Pyramid Texts Read online

  A stranger?

  The imam bowed his head in acquiescence, inquiring neither after his name nor where he came from or was going to; such are the time-honored rules of hospitality (for three days the new arrival may be asked nothing, and the basics of hospitality are provided him; then, after the third day, he may be asked where he came from and where he is going). Shaykh Tuhami did not keep silent. He told his story. He said he was a seeker of knowledge and had an interest in the stars, and that in his town in Morocco someone had told him of the basis of the link between the pyramids and the distant expanses of space.

  The visitor from afar is a stranger in the eyes of the people and they are strangers in his; thus all are strangers

  Only the cheerfulness of the imam and the warmth of his welcome reassured them. Forty years previously, it had happened that a stranger had appeared and taken up residence in the mosque. On the fourth night, the people surprised him trying to sneak away, after he had first taken down the three lamps that al-Zahir Baybars himself had hung there seven hundred years before when he came to view the pyramids, and in which the people were accustomed to light candles on the night of the Prophet’s Noble Birthday, and only then. Neither the guard nor the servant of the mosque nor any other of the people had forgotten it; by God’s grace and power they had discovered what was happening and seized him as he was making ready to flee. They were wary of strangers for other reasons too, among them the belief among government officials that there were things hidden beneath their houses, and secret entrances to as yet undiscovered pharaonic tombs. For these reasons, many glances were cast at him and many ears were pricked, and only their imam’s reception of him as someone he knew, or whose coming and appearance among them he had been expecting, allayed their fears. In fact, just as Shaykh Tuhami regarded them with awe as those closest to the secrets of the pyramids, so they regarded him with apprehension and reverence as one who came from the Furthest West, where the mysterious sciences, and the ability to penetrate the unseen veils, were to be found. The only thing that gave them cause for anxiety was that he was alone, an unmarried man. The people of the settlement were not accustomed to such a one dwelling among them, since he would constitute a source of unease, of tension, of constant wariness. It was true that they spoke to foreigners of every race and creed, hiring out to them their camels and riding animals and displaying for them their skill at climbing the pyramids, while among them were those who spoke ten or more languages perfectly though they could not write their own names properly. Often he was taken aback by their expertise, especially their ability to ascend rapidly to the summit, to that point where the stones stop and the almost unimaginable infinite begins.

  When alone, whether during the years he spent on the edges of Nazlat al-Samman or in the halls of the Moroccans at al-Azhar or on the sidewalk nearby, he would recall the features of the imam and feel certain that he had been aware of his purpose, well informed as to his goal, for everything about his face, his features, his smile, and his calm bearing spoke of this. Strangely, he never remembered him without being overtaken by a tearful affection.

  Permanence lies in evanescence, evanescence in permanence

  He settled in a hut of reeds and palm fronds on the edge of the settlement near the road leading to the Sphinx, his eyes leaving the pyramids as rarely as possible, even when copying the letters and petitions that the people of the settlement, who could neither read nor write well, dictated to him. Often the young and old would pass by his hut and find it open, exposed, for having nothing whose loss he feared he never closed its door, either by day or by night.

  Time, and the law of the appointed term, dictate that what was distant at the beginning will become close

  For three whole months he stared at the pyramids, especially the largest. He was too in awe to approach, satisfying himself with looking from where he sat before his hut. He watched the amazing structure throughout the hours of the day. He memorized the movement of the shadows, the course of the light over the different levels of the structure, the way the sun’s rays touched the huge stones, each with its differing, harmonious placement. He watched the elongated posts that hinted at an entrance other than the breach that had been opened by the workmen of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun when he came to gather its treasure, and of whom it is said that, inside, his men stumbled on a quantity of gold equal to that which he had spent on making the aperture. The people were aware of no other but he asserted that by looking continuously and hard and by tracking the degree of reflection of the sun’s rays and how this differed from one spot to another, he had been on the verge of identifying at least two further entrances, and would have done so but for an occurrence that he was unable to describe or even allude to.

  Through persistence comes comprehension, provided there is commitment

  He said that, after no small period had passed, he had learned to observe the ancient, seemingly obliterated, writing. The ancient historians, among them al-Maqrizi in his Settlements, mention that the pyramids were once covered with a rosy cladding upon which were written words in a strange script. This disappeared but was not erased, its appearance being henceforth dependent upon certain conditions, of which the most important was concentration, and the maintenance of observation at specific times. Given, however, the difficulty of identifying these times, it was necessary to look all the time. At a certain moment, lightly, almost imperceptibly, the words would start to appear, as though emerging from deep water, until, on reaching the surface, their golden gleam would blaze out just as it had in the days when they were clearly written, when they could be seen from a distance of seven nights. Shaykh Tuhami saw them and mastered them. He versed himself in them as a whole and not in detail, for the expanse they covered was extensive, and not to be taken in over one lifetime or two. Nevertheless, he wrote a small treatise on the conditions for their appearance and the steps that must be followed to observe them, which he kept among his few belongings. He affirmed that he had studied the positions of the sun and how its rays aligned themselves with the pinnacle, that point at which the structure both ended and began, and how, at midday on any day of the four seasons, a straight line, distinct as the blade of a sword, would extend between that point and the flaming disc.

