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The Story Of Tetisheri
(As written by Tetisheri and later after the finding of the Roseta Stone to French, much later to English)

Chapter 1

My name is Tetisheri, I am named after the Queen of the time many floodings of the Nile before I was born, she was known as the Mother of the New Kingdom. I live in Southern Opet, the place of the new kingdom we call Thebes. This may die with me, but I am going to keep djerma (papyrus) writings of my life so that those who come after me may know that I existed and what my life was like. My friend and keeper of secrets is a scribe Tetsi, who cares enough to help me to write this.

I am a child, although just a girl child of Merytamon, daughter/wife of Father, Pharaoh, The Great Ramesses the Second.

So I live in the palace and am more solitary than the other children my age.It is a wonderful time to be alive. It is long after the Pharaoh Amenhotep the third, who caused so much strife with the banishment of the priests of all but the god Amon. I myself pray to the god Aker, lion God. I have lived twelve floodings of the Nile and soon will be given in union with someone I do not know. This makes me very sad to think that I might have to leave my native land. I love it so dearly. But enough of this. I am very lucky as Tetsi is teaching me to make Hieroglyphs as the scribes do. He says that for a girl I am very fast at learning the signs and in this way I will be able to keep my own djermas soon and then I may write anything that I feel.

Mother says it will soon be time for me to put up the things of a child and learn to care for myself so that I will be acceptable to whom ever they place me in union with. Every day mother bathes in the milk of the ass, mixed with precious oils from the far east and water carried from the well, then her servants rub her body down with the oils so that it is both fragrant and soft, before they scrape all of the ointments off, so that she is perfect in body and spirit. She says that soon I must do this and learn the art of placing kohl and the other ointments upon my face and wear the braided wig that the royal women and concubines wear as a symbol of their status. It seems to me like allot work for such a little time to be seen and for a man I do not even know as yet. Now that I think of it, I must ask mother Merytamon to work her magic upon father and prevail against being sent to one of the kings of the Hittites, after all I am his favorite girl child and he has promised me that when the thirteenth flooding of the Nile comes I may go with him in his chariot to hunt a lion. He tells me I am much like the lioness and that in the killing I can pray that the spirit of Aker may enter my spirit and make me strong, then he laughs and says not too strong, for I would not be a good match if I were too strong, we must make sure it is only a little bit of Akers' spirit that enters me. He says that I am willful enough already and as courageous as any of his sons.

Today Tetsi is very busy, so I just watch what he is doing. He is a very good scribe and much sought after for his work. He sits cross legged in the shade of his house his slates, inks, smoothing stones for the sheets of djet, reed brushes, which are kept firm by the chewing of the end of the fibers. Within his kit which is a long square with holes on one side for the small cakes of ink, that are attached by a cord. Tetsi tells me that the ink is made from lamp black and mixed with gum and water by him. One day I will have my maid servant make the ink for me and the djerma, but I will be able to tell her how and this is good for a girl like me. There are Tetsi says 800 characters and already I know 500, it feels good when he says if I were not a royal and a girl, I would make a good living being a scribe. It is a very high position, and one that holds much respect for the person who is able to accomplish this feat.

Since I have so little time left to be free, I must enjoy it and thinking back to when I was a child and remembering the stories that mother Merytamon has told to me, the times I did as I was told not to, the finding of birds and the complete enjoyment of my life so far is pleasant for me.

I am hungry now and so I will borrow the clothes of my maid servant and go into the place where she lives and eat of the bread and heneket which is very good and made from barley Tetsi tells me then pieces of bread are served with it. I like it for it makes me feel quite dizzy for a little while. Tetsi tells me to never have more than one glass or he will be very mad at me, and since he is not only my friend, but my teacher as well, I must listen to what he says. Sometimes he laughs at me and says that any man who would have me would have to be dizzy in the head all of the time.

