Thutmose the Sculptor
An adaptation of a short story by Adam Sedia
The latest instalment in our civilizational short story series offers a fictionalized account of one of the most mysterious and revolutionary periods in Ancient Egypt’s history. Set during the rule of King Akhenaten, husband of Queen Nefertiti, our story recounts the rise and fall of a dynasty through the eyes of its art.
You ask what I consider my greatest work? I can name it without hesitation. But it is not one you would know or even guess. Though my works are many and prominent throughout the land, this, my finest work, no living eye may see for a thousand years. You must suffer to hear me tell its tale if you are to know what it is.
As you know, I was once royal sculptor, but the pharaoh whom I served longest has been purged from the official lists, and it is a crime even to mention his name. Anyone who must speak of him at all – and unfortunately I must – may call him only the Great Criminal or the Heretic. You know of whom I speak – everyone does. The successor of king Nebmaatre, who tried to abolish our gods.
To this day everyone sees him differently. His spirit looms as strangely over their minds in death as his body did before their eyes in life. Officially, no one is permitted to love him, though I know some still do, quietly, secretly. To them, his reign was as a dream, a time of freedom, the dawn of a new world that was doomed to fail because of men’s shortsightedness. I assure you, I am not and was never among them. I say that not because I must. I truly detested the man, though not at first.
I am a craftsman – a sculptor. Beauty is my vocation. I judge men not on their exploits or their wealth, nor even on their own beauty, but on their ability to sense and to know beauty. The gods have placed us in a beautiful world and surrounded us with beauty – the golden sunrise and crimson sunset, the sparkling stars, the majesty of the lion and the elephant, the gracefulness of the bird and the gazelles. It is all around us, yet so few see it. That pharaoh – the Heretic – was one who did, yet he came to reject it. And I therefore came to reject him. Yet from my serving him I came to know and create the greatest beauty I have beheld. Now I will tell you its story.
I was trained at Men-nefer, in the House of Craftsmen itself, the sacred workshop of Ptah, the Creator, our holy patron. The master craftsmen taught me the rules of form and proportion, of posing and spacing, and of color – orthodox rules handed down from numberless generations of artisans. I honored all of these. They were due my honor, for they were handed down through generations from the gods themselves. Who was I to flout them?
And yet the forms were not immutable. I noted how the statutes of their long-dead majesties Kakhaure and Nymaatre seemed lifelike in their individuality, as though I stood face-to-face with them, and how other hands could make other scenes seem to move, even though they followed all the rules of composition. These I considered the best of works, as they best imitated the god by creating an image of the world he created. The better I could imitate him, the more pleasing to him my work would be. That is why I chose sculpture as my art; it filled all three dimensions, and thus best and most closely imitated the creations of the god. Day and night I strove to imitate the god in my work, and cherished every moment of study and labor.
Yet as much as I strove, I found myself never satisfied, as much as I pleased the master craftsmen. Indeed, the more they praised my abilities, the less adequate I felt. Yet I said nothing, and I advanced in favor with my masters. At fourteen my apprenticeship ended and I began sculpting for the temples. At sixteen the high priest requested that I sculpt his likeness. Then at twenty the high priest summoned me once more.
“His Majesty needs a sculptor for his House of Millions of Years. He has sent to us, and I know of no one more worthy than you.”
I accepted the honor with joy and departed south to Waset, to the court of king Nebmaatre. After a few days’ journey I arrived. Men-nefer was rich and its temples glorious, but nothing like Waset. The grandeur of Men-nefer was ancient; Waset was new.
I cannot begin to describe the luxury and decadence of the palace in those days. The times were prosperous, and the surfeit of gold brought a surfeit of beauty for the king to surround himself in – not just the beauty of women, but of art. The palace was covered in murals and filled with statues and fine furnishings of the most precious materials – ebony, ivory, precious stones, and gold everywhere. Some of the art was fine, but most of it was cheaply made, produced with little care beyond supplying the demand for decoration.
