ENTRY 16: THE BRITISH MUSEUM
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We join our stalwart friends on the
morning of Wednesday, 4 March,
1925, at breakfast, at Elizabeth's
father's townhouse.
The gang had a nice talk about everything
at breakfast, showed Don the
statue (Don didn't know what kind
of wood), and recreated a drawing of
the staff we had lost, complete with
swahili. They decided to split up
and do research for the day.
In the morning.......
Adrian spent the day at the British
Museum doing research. He took the
rendition of the staff to the world
famous linguists the British
Museum has, and they translated the
swahili: roughly, "Niambi, your
power is mine" or "Niambi, give me
your power". The had absolutely no
clue what the writing on the bowl
said; they guessed that it was a
hoax.
Don went back to the Priory, where mysterious things happened.......
Elizabeth went to talk to her Aunt
Emma about the Count and his veiled
marriage proposal.
Smythe went to the British Museum as
well, and started checking out
papers which grew out of Penhew Foundation-funded
expeditions. Quickly
scanning the abstracts, he discovered
that roughly a third of such
papers dealt with pre-4th dynasty
Egypt, and that 3 related directly
to the Black Pharoah. That morning,
he had time to read the first: it
was a comparison of Snaferu's methods
of erasing mention of the Black
Pharoah versus a later attempt. The
paper noted that larger efforts
seemed to take place the first time
around, and another interesting
thing: the codes of law that came
out of Snaferu's reign were seemed
to be entirely new; in the later case,
the laws seemed to be very
reactionary. But Snaferu's laws gave
the impression that this was the
first time anyone had thought to make
a law against, say, murder.
Katya went to see Mickey Mahoney, Jonah
Kensington's friend at "The
Scoop". Mickey seemed to have sole
responsibility for The Scoop, and
he was a very gregarious man. Katya
let Mickey know that the group
might need help and that Jonah had
sent them; Mickey let Katya know
about "The Egypt Murders"; a series
of 24 murders in London over the
past few years. The victims were found
in the Thames after having been
eviscerated. Most of them were Egyptian
or Middle-Eastern. In exchange
for this information, Katya spreads
wildly inaccurate rumors about
what happened on the ship (that were
very entertaining, to be
sure). Mickey nicely invited Katya
back to his room for some tea, but
Katya declined. (This took all day.)
Vincent was denied in his quest for inner peace.
In the afternoon...........
Vincent had a nice friend of his look
in on Don before meeting up with
Elizabeth. The two started research
at the Priory before deciding that
the British Museum would be more fruitful.
On the way to the Museum,
Vincent let Elizabeth know that he
had had a psychoanalist friend talk
to Don earlier on, and that this friend
had been of the opinion that
Don was avoiding some large issues,
particularly around the
supernatural and dealing with faith.
Elizabeth agreed.
The British Museum proved to be not
as fruitful as they had hoped;
they managed to dig up one commentary
on the "fingers and toes"
prophecy. The commentator thought
that the number of fingers and toes
(20) pointed to the year 2000, and
that "after the coming of the good
one" referred to Christ. There was
a comment on other prophecies; the
Cult of the Bloody Tongue's prophecies
indicated that they considered
themselves to be but one aspect of
a larger comedy, rather than a
chosen people, which was the common
belief of the time.
Adrian did some more looking into the
Penhew foundation. He
discovered that they are famous for
helping young, no-name scholars
build a name for themselves. They
collaborate with the British Museum,
and they have an exceedingly high
success rate: 1 in 5 expeditions
results in a major find. He discovered
(over the course of two days of
research into this) that the high
success rate is due to two things,
primarily. The first is new techniques:
the members of these
expeditions frequently eschew tried
and true archaeological techniques
(like dynamite) for new, more delicate
techniques. This results in
their finds being generally more intact,
and in much better
condition than their dynamite-using
counterparts.
The second stems from the fact that
they seem to get really good tips
/ have really uncannily good 'intuition'
for where to dig. Some of
examples include looking in 'unfashionable'
areas (like near the great
pyramids) for unmarked graves. A current
expedition is that of
Dr. Henry Clyve in Egypt. The expedition
is going to Memphis, and
claims to be near the discovery of
a large burial site.
Smythe read the second of the three
papers on the Black Pharoah- it
discussed the difference in preparation
of the dead between the time
of the Black Pharoah and that of a
later dynasty. The paper mentioned
that in the earlier dynasty, the rotting
and swelling of the corpse
was not prevented by carefully removing
all internal organs (as it was
later), but by another, mysterious
means that was lost. (For the
modern ear, the older process sounded
like freeze-drying.)
Don spent the afternoon engaged in
fascinating conversation with a
young brother.
The gang met that night for dinner and discussion.
For the next few days, people did the following:
Katya and Smythe checked out The Scoop
again, looking through back
issues for references to the new murders
and the Carlyle
expedition. They found that the Carlyle
Expedition mostly stopped to
pick up Penhew, though they made quite
a splash in the social
scene. They find very little of substance
regarding the current
murders. (Though Mickey's writing
is extremely suspensful and
intruiguing.)
Katya also spent some time at the CPUK
headquarters, and found out the
following: the previous night, the
Count had dinner with Lord
Honeychurch, who is the foreign minister
and a close friend of Lord
Chamberlain. She also found out that
the attempted assassination of
the Count on the ship was a CPUSA
thing, which surprised everyone.
Smythe read the third paper, which
concerned the resurgence of the
Black Pharoah myth / cult / interest
in the 12th dynasty. There was a
powerful woman named "Queen Nitocris"
who identified herself as a
worshipper of the Black Pharoah. The
paper mentioned the Queen was
buried alive.
Don did some more research at the Priory
and the British Museum, and
didn't find anything new out. In the
evenings, he hung around with his
'underworld' friends (NOTE that the
rest of the group doesn't know
about this), and found out some stuff
about the murders: 17 of the 24
victims were Egyptian, and they were
completely eviscerated before
being dumped in the river. They were
generally patrons of "The Blue
Pyramid", a belly dancing bar. Don
was strongly warned against going
there himself.
Elizabeth met with James Barrington
of Scotland Yard, and found out
the following: one of the non-Egyptian
victims was an Egyptologist
named Dr. Christoper Hunt; the rest
of the white victims were day
laborers and dock workers. The bodies
seemed to be torn rather than
cut open. Mr. Barrington also mentioned
the Blue Pyramid. He mentioned
that one of the victims was found
alive in the river, and he said
"Hotep" before he died, which means
"Peace". She let Mr. Barrington
know about the similar cases in New
York, and offered any help she
could give to the investigation.
She also received an invitation to
dine with the Count at a posh hotel
on Friday night, where the Count told
her that he was vacationing at
the Isle of Wight for a few weeks,
while waiting to hear on the
results of an important interview
he'd had the day before. He
mentioned that he hoped she would
stop by.
Vincent talked to brothers who performed
schooling and other charity
work for folks in the Egyptian part
of town, and accompanied
them. After some gentle persistance,
he started to get the children to
smile and laugh. The parents watched
cautiously, waiting for the
inevitable conversion attempts.
The group met for dinner and information
sharing again, where Adrian
looked at the statue closely and discovered
that it was made out of
baobab, an African wood.
They came up with the following things to do:
To research:
- The masai
- The 'toothless one'
- Funding for the Penhew Foundation
- Najir / Faruk (Amy doesn't
know what this means)
- Read books
To do: (active things)
- Retrace Jackson's steps
- Continue to forge ties in
the Egyptian community