"I write this in my own hand. I cannot entrust this work to my personal scribe, nor to any other man, for the intrigues in the palace of the pharaoh are numberless and no man may be trusted. I write this scroll in hate, for I know the time left to me. I have offended my pharaoh greatly, for reasons not yet clear to me, and if it is his will, I may face the sentence of the two hundred blows of the cudgel plus mutilation of ears and nose."
"Mt heart is pounding so heavily I can feel it beating like hammer-blows against the inside of my ribs. Perhaps it would be best if it were simply to explode right now. At least I would be granted an honorable end, and a swift one.... I swear by the gods Re, and Hathor, and Isiris, and Toth, and Amun, and all the gods of Egypt great and small, that the events I relate in this scroll are true."
From King Tut's Private Eye
A jaded archeologist makes a stunning find in the final dig of his mediocre career. He unearths a box, carefully secured with the seal of Eye, grand vizier of Tutankhamen. Upon breaking the seal, the archeologist realizes that he holds a sensation in his hands - the world's first murder mystery.
Eye had served as the grand vizier to Akhanaten until the death of the mad, tyrannical pharaoh brought about a transfer of the crown to his young son, Tutankhamen. Eight years later, this petulant young pharaoh orders Eye to solve the mystery of his father's murder, an near impossible demand, as the former king was presume to have died of natural causes. The young king grants the shamus only seven days to find the murderer. To Eye's even greater horror, Tut forbids the use of torture in his investigation's seven days.
This tongue-in-cheek account, painstakingly translated by Levin's archeologist, brings the intrigue-laden world of ancient Egypt to vivid - and hilarious - life.
"Mt heart is pounding so heavily I can feel it beating like hammer-blows against the inside of my ribs. Perhaps it would be best if it were simply to explode right now. At least I would be granted an honorable end, and a swift one.... I swear by the gods Re, and Hathor, and Isiris, and Toth, and Amun, and all the gods of Egypt great and small, that the events I relate in this scroll are true."
From King Tut's Private Eye
A jaded archeologist makes a stunning find in the final dig of his mediocre career. He unearths a box, carefully secured with the seal of Eye, grand vizier of Tutankhamen. Upon breaking the seal, the archeologist realizes that he holds a sensation in his hands - the world's first murder mystery.
Eye had served as the grand vizier to Akhanaten until the death of the mad, tyrannical pharaoh brought about a transfer of the crown to his young son, Tutankhamen. Eight years later, this petulant young pharaoh orders Eye to solve the mystery of his father's murder, an near impossible demand, as the former king was presume to have died of natural causes. The young king grants the shamus only seven days to find the murderer. To Eye's even greater horror, Tut forbids the use of torture in his investigation's seven days.
This tongue-in-cheek account, painstakingly translated by Levin's archeologist, brings the intrigue-laden world of ancient Egypt to vivid - and hilarious - life.