The priests who journeyed with me brought me before His Majesty in the colonnaded grandeur of his throne room. He sat on his golden throne surrounded by a throng of courtiers, all swathed in elaborately pleated translucent linen and wearing makeup and heavy, elaborately braided wigs. The queen sat next to him, rigid and dour, and behind them stood a young man whose appearance made me halt. He was extraordinarily ugly: tall and slender, but without grace – an elongated head, an impossibly long neck, spindly arms and legs, wide hips, a distended abdomen, and swollen breasts. His face was just as distorted, besides jutting cheekbones and a pendulous jaw, he had inherited his father’s almond eyes and thick lips, but these were exaggerated to the point of monstrosity. He swayed to and fro, staring dreamily into the distance at nothing.
The king himself was old, fat, and jovial. He received me with warmth I did not expect and spoke to me plainly.
“I am old and planning for my final journey. My tomb is ready and now I seek a sculptor for my temple. I seek a sculptor to shape colossi after my own likeness. The priests of the House of Craftsmen have recommended you to me. Your name already recommends you.”
He laughed at his own joke. Of course, I shared my name with his father.
“I am unworthy,” I answered, “but if my work pleases Your Majesty, I am Your Majesty’s humble servant.”
The king motioned and the priests brought forward the samples of my work I had brought – busts of the high priest and copies of ancient works.
“Bring them forward,” the king commanded. The priests obeyed, but the king summoned them even closer, until they held the sculptures right in front of his face. The king hummed as he ran his fingers across the stone and the courtiers exchanged knowing glances among themselves. The king had committed the faux pas of revealing that his eyesight was failing.
The king called the strange young man behind him, naming the name which may not be mentioned. “Tell me what you think of these.”
“They are exquisite!” the young man said without hesitation, in a surprisingly strong voice.
“This is my eldest son of my body,” the king explained to me. “I trust his eyes in such matters.”
I maintained my composure, but inside I recoiled at knowing that monster was heir to the kingship. I claim no gift of prophecy, but I knew right then from his frame, his visage, and his bearing that he was destined to wreak evils on the land if he ever took the throne. But then he was merely a prince, and I harbored ambitions I have since learned to be foolish.
At the prince’s word the king summoned me forward. I knelt before him and he removed one of the gold collars from his flabby neck and placed it on mine. The courtiers stared at me coldly. I had intruded into their world. Then I turned to the prince, who looked at me with a wide smile that rendered his visage even more unhuman.
The very next day the king sat for me. I sketched his form – the almond eyes, snub nose, and small, thick lips that always seemed to smile. It was a handsome face, though distorted by age and rolls of flab. Yet I kept in mind that my work was destined for his funeral temple. Thus my task was to show him not as he was, but as he should be – as he would be when resurrected in the heavens – youthful, virile, strong. In my mind I stripped away the sagging folds of fat and wrinkles and imagined what undoubtedly was once a handsome young warrior, the terror of Kush and Naharin. That was how he would stand among the gods and how I would show him to men. I set to work and in a few days had my limestone modello ready.
The king returned with the prince, as I expected. The prince examined the modello as long as my masters in Men-nefer would have, examining every detail from every angle just as they would. It was as though the ugliness of his own form had made him exacting
At last he turned to me.
“You work in quartzite?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord.”
“The royal household commissions two quartzite colossi, each thirty-five cubits high. We will pay you one hundred deben of gold each upon completion. In the meantime, you may lodge among the servants of the royal household at our expense.”
He turned to his father, who nodded. Their commission would make me a very rich man.
“The blessings of the gods be upon my lord, who is generous,” I said, making the proper obeisance.
The king and his son said nothing further and left me bewildered, yet happy.
I started work at once and the prince summoned me to his personal quarters the very next day. The household guards led me there, where he waited for me. Before I could make my obeisance he interrupted me.
“Please,” he said. “Stand. Speak to me as a friend, for henceforth you are my friend.” He commanded the guards to leave and we stood alone. “At last,” he continued, “an artist after my own heart.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, speaking plainly as he commanded.
“How can I say it? The form, the lines in your work they are . . . so . . . natural. Yes. They reflect what nature made, not the rules of priests.” I had never heard such speech before, and to hear it from the king’s heir apparent – I knew not what to think. I had no response. “Come now,” he said. “You showed my father as he appeared when I was a boy. It is the very image of him, as though you resurrected his younger self. You sculpt from life!”
