By Mursi Saad El-Din Victoria Holt is a highlyprized writer of semi mystery, semi historical novels. I have always enjoyed her writings: The Legend of the Seventh Virgin, The Queen's Confession, The Shivering Sands and other interesting novels. But I was pleasantly surprised to find one of her novels with an Egyptian background. In fact most of the events of The Curse of Kings take place in Cairo, and even those occurrences which happen in England are in preparation for the Egyptian sojourn which abounds with adventures. The novel is based on Howard Carter's discovery of Tut-Ankh-Amun's tomb, with Lord Carnarvon's backing and support of the Carter expedition, and naturally it evokes the Curse of the Pharaohs attached to the discovery. Naturally the author gives different names to her characters but one cannot fail to pinpoint each of them. Yet here, I am not concerned with the story, exciting as it is. I am simply impressed by the author's fascination with and enthusiasm for Egypt, Ancient Egypt, of course. Judith, the main character and story teller was interested in ancient Egypt since her childhood. She was always busy digging, first in graveyards where she discovered a bronze part of a shield from Roman times. The discovery gave her new first lesson in archaeology by Sir Ralph, presumably Lord Carnarvon. Sir Ralph says, "Findings' keepings, eh? No, not with this sort of thing my girl. This belongs to the nation. What do you know about archaeologists?" he ask Judith. And she answers, "I know they dig and find things. They find all sorts of wonderful things. Roman baths and lovely tiles and things like that." When Sir Ralph noticed her deep interest in the Pharaohs, he allowed her to borrow books from his rich library and so her rather childish enthusiasm for ancient Egypt became more learned and solid. I am really greatly impressed by the effort the author must have spent in learning details about ancient Egypt, her history and her Pharaohs. Enter Sir Edward Travers, who moves in the town and lives in a great palace which he calls Guisa House, and Judith?s interest grows further and she begins to devour more books about Egypt. She even attends classes in Egyptology given by Euan Callum, who later joins Sir Travers' expedition to Egypt. With Callum Judith studies some of the lore of old Egypt, the story of what the author calls the self-begotten god Ra often known as Amen-Ra; and his son Osiris, who with Isis begot the great god Horus. "The embalming process," says Callum "is one which was perfected three thousand years before the birth of Christ. It was a secret and no one has ever really discovered how the Ancient Egyptians did it so expertly." All that was absorbing for Judith and she never tired of talking of this fascinating subject. So much so that Judith wanted to ignore other subjects for the sake of Egyptology. Eventually Judith goes to Sir Tybalt Travers whom she marries, and here again, Victoria Holt shows her real knowledge of Ancient Egypt. Sir Travers explains to his wife Judith how it was that the Ancient Egyptians made such a fine art of the burial of the dead. "It was because," says Sir Travers "they believed that the life of the spirit went on after death. Osiris, the God of the underworld and Judge of the dead, was said to be the first ever to be embalmed and thus embalming was performed by the God Anubis." And he goes on to tell how Osiris had been murdered by his brother Set, who was the God of Darkness, but rose from the dead and begot Horus. When a man died, explained Sir Travers, he became identified with Osiris but to escape destruction he had successfully to traverse the mythical river Tuat which was said to end where the sun rose in the Kingdom of the Sun God Amen-Ra. This river, according to the author, was beset by dangers and no man could navigate it without the help of Osiris himself...
