der  Fluch der Pharaonen Philipp Vandenberg