I stared back, not sure what he wanted me to say. He sensed my confusion and continued, “Ah, it surprises you to hear a prince have such care for a craftsman’s work. Why should I not? Your works stand in front of the gods’ houses for all of Egypt to see, and they will remain standing there long after all of us are dead and buried. Your art is the enduring image of the king. Every king has recognized this, hence their generous use and patronage of your craft – hence also their oppressive control the craftsmen’s training, their strict insistence on orthodoxy and its stiff, lifeless forms. But you are different. Frankly, I am surprised the master craftsmen let you continue under them, let alone brought you to me.
“They do not realize how foolish a mistake they have made – foolish for them, but a blessing for me! You see, like you I flaunt orthodoxy, too – except mine . . . well, let me ask you. You have been trained in the priesthood of Ptah. Ptah is the divine craftsman, who fashioned the universe as you fashion your sculptures, no?”
“He is.”
“And yet Khnum fashions men and breathes life into them, no?”
“So I am told.”
“And this city’s god, Amun, is he not king of the gods?”
“That is his title.”
“And yet it was the sun, Ra, who emerged from the waters at the creation and gives life to the land, is it not?”
“It is.”
“So then I ask you, which of these is the greatest?”
I hesitated, and he laughed.
“Do not answer,” he said. “It is a trick question. The answer is none of them. There is but one creator, one life-giver, one supreme god, one sun – it is the sun itself, not Ra, but Aten, the physical sun. He is not only the chief god, but the only god.”
He paused to see if I was receptive to his sermon. And I confess to you, I was. No, I did not believe in his doctrine, but I followed its logic. I did not think him mad, like some. Anyone who knew him as I did would never think him mad. He was sane, all too sane. He truly believed in his vision, even if it would destroy the land.
“I see you understand,” he said, smiling, as though he sensed my thoughts. “Only a visionary like yourself can see this truth. It took me years to realize it, when it should have been obvious. It had been right in front of me every day since my birth. I sensed it first in the sunrise, and how the world comes to life at its warming rays. Have you watched a sunrise, Sculptor?”
“Yes,” I answered, but he smiled to himself, not listening.
“Sculptor,” he repeated. “Yes, I will call you sculptor. My elder brother bore your name. I loved him, and he is dead. I cannot bear to utter it to another. So I will call you by your art. Indeed, it is a title you should be proud to bear. It is more honorable than any created for the craven hangers-on that surround my father. When I ascend the throne, I will banish them all from court!”
He smiled at me, realizing he had said too much.
“But you will tell no one of our conversations, Sculptor, will you?”
“I would sooner die.”
He smiled again.
“Then I can trust you. You along with my wife and my mother. We will be friends, Sculptor, great friends.”
He called for the guards. When they opened the doors, he smiled and bade me good day, then retreated into his chambers. I returned to my own quarters in a daze. I knew not what to think of this strange prince, whose appearance revolted me and whose ideas bewildered me. Yet he would be pharaoh – and soon! I would be foolish to retreat from royal favor.
The following morning the prince summoned me to watch the sun rise above the Eastern Mountains as he performed his rites. I listened as he chanted a hymn – one I later learned he had composed himself – and watched the beauty of the sunrise. When he had finished he stood, turned to me, and smiled.
“Dearest Sculptor, you have come! Tell me: standing here and watching the sun rise, do you not feel its power? Do you not sense how the earth comes to life at its bidding? What could be more powerful?”
“Truly I sense the god, Your Highness.”
And truly I did. How many of us, rising from our bed to tend to our labors, even notice the beauty of a sunrise, the birds calling and the world coming to life in the morning mists as the sky turns golden and the first rays dart across the eastern horizon? The prince was one of those few, and I considered my land blessed that it would soon have him as pharaoh.
He conferred with me almost daily in that final year of his father’s reign. He talked much of his god, but even more about art. His concerns went beyond those of a usual patron – matters of size and material and price. No: he was preoccupied with style and technique.
“What I admire most about your work,” he told me, “is how you mirror the living image. You show the person as he truly is.” After a pause, he said, “Would you depict me as I truly am, in all my awkwardness?”
“If Your Highness commands, I will.”
“Will you? You stripped away the fat from my father.”
“Only because it was my command. The House of Millions of Years must show the resurrected pharaoh, not the departed one.”
He smiled at my answer.
“True, Sculptor, true. Well, I am planning no funeral temple. I want you to depict me as I am. Hide nothing. I command it. Order the stone – alabaster! Start as soon as you can.”