  What the eye cannot apprehend, the heart may find a way to

  Every time he became acquainted with one new thing, another would appear. Whenever he felt he had gathered information about the pyramids that would gladden the heart of his shaykh in the Furthest West, some new insight would appear to him that encouraged him to stay. Much lore found its way to him and went no further. He would listen and interpret, staring by day, stealing glances by night. In the depths of his sleep, divers solutions to problems with which he had long been preoccupied would occur to him, until there came that instant, resembling a desire for some ill-defined woman, that would well up from within him, gushing, arousing, agonizing, irresistible, and inescapable.

  In such a state, on a quiet cold night whose iciness slowed the passing of time, he arose and made his way to the pyramids. He came to the Great Pyramid from the east, certain that something human existed in those seemingly mute stones, and that if he spoke, he would hear someone answer.

  The mountains appear firm and solid, but they are continuously withering away

  On that night he understood many things, some of which may be stated openly or at least hinted at. Among them:

  That it is impossible to apprehend the pyramids with the eyes when standing close to them, within their shadow. And the way they look from a distance is an illusion, because they do not appear as they really are.

  It is impossible to take in their height by looking, observation from any point being incompatible with their angles of inclination.

  The structure is too all-embracing to be comprehended in a single glance. Thus wherever a person stands, whatever his point of view, he can apprehend only a part of the whole. If he stops at widely separated places, including some (such as the Muq
attam Hills, Fustat and the eastern bank of the Nile) that are elevated, and he stands there for varying periods of time, he will see, on each different occasion, a scene that differs from that which he saw on previous occasions. Indeed, what he sees at the end will conflict with what he sees at the beginning.

  Everything is relative. Everything is relative

  That night he stood directly beneath the Great Pyramid. He walked around it. What he saw of its unaccustomed size, merging with the night, terrified him, for it was like a part, or an extension, of himself. Slowly he started to measure the east side. He confirmed that each side faces one of the points of the compass. The height, however, cannot be apprehended through observation. The one who would do so finds himself ill at ease, off balance, torn between the desire to commence and the desire to be done, between intention and execution, ever asking himself, would he never pass on through to the other side?

  From that night on, he began to direct his sight toward the pyramids even when they lay beyond his vision. However, he would become disquieted and shaken whenever he moved to take action.

  ‘Man walks and time rides.’ How then can the ephemeral catch the eternal?

  Having once determined that each side was facing one of the primary directions, he started measuring. His unease began when he came to the second attempt. After the third he was certain of the discrepancy; discrepancy is not something susceptible to doubt. For three days he didn’t dare to repeat the attempt, three days during which he doubted himself, his name, whether he really belonged to the town from which he came, or even to that in which he resided. The Valley of Zamm, with its facades, street corners, treetops, clear skies, and beloved faces, vanished from his memory. He started to ask himself, had he really lived there? Had he followed his shaykh so slavishly that he would abandon his own country? Had that really happened? He continued trying. At the seventh attempt, which took place after the elapse of a lunar month, he was surprised to find an exact correspondence with the results of the first. But at the eighth, everything was completely different. This clear variance in something tangible astonished him.

  To feel at home in a country other than one’s own is to lose all certainty

  During this difficult period, whenever he suffered from the ache of his aloneness or on the rack of his solitude, he shed secret tears. However, his eyes had only to fall on the pyramids for serenity to well up inside him once more, and he would surrender himself to the contemplation of their awesome forms, to the rehearsal in his mind of the information he had gathered about them from the people. These told of their hereditary sanctity; of how, were any couple, male and female, to enter and attempt to perform the act, they would be turned to cinders; of mysterious birds flapping through their interior spaces and of magic traps, set long ago and known to be effective still. The people still held in awe and respect any who approached or demonstrated interest, but they would not divulge their secrets or teach them to a stranger, and especially not those of the visible but hidden pathways that they took toward the summit. Those who specialized in these matters considered these pathways to be their inalienable possession, one whose secrets they passed on, in stages, to those among their children or relatives who bore the marks of a higher calling and a willingness to make the ascent.

  Each soul yearns

  Three nights, at precisely the same time, his shaykh came to him, in appearance exactly as he had left him in the Valley of Zamm. He would point to the mosque of al-Azhar, and whenever the man tried to ask him a question, he would raise his finger in a gesture that brooked no debate, commanding him without words to wait for the moment when he would visit him there.

  One morning he awoke, full of anxiety, confused, unable to remember the reasons that had brought him to live there, and he came to a decision. His shaykh’s features, ablaze with light, confronted him wherever he turned. They blocked all thoughts from reaching him, while the gesture of his hand guided him and alerted him, directing him toward al-Azhar, and warning him not to let his eyes stray from the pyramids. He covered the distance dividing the plateau from the mosque on foot and, once arrived, frequented the courtyard, listening to the commentaries and interpretations. People liked his chanting of the Qur’an according to the old Andalusian manner and his rendering of the call to prayer using the very melodies that had sounded over Cordova, Granada, and Sintra and still did over some old Moroccan quarters, as in Fez, Dukala, and Tangiers, and likewise in the Valley of Zamm and other parts and places. Among his happiest moments were those in which he would embark on the ascent of the minaret and contemplate the resplendence of the pyramids, at the point where the horizon ended and where fell the dividing line between the earth and the upper void.

