Page 218 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

brother, to succeed the fallen pharaoh.

All last winter Kamose and his brother had spent training
the army with which they hoped to reconquer the occupied
north. And in the spring they had marched north along the river

valley, to carry the war for the first time into enemy territory.
They had won a hard-fought victory against the southernmost

vassal of the Hyksos, Teti, baron of Hermopolis. And they had
captured Hermopolis, and Kamose had established his head­
quarters in the palace of the conquered nobleman. But there he

had suddenly died, poisoned, as many thought, by Teti’s wife,
whom he had made his slave.

The death of the newly crowned king had prevented the
army of the south from following up its victory, but the bulk of
the army still stood beyond the northern frontier, while Amose

had returned with his Sudanese bodyguard, summoned by his
divine mother and the god Amon to assume the crown of both
Egypts. And everyone knew that as soon as today’s ceremony

was over he would return to lead his forces to the liberation of
lower Egypt. And the prayers of the south would go with him.

The sun was already casting long shadows from the pylons
across the temple platform when the trumpeters stationed at

the temple gates sounded their fanfare, and the crowd grew still
as a little group appeared from the darkness within. First came
the high priest of Amon, and then behind him came Amose, wear­

ing the double crown of upper and lower Egypt and bearing the
crook and the flail crossed before him. Beside him walked his

royal wife and sister Nefertari, also crowned with the double
crown, and behind them the dowager queen, their mother. The
shout that greeted the royal party rolled over the city and gave

echo from the distant hills that lined the river valley.
And then the crowd fell silent again as the high priest

stepped forward to speak. In the age-old formula he testified to
the might of Amon, and to the god’s recognition of his true
son and daughter as the rightful rulers of his two realms of

Egypt. Throughout the recitation of the formula Amose stood
rigid, his eyes gazing far beyond the temple confines. There were

many among the spectators who remarked afterwards that he ap-