An odd request! And one that kept me overburdened as I also finished the king’s quartzite colossi. Yet I found the prince’s portrait more challenging because of its oddity. Instead of bulges of muscle I had to sculpt sharp elbows, spindling limbs, and a paunch; instead of a majestic gaze I sculpted squinting eyes and a mocking smile. It was ugly – I had never sculpted anything ugly before – but it was true. I knew the prince would like it.
I finished the quartzite colossi and received my promised pay. Freed from any financial worries, I worked day and night to finish the prince’s portrait. When at last I unveiled it to him, he jumped and wept with joy.
“This is perfect!” he cried, then turned his face right into mine. “Hide it! Tell no one! I will save this for when I am king at last. This is too important.”
I obeyed and waited, but I had not long to wait. The pharaoh died only months later and the prince ascended to his place. He brought news of his father’s death to me personally on the next day. I prostrated myself and hailed him as “Your Majesty,” but he bade me rise. My obeisance had annoyed him.
“Though I am now king, you are still my friend. I came to tell you two things. I am telling you my chosen throne name first. Not even the priests know yet. It is Neferkheperure (‘the forms of the sun are beautiful’). In it I announce my policy: beauty! I have seen so much beauty, and it lies in the source of all life, the sun! And second, you are not only Royal Sculptor, but Overseer of Royal Works. The royal estate will build or decorate no building without your review and approval.” He removed the gold collar from his neck and placed it on mine. “There, Sculptor – or Overseer, I should say.”
I bowed, speechless. “Your Majesty,” I said, fumbling for words. “Thank you . . . .”
He laughed.
“Beware the agonies that come with power. I certainly will.” He turned to leave, and shouted on his way out, “I will announce your appointment to the full court. Bring your statue with you. And bring it covered.”
The summons came and at the appointed time I appeared before the assembled courtiers, who strutted in their usual fine linen and wigs. The prince, now king, sat on the throne in place of his father. Then I started. Seated next to him was the queen. He had mentioned his wife, but I had never met nor even seen her until now. I had pitied whatever woman would have to endure the embraces of so ill-formed a husband, but when I saw that actual woman, my pity turned to amazement.
She was beautiful – the most beautiful woman I had ever beheld – or would ever behold afterwards. She was as tall as her husband and gracefully slender, with an impossibly long neck that conferred the grace of an ibis or a gazelle. Her skin was fair – milky, but not pale. Her face was broad, with full, pronounced cheeks; her eyes full and almond-shaped, under gently arching brows; her nose, straight; her mouth small with thin lips; her chin, gently rounded. She knew how to bear herself royally, with a distant stare and the slightest smile – enigmatic like the Great Sphinx.
I learned later she was pharaoh’s cousin on his mother’s side. How fickle the gods had been, forming two of the same blood so differently! The thought also struck me: any defect in the king must have come from the royal line. But I quickly cursed such a thought. I could not remove my eyes from her, and I strained myself not to make my staring obvious. I must have seemed ridiculous.
At last pharaoh summoned me by name, and announced my appointment. I stepped forward with the household servants pulling the veiled statue forward on a sledge. The courtiers stared and tittered.
“Show us your work!” pharaoh commanded once we had stopped, and the veil fluttered to the ground. The courtiers gasped, shocked that my depiction was true. I am sure they expected pharaoh’s rage, and pharaoh gave me a knowing smile.
“It is beautiful!” he cried out. The courtiers gasped again. “It is beautiful,” he repeated, “because it is me, as I am! It is truth!” He stood and addressed the court and scribes in a ringing, authoritative tone I had never heard before, yet which lilted almost in song.
“Henceforth,” he intoned, “all art that we commission will follow this model. Only truth in form is permitted. Let men be shown as they are, not as the formulae dictate. And since we cannot depict gods, none may be shown – except the one we see, the only one, the Aten.”
The courtiers gasped again. Pharaoh was clever. He was not banning worship of the gods or casting down their images – yet. But it was a subtle beginning to replacing the gods with his god, done through art. What temple could be built without an image of the god for it to house, or without the god’s image carved on its walls?