  Each path leads inevitably to another

  He never allowed himself to be distracted from the pyramids, either looking at them directly, or contemplating them, during one of his heart’s ecstatic paroxysms, or when resting his back against one of the columns in the Great Courtyard or while seated at his studies in the hall of the Moroccans. Throughout those years, however, he remained in a state of waiting that was at times covert, at others overt. Then, one day, his shaykh came to visit him, dressed in white. He crossed the courtyard from the east to its western portico, the man being seated at the time beneath the sundial. Focusing his eyes and his whole being upon his shaykh, he received the command to move from inside the mosque to its outer perimeter, to the sidewalk that surrounded it, and to commence his work with books, waiting for the day when some guest would come to him who possessed an ancient manuscript containing the explanation and interpretation of all that had proved recalcitrant to him among the mysterious letters that he had apprehended during his long contemplation. It was up to him to be patient, and not allow himself to be distracted. So it was that he settled down in his spot, his back against the wall of the mosque, his eyes facing the west. He took to following what went on inside the Azhar and the transfer of his colleagues as they obtained their licenses and were entered among the ranks of the shaykhs. Anyone who came to him or sought a book might possibly be the one who would bring with him the awaited manuscript. He therefore turned no one away and never frowned in the face of woman, child, or old person, for how should he know? And despite his waiting—and one who waits is always anxious, unsettled—he continued staring without interruption at the pyramids. Often a shudder, whose symptoms he would try hard to conceal, would seize him as the presence of that dominating, commanding, riddling, encompassing, portentous, self-evident, unreadable, deeply rooted, ascending, still yet moving structure, near in its farness, far in its nearness, overwhelmed him.

  A Second Text

  Entry

  . . . and in this year everyone talked too of the affair of the young men and the Great Pyramid. It was said that they were seven and known for their closeness, the convergence of their passions, and their habit of accompanying one another wherever they went and of embarking on all their undertakings together.

  Often were they seen together, whether in the pigeon market or the candle makers’ market, the street of perfumes or that of the coppersmiths, the tentmakers’ district or that of the sword makers, the Muqattam or the Barrages, the coffeehouses of the countryside or those of the city. They were seekers after knowledge, trustworthy in their reports, bold, daring, ready for adventure, and often they left together for the desert and the countryside nearby. They were men of promise, and time lay all before them.

  Once they had decided on the matter and agreed to transform thought into resolute action, they consulted their dear ones, visiting their shaykhs one by one to seek their permission and blessing. Reactions varied, few encouraging and supporting, many cautioning and warning, but this neither weakened their resolve nor turned them from their path.

  Their going forth was witnessed, and many still remember the brave show they made, the sweetness of their companionship and the gaiety of their merriment during the moments when they climbed the stones and waved to those who stood, watched,
and stared; how each turned before passing through the breach created by the Caliph Ma’mun; how each looked toward the east, toward the throng, some of whom cried out in encouragement and farewell.

  In fact, even more was made of the business later on, when it was remembered how they had resolved not to turn back before reaching the immutable, distant, inviolable heart of the pyramid. With them they took provisions and ropes, tools to scale walls or plumb abysses, herbs and preparations for the treatment of wounds. How they would vanquish loneliness and terror, however, was up to them alone.

  Some assert that they had frequented the company of everyone who had any connection to the pyramid, and especially those who had penetrated its interior to varying distances and spent time among its abysses and heights, and that what they embarked on was the result of no whim, but the fruit of study and planning.

  Others assert that they left without giving a thought to the deep ravines of the far interior and set off equipped with nothing but a terrible desire to know, and to arrive at the borders of the unknown. Had they been possessed of even a measure of such knowledge, they would never have contemplated such an undertaking, for to understand a thing is to be unnerved, and one who becomes aware of what lies in store will opt for what he has, for what obtains. This is a truth; however, it is certain too that what they embarked upon was unlike anything anyone before them had attempted.

  After the breach there is a rise, like a hallway, which ascends at a slight slope that seems neither tiring nor uneven, and which many imagine, even as they climb, to be level and think will cost them no effort. The young men penetrated the opening in high spirits, bounding with enthusiasm and looking about them. They were forced to bend, the height of the ceiling preventing a person of middling stature from standing upright. They had known this, and were aware of the need for them to walk bent over for long distances. Each of them looked to the front, especially the first among them, who was neither their oldest nor their most experienced but rather the most determined and the one who seemed steadiest, the one in whose hands, during their preparations, they had agreed to place their trust— for man is ever in need of someone to direct him or guide him, this need being equal in all but degree at all stages of life and taking varying forms, as of a mortal being, or of ancient words in a book preserved, or of admonitions kept and passed down. The first of them was reliable, appearing calm, steady, and strong in confronting the unexpected. They felt no disquiet, for these first stretches were known. Even, in some cases, recorded.