As it is almost dusk and the sun is setting, so it is time to retire to our villa. It is beautiful, with many floors made from sun dried brick and rare woods that father has had brought from strange and wonderful lands. There are many gardens and storehouses, a separate area for the kitchen with areas left open for the air to roam around the rooms and cool us once night has come. Our roof is where we sleep when it becomes too hot. The floors in some of the rooms are painted to imitate ponds of fish and areas of flowering shrubs, the ceilings are high and have stars painted on them. Sometimes when Father visits us and we sleep on the roof he points out the stars to me and tells me their names. He tells me that certain priests are known as the Keepers of Time, and that they do this by watching the nightly movement of the stars across the sky. He tells me of Ikhemu-Seku, the Stars That Never Fail. These are the stars that live above the polar lands and stay fixed in the night sky and are venerated as the special stars. There are also the Never Resting Stars which follow special paths in the sky at night, and that both of the sets of stars accompany the solar bark on its nightly voyage. But my favorite is still the Siurius or as we have named it the Sopdu or Sopdet, it shows when the Nile will be flooding and I will be another flooding season older and nearer to union. On nights that are too cold to be outside I have a room of my own now that I approach the time of union and as I have begged father for many seasons for a Cheetah, he has had a bed made of the metal of the sun covered with spots that look like the lamp black that Tetsi uses as ink. My headrest is of alabaster and i s so hard that father relented and had it padded with the feathers of the Meidum Geese and Bennu bird so that I can sleep. Sometimes I just lay there and through the cotton cloth that they enclose the bed in I look at the fire in the oil to light the room and pretend that it is a star and I am on the solar bark going to a wonderful land and before I see the land I am asleep.

Today was not a good day, I was caught riding on the back of Ba'eb Djet the sacred ram. He is such a temptation to ride as he is so beautiful and supposed to house Osiris' soul. It is my father says, the symbol of the great god AMON and I have sorely tested the god by not respecting it properly. Sometimes I hate being a girl child, I'll bet that father would not have punished one of his sons, my brothers. Sometimes I think I will run away and they will be sorry, never to see me again, then I remember how many sons and daughters father has and decide that that is a bad idea.

I often wonder what life must have been like for the children that have come before me. Are we at all alike, or because I am more modern, do I think differently from them. Father says, "You are such a trial Testisheri, it is too bad that you were not a son instead of only a daughter. You would have been a great warrior."" I don't think that life is fair that because I am only a girl child I cannot listen to the old ones tell their stories of courage and love. If Father Pharaoh every caught me listening from under the plants that grow under the small wall where the men, drink and talk I would, I'm sure think the beating of the back of me for riding Ba'eb Djet would have been light by comparison. The stories of the men about love make me wonder about who will be chosen for me sometimes. I will just tell him that I am the Favorite daughter of Father and that should stop his insolence, whomever he may be.

Tonight I have asked Iputi to tell me again the story of Isis, for it is one of my favorite. I hope that I will feel as Isis did about whomever it may be, that I am given in union too. I think of this allot now, as I really want to stay the favorite of my Father Pharoah and to live my life with him. Iputi has lit the oil in the lamps and they are twinkling like the stars in the sky over the desert the cotton drapes she has released from their holdings and as I lay on the couch like a Cheetah that Father has given to me, I listen to the story of how the husband of Isis, called Osiris was slain by the god Seth. Of how poor Isis began her journey to search for the remains of her beloved husband and was to find them in a coffin engulfed in the fragrant tamarisk tree, which had floated on the Great Sea. Isis then upon finding the coffin of Osiris took it to the land of Buto and hid it in the land of the swamps. I love to listen to Iputi, for her voice is as soft as the cloth that comes from the land so far to the East. She can put me in the land of sleep by just listening to her. From the land of the swamps, Seth was to find Osiris and he then cut the body into two more floodings than I am old, but Isis still strong in her love searched until she found all of the parts of her husband. At least all but the part that Father and the men call the Phallus, which had been eaten by a fish in the great Nile. Still Isis took the parts of the body and putting them back together, she became with child by Osiris' dead body ( I often wonder how this can be so, but Iputi, tells me it is and not to ask such ignorant questions. Anything is possible for a god or goddess she says and not to question the word.) Then Isis went to Chemmis where Wadjet, the protector of lower Egypt and a goddess in her own right kept Isis and her newborn son, Horus. In time Seth found out about Horus and he attacked the child in the body of a snake, I'll bet a cobra. The child would have died but for the protection of the god Thoth, sent by her plies for aid from RE. Thoth was able to take the poison from the child of Isis and Osiris by reciting the cosmic disasters that would be the punishment if the baby Horus died. Iputi always finishes the story, because she can see how sleepy I am getting by saying that Horus was cured and then given to the local people to become their leader, which united the mythic god and the real people of the Delta. I know that Anubas was the son of Seth, but Iputi will not tell me much about him now as she is frightened of death and how Anubus helps in death. This always makes me wonder what she has to hide. Oh well now I will go to sleep and dream of the gods and goddesses, Nut, Geb the father of Osiris, Isis, and some of the favorites of mine, and sleep the sleep of the just as Iputi calls it and then laughs when she says it where I am concerned.

© camille nelson. All rights reserved!

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