He placed my likeness of him at the gateway to the palace and commissioned fifty more colossal statues like it, to adorn a temple to his god in the very precinct of Amun’s temple – a deliberate affront to the king of the gods. But that was not enough. Soon he summoned me again, this time with only the queen present. She was pregnant, and the thought of his repellant frame enjoying such flawless beauty revolted me. But I hid my revulsion well, and it deflected my thoughts from the queen’s beauty.
Pharaoh spoke, “I have envisioned another work – the greatest conceivable. It will be the first of its kind, and change our land forever. Sculptor, how would you like to build a city?”
“I am honored, Your Majesty,” I said. I found nothing surprising in the king’s new project. A new god demanded a new city – a new beginning, in a place untainted by the millennia of kings and their gods before him. He insisted I accompany him to mark the site for construction.
The royal barge took us to an isolated field on the east bank of the river, halfway between Waset and Men-nefer – but near nothing else. We arrived in the morning light before dawn and pharaoh disembarked, followed by the queen and the rest of us accompanying him. He had visited the place many times before and had built an altar. He heaped his sacrifices upon it – flowers, fruit, papyrus stalks – no animals, for he denied that his god demanded any blood. He chanted a prayer as we waited, and then we saw it – the golden disc of the sun poked above the concave between two hilltops of the eastern cliffs, as though being born. Its rays radiated like silver arrows shot through the orange and crimson sky until the rising disc drowned them in its overpowering light. At that moment I understood why the king saw no god but that image.
At last he concluded his hymn and turned to me.
“Here,” he said, “is where I will build the new Royal City. But it will be foremost a city of my god – the Horizon of the Aten. I want two great temples from which the Aten’s course may be worshipped from this glorious rising to its setting. I want a palace adjoining the temple, so I can be foremost to worship Aten at all times. The rest of the court and government will have to move with me, too. But Aten, Aten is the center and the life of this city!”
He marked where he wanted each temple, the surveyors set to work and marked the site. So did I, planning the design of his city. It was only then that I realized the extremity of pharaoh’s heresy. Everything was rebellion – against the gods, against his ancestors, against the ways of Egypt.
The temples of the old gods were their houses, shielding not only them but the priests and worshippers from the sun and wind. But his god’s temples were to be open-air, with nothing to shield from the god’s rays, which not only gave life, as he sang, but could exhaust, burn, and even kill. Courtiers collapsed and fainted from being forced to stand in the sun for hours as he sang his hymns. Foreign kings wrote angrily to him, complaining that he had made their ambassadors do the same. He ordered the royal and noble tombs to be carved into the eastern cliffs, opposite the Land of the Dead, where the sun set, as though to spite the kings of old.
The city rose according to his plans. First I moved my home and workshop there, then he transferred the royal residence. By then the temples and palace needed decoration, and I readied my sketches of the wall-reliefs for his review. I beamed with enthusiasm and pride as I showed him them; I had fashioned every worshipper after his true likeness – individual portraits of face and body. But he only sighed.
“I admire your work, Sculptor, but . . . they are too . . . too . . . beautiful.”
Too beautiful! My head reeled from hearing those words from one who had spoken of nothing but beauty and truth.
“They show everyone as he is. They are beautiful because they are truthful.”
“No!” The king shot to his feet, incensed as I had never seen. “Whatever beauty they have is revealed only in the light of Aten. I am Aten’s mediator, his living image on earth; as Aten gives them their life and beauty so I give them their power and possessions. Let my beauty be shown in them.”
He seized a stylus and inkwell from the terrified scribe and attacked my sketches, defacing them with a frenzied determination. I watched as he widened the hips, narrowed the forearms and lower legs, elongated the necks, lengthened the heads, and made the chins droop, turning each portrait I had painstakingly individualized into a slightly altered version of himself. Oddly enough, both men and women shared his exaggerations.
“Aten has made me a man but given me the figure of a woman,” he said as though reading my thoughts. “Thus both man and woman should bear the marks of my ideal.”
I watched helplessly as he furiously defaced the rest of my sketches. I maintained my composure under a mighty struggle, but I am sure anyone looking beyond my heavy kohl eye lining – fortuitously disguising all emotion – would have seen the horror and disgust in my eyes.
“There!” Pharaoh said, throwing down the stylus and empty inkwell. “This is how the workmen should carve the figures. Remember this, Sculptor, when you receive my commissions.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” I stuttered and bowed as he stormed away.
