Chapter I: "Welcome to the Temple of Karnak"

I slid my hands through the white curtains, instantly I felt the touch soft; pure cotton. The red and blue motifs decorated the tips forming the so classic eye of Horus.

Faint rays of sun filtered through the white cloth, I ran them completely so that the last golden threads flooded the room; captivated by the beautiful scenery I took my cell phone and took a picture.

The streets were already being left lonely by the absence of the heated people, the small street stalls were already closing and collecting their things to go each to their homes with their tourist earnings of the day. The hotel was not far from desert and less from the Nile River.

Hypnotized thinking about the beautiful course of the river I had not realized that the sun had already hidden among the soft sand dunes there on the beautiful horizon. I check the time on my cell phone; 21.24 hs. Rio for the photo I have in the background, it is an image of the bust of Nefertiti, I remember when I told my parents that in three months I would come to do my own research, at first they thought it was a joke because who would say that the girl of mom and dad would get so far from them from one day to the next? nobody. But here I am willing to get what so enigmas me, questions me and even sometimes makes me crazy.

To really know, and not by all the things said on wikipedia or other websites, who Nefertiti was; to my way of seeing I only know that it was a queen who from one day to the next disappeared, the wife of a heretic and mother of six daughters, of which two were great royal wives.

How did my great fondness for Nefertiti begin? now they will know.

December 6, 1912. Amarna, Egypt.

In the excavation of the remains of an ancient sculptor, the workers make a spectacular find, it is the painted bust of Nefertiti; the image of Queen Nefertiti becomes the paradigm of feminine beauty, but it is more than just a pretty face. With her husband Pharaoh Akhenaten leads a religious revolution that replaces Amun and his pantheon of Gods with one God, the solar disk Aten....

What? do not think that I was present to relate the facts, right?, well, no. I wish it had been like that although I think if I had been, I wouldn't be here recounting everything with a century of age, eh. Well, this is a fragment of the documentary I saw when I was thirteen, on my favorite channel. History. And from that moment I knew what I really wanted to do. Someone who could make history, like her and that everyone can know what really was and not what they say.

I cover my mouth with my left hand and let out a big yawn, the plane has left me very tired and the change of schedule does not help much that we say, I unlock my cell phone again and set the alarm for 6.00 am. Tomorrow awaits me an exciting long day ahead.

***

"Well here we are, in the largest temple in the world, the temple of Karnak.

We were in front of the entrance, it is only 7.30 am, if so early, since it is open from 6.00 to 17.00 and time passes quickly in my opinion.

Represented by the great pylonos magnificently illuminated by the sun, the temple of Karnak was the most important to the pharaoh since the God was responsible for giving him the power to rule.

We walk slowly along the promenade of the sphinxes, watching carefully as each one deteriorated over time, but still retaining its beauty and majesty.

Every day the worship of Amun and pharaoh came to worship him in gratitude.

Each town or city had a favorite God in the case of Amun this was famous for being the God of the capital and being he "responsible" for providing so many riches to the people of Thebes.

With Rick in, we started examining each column and pÍlono.

"Do you know why the pillars or columns are so close to each other?" - asked.

"Not the remotest idea." - I lied watching the highest pYlonos. Obviously I knew, but I wanted to leave the role of tour guide to him, in the end he was the one who lived here not me.

"Because the Egyptians said it was a portal, a door to another world.- this guy does know how to put magic to history.

Don't pay as much attention as I was still watching the two big pylonos.

"Yes," said Rick approaching, "these are the two pylonos raised by Hatshepsut...

"The woman pharaoh," I finished. Another great woman to whom I owe an altar.

"Exactly.- maybe... I didn't want to leave him the full role of guide.

"Come, let's look for the representations of Akhenaten," I grabbed his hand and put him in front of me to guide me.

"Okey, okey." - I was already sweating my hand with the pressure exerted by yours.

We continued until we passed the great hypostyle room, I took out my bottle of water and Drank from it, coming to this point was something tiresome, since this is 1 Km. long and 2 Km. wide. Well maybe I'm the one who needed physical fitness.

"Look," he pointed to the illustrations on the wall.

In front of me was Akhenaten holding one of his daughters while Nefertiti was holding the other two.

"You know, until the time of Akhenaten's reign it was very rare to present Pharaoh in a familiar scene like this.

"Yes," said Rick, "look at this baby from here, the one who holds Akhenaten is his firstborn Meritaton, the first of the six daughters of the marriage and as you will never see ...

"There were heirs," I finished again.

"Yes, with Nefertiti, but later Akhenaten would beget with another woman the legendary Tutankhamun.

"With his high school wife Kiya, right?"

"Not really, about a month ago they found three mummies an old woman, a teenager and a young adult woman, the last one is the mother of the only heir of Akhenaten.

"So who is the mother?"

—According to the DNA results, she is Akhenaten's sister, we call her"The younger lady" since we do not know exactly which sister of this.

Now that I remember he's right, Dr. Fletcher made the discovery.

"Now if I remember this discovery," I replied, "this mummy had a large stab wound on his side," I said, looking at him.

"Yes, we calculate that he has died because of that.

"This woman along with Kiya would have been a great obstacle for Nefertiti, since it could rob him of the love of Akhenaten and the power of his kingdom.

"Of course, that's why there's a hypothesis that Nefertiti was responsible for Kiya's disappearance in the eleventh year of her husband's reign," Rick concluded.

"Exactly because in that year of her disappearance, Kiya had had a son|a supposedly.

- And to add more mystery to the matter, Akhenaten never recorded the death of his second wife.

—Continuing with the theme of the sons of Akhenaten, what do you think of incest with his daughter begetting Meritaton-Tasherit?

"I think Akhenaten only did it to preserve the lineage as a last resort that Nefertiti could not give him an heir.

"You're right, incest was a custom.

"Come, follow me.

I followed him until I was in front of another performance in which Nefertiti's face had been brutally erased.

"You could tell they were, furious with Nefertiti, just watch as they disfigured his face, I frowned in displeasure.

-- And that's because we haven't visited the old temple to Attin.