Egyptian Timewave

Chapter 52

She leads her dad and Fahim over to the tent she's been working in. She carefully moves aside the tray with the necklace pieces, pulling out the seal ring in the tray's place. Her dad leans over her shoulder to look at it.

"Ooh a ring. Was that in the backfill?"

"It was, yes."

Fahim frowns at it. "Is it supposed to be a seal ring?"

"Yes, can't you see the remnants of the hieroglyphs on it?"

He squints. "Not really. Wait, are the hieroglyphs those scratches there?"

"Yup!"

"Oh no wonder you're struggling with it."

Abayomi snorts, pulling the ring close to her and positioning the magnifying glass over it. She still has to squint through it to see the tiny, faded writing. She points at the first hieroglyphic symbol.

"Do you see this? It's pretty much the only thing I've really been able to decipher so far, and it just indicates that this ring belonged to a female, or at least the name on it does."

Her dad makes a soft sound. "Well, good luck with it. Tell me how it goes later."

Abayomi flashes him with a small smile, if a bit forced. "Of course."

She shoos both the men out of the tent before she hunches over the ring. One of the symbols catches her eye and she frowns at it, sketching out what she can on a piece of paper. It sometimes helps with how faded the marks are. Another symbol flashes out, followed by another.

After this happens several more times, she pauses with her pencil touching the paper. Did she write the entire thing down without even realizing it? Abayomi leans back from the ring to frown at the symbols written on the paper. She swallows nervously. She can read it now, and she knows what it says.

She should have expected it, based on what the necklace she had found earlier in the dig, but you can't really blame her for forgetting it after the chaos of time traveling. If she's right, this tomb? It could belong to Anippe's own mother. What would Anippe think of her telling her this? Would she be angry? Abayomi hopes not.

They're doing their absolute best to respect the tomb and its inhabitant, even as they catalog and identify its contents to mark another point that describes Ancient Egyptian  - she hears the echo of Anippe saying Kemet instead of Egypt - life. But still, she can't help but think that no matter how respectful they are, of course the relatives of those who inhabit the tomb would be well within their rights to be upset about their excavation.

Abayomi inhales slowly through her nose, closing her eyes for a moment. She shouldn't jump the gun with this. Perhaps it isn't even Anippe's Nebetah, surely others have had the name even in the expanse of the entire eighteenth dynasty. She glances between the written name and the ring. Something's off.

Is there more writing on the ring? A title, perhaps. If it belonged to Anippe's mother, she was a Princess and so could and probably would have a title. With a sigh, Abayomi bends over the ring again and carefully transfers the symbols she can make out to her paper. She follows them far more carefully this time, no longer leapfrogging from one symbol to the next but systematically going from left to right.

When she is confident that she has the entire name copied down, she leans back and rubs her eyes. Straining to look, even through a magnifying glass, always hurts. She'll probably end up with a headache later, but its worth it. The moment Abayomi sees the name, she freezes. No, no, no that can't be right.

She can't have the irony of excavating Anippe's own tomb. Please don't let it be so. She doesn't care how big of a discovery it would be for the others at the moment, to learn that the Nebetah often mentioned in relation to Amenhotep III is two different people. This is her friend, her sister in all but blood.

Shakily, she compares the name she has written down to the one on the ring. Abayomi didn't make a mistake. It's there, clear as day. Nebetah-Anippe. All these pieces that she has been catolouging and analyzing, they all belonged to Anippe. She scans the contents of her desk, swallowing when she recognizes one piece after another.

She's seen so many of them in Anippe's chambers. The necklace of course, how could she have forgotten that she saw a glimpse of the falcon pendant in the chest where Anippe kept everything from her mother. The scarab ring was sitting on top of the chest when Abayomi was arrested, Anippe had taken it off to teach her the nai.

The seal ring too had been beside it, Anippe had worn it everyday and Abayomi had thought nothing of it. Why would she, everyone of power in Ancient Egypt had seal rings, she wouldn't have paid much attention to them. The necklace that was twin to Abayomi's isn't here, but then, most of this stuff is from the backfill.

It could very well be farther into the tomb or even . . . or even in Anippe's sarcophagus. Abayomi shudders. She hopes that no one disturbed Anippe's rest there, which seems unlikely with how sealed the tomb still is, but she can't help but worry. Abayomi squeezes her necklace in her hand.

She would squeeze the ring, that was Anippe's, but it did just stand the passage of time. Allah forbid she destroys the artifact just for a moment of comfort. Abayomi sighs and moves to stand. She might as well tell everyone what she found, and she can compare the seal ring to the cartouche on the tomb's door, just to make certain that the tomb belongs to Anippe and doesn't just hold some of her possessions. The work will calm her if nothing else, and she certainly needs that.
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