From that moment I ceased to love the king, I ceased to believe in his god, I ceased to care about my official work. The pharaoh who had seen beauty in truth, now saw truth only in himself, and it distorted his vision of beauty. I was not prepared to walk away from my honored and lucrative position, but I had no wish to lie about my work or – worse – about beauty. I confronted one of my students – a fine imitator, but not one who grasped beauty easily on his own – and offered him a generous stipend if he could sketch the scenes pharaoh requested exactly as pharaoh had shown. He readily agreed. I presented the work after reviewing it, and retreated into my workshop teaching sculpture to students. I taught them how I sculpted, not how pharaoh had ordered me to sculpt. I taught them what I had learned: to observe what the gods had created and to create its living image, for in creating we imitated the gods most closely. I was happy in those years. I married, had children, and spent my days creating and teaching others to create.
Fifteen years passed thus. Pharaoh’s city was finished and he rarely came to me with commissions. Only work on his tomb remained. That, too, I left to my assistant. By then, I had grown to hate him – and so did the country. But our hatred was different. I hated him for how he had strayed from his early vision. The rest of the country dismissed him as an eccentric. Bored with the isolation of pharaoh’s new city, I journeyed to Waset to enjoy myself and saw open contempt for him. The priests held the festivals of the old gods, openly flouting his decrees that only Aten may be worshipped, and the masses celebrated with joy. Did pharaoh know? I doubt he knew – or that he cared.
The new capital remained a world apart. Pharaoh spent most of his days standing in the sun, singing hymns he composed, surrounded by courtiers drenched in sweat, some fainting, forced to endure the midday blaze as they stood through the endless rituals he created. Like his art, the rites reflected himself and his desires. He had become the measure of all things. Yet when the rites ended and he retreated to seclusion in his palace, the courtiers returned to their usual ways, relieved that they no longer had to perform for his elaborate drama.
Then one afternoon as the last of my students left the royal courier arrived at my door. Behind him soldiers carried a sedan chair with the curtains drawn.
“Thutmose the Sculptor,” he said. I nodded. “I announce Her Majesty the Great Royal Wife.”
I knelt as the curtains drew back and the queen alighted from the chair. She strode to my door as though floating over the street, her sheer linen robes fluttering like ibis’s wings in the breeze. She wore her high, flat-topped blue crown, which made her seem to tower over the rest of us. Even now after fifteen years and bearing six daughters she appeared as young, graceful, and beautiful as the day I first beheld her. She stopped before my door and smiled, a genuine yet graceful smile.
“May I enter?” Her voice was sweet and full.
“My house is yours, Your Majesty.”
“Wait for me,” she ordered her entourage and entered. “Where is your workshop?” she asked. She had arrived at my house door. I asked her to follow me and led her to my workshop, which I had left in disarray. Sculptures finished and unfinished stood throughout the room. Tools lay on benches. Dust and stone flakes covered everything.
“I apologize for the mess – ”
“You would be a poor sculptor if your workshop had no work to fill it.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty.”
“Do you know why I have come?” she asked directly.
“No.”
“Is anyone listening?”
Her question surprised me. I rushed to every door, checked behind it, and closed it. I then closed the shutters over the windows, leaving the room dimmed.
“No one can listen now,” I said.
“My husband is dying,” she said without emotion. “He will not survive long, and all this – this city, his god – I doubt it will long outlast him. Nor will I. I gave him no sons and he refuses to name an heir. Already the priests of the old gods and the generals seem emboldened – like vultures circling above a dying animal. They want my six-year-old stepson as king so they can control him. Then they can destroy everything my husband built.” She paused. “I suppose you wonder why I come here to tell you this. I want you to sculpt my portrait in your style, not the one my husband forced on you.” She laughed to herself. “Ah yes, do not imagine I did not notice that you no longer designed the wall art. Everything lacks the care and lifelikeness of your hand. Do not imagine either that I have not noticed how you stare at me. I know that stare. I have known it all my life. You find me beautiful. Unlike most women, I do not take offense. I rather like it. And from a sculptor it is especially flattering. So before I grow truly old I want you to recreate my beauty in a deathless work of stone. I will pay whatever you ask.”
I hesitated. “Your Majesty,” I said at last, “allowing me to portray you is payment enough.”
“Nonsense! You shall have fifty deben of gold for your work – a hundred if your work especially pleases me. Start right now.”
I stared back, dumbstruck at her request and her frankness. She was charming, forceful, and perceptive. How much of her husband’s madness had she reined in?
I opened the shutters to let in the light and I sketched her from every angle.
“I have what I need,” I said. “I will send for you when the portrait is ready.”
She thanked me and left – after giving me five deben of gold as a down payment.
I set to work immediately. I would use limestone – soft, like her skin, easily molded to achieve the graceful curves of her form. I chose two blocks: I would make a duplicate for myself, to keep with me – not as a way to gratify my desire, but for the same reasons she commissioned it: to have the beauty of her form in deathless stone, to have for the rest of my days.
I started on one block with the rough shape, then refined it, then added the details – ears, eyelids, nostrils – then smoothed and polished it. Lastly, I mixed the paints and painted it so that it seemed to come alive. I worked obsessively, spending whole days on it, returning to correct a detail here and there. Lastly I added the quartz eyes and it stared back at me, a perfect likeness of the queen. Satisfied, I swiftly finished my second sculpture, hid it, then sent for the queen.
She arrived that same day. “How speedily you worked,” she said as she entered my studio. There, in its middle, the portrait, a perfect likeness of her beauty, stared back at her. She started.
“You have done well,” she said, smiling. “Here is the rest of your payment, and a hundred more deben of gold. It is magnificent.” She sent for her men and then gave orders to carry the portrait off. “So much as a scratch, and it’s your life!” she commanded, then turned to me. “Well, Sculptor,” she said, smiling once again, “I am grateful for your talents. You have made me happy.” She paused, then added, “Now at last I have a true likeness of myself, not those ugly, deformed images my husband makes of me – a true image, as the gods have fashioned me, by the most skilled hands in Egypt. Thank you, Sculptor.”
Those were the last words I heard from her.
I kept the duplicate portrait in a secret room in my workshop. No one, not even my wife, knew it was there. Whenever I had lost faith in my abilities or in the world – or whenever I simply wanted a moment of quiet – I would steal away into that room and just stare. It was the work of my hands, yes, but it was pure, absolute, eternal beauty. It was as though I was staring at the gods themselves. Pharaoh had Aten. I had his wife.
Hardly more than a year later, pharaoh died and to my great surprise his wife ascended the throne, but she, then her son-in-law both died within the year. Her stepson became the boy-king, and the priests, aided by the generals, restored the worship of the old gods and moved their court back to Waset. They condemned my master as a heretic and a criminal, excising his name from the royal records. His city – the city I had designed – was abandoned, left for the desert to swallow.
I had to abandon my home and my workshop, too. I had been too closely bound to the heretic pharaoh to have any chance at further royal patronage. I was tired of court life, anyway. I was from Men-nefer, and wanted nothing more than to return north to my childhood home. I had everything packed except the workshop. I left everything: my finished and unfinished works, my tools – and the queen’s portrait.
I could not take it with me. It was a liability. Anyone seeing me with it would certainly accuse me of remaining loyal to the heretic. But strangely I had no desire to take it. I no longer needed it – and it no longer needed me. I had created it, given it life. Now that life was no longer mine. It would survive without me, like a child that had grown to manhood. The desert would swallow it with the rest of the city, and my workshop would be its tomb. There it would dwell for eternity like a deceased loved one, embalmed and laid to rest. There its beauty would endure undisturbed. I could hope for no greater fate for it. I had created and beheld it, and that was enough.
I returned to Men-nefer, to the priests of Ptah. I disavowed the heretic pharaoh and cursed his name, and they admitted me back into their fold. Now I teach only. I am finished with royal sculpture, or with any further portraiture. I had made my greatest work, and had left it for the gods. I had nothing more to accomplish after that. If I did nothing else in life, I would be satisfied, having created it. Though it sits somewhere in the abandoned ruins of the lonely city upriver, I know it will endure. It cannot be otherwise.
If you would like to support our civilizational short story series and see our projects expand, consider becoming premium subscriber or sponsoring a production by becoming a Renaissance Patron
Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana, with his wife, Ivana, and their two children, and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. He is a regular contributor to Age of Muses and has contributed to various other literary outlets. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.
Discover more timeless stories and dialogues.