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Fiction. © Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
Here is the story of the great miracle of the mountain that moved, as recorded by the scribe Nefer-Djehuti, wife of Horhotep, who is a General in the army of the Good God Ramses.
In the fourth year of the reign of the Lord of the Two Lands Usermaatra-Setepenra, Son of Ra Ramses, an expedition was sent to the rugged land of Sinai, to search for gold.
His majesty had earlier encouraged me in my ambition to visit all of the libraries of the noble houses of the Two Lands, and have my scribes copy the documents that we found. One of those documents was a map, found in the house of a nobleman of the great city of Waset, which the Greeks call Thebes. This was a map of Sinai. And on the map was a place labeled "gold". I showed my copy of this map to the Good God, may he have life, prosperity, and happiness. And he ordered that Horhotep get together an expedition to find this gold.
Besides Horhotep and myself and a few of our servants and scribes, the expedition consisted of one hundred soldiers, twenty slaves, ten priests of various gods, and a magician who claimed the power to find gold. I asked this man why he was not the richest man in all Egypt, if he had the power to find gold. He laughed, and said that in Egypt, all of the gold already belonged to other people. He said that he could easily find much gold, but he would not stoop to become a thief or a tomb robber. The ten priests were brought along to pray to their gods, and thus to help us find gold.
From the great city of Waset, we marched eastward, through canyons, to the sea. There we boarded a ship and sailed to Sinai. We marched over the rocks of Sinai for months, following the map, and following the priests, and following the magician. The magician actually found a small amount of gold.
One day, as we explored, I noticed something strange, and asked Horhotep to change the direction of our march. He did so. And at the end of the day, I told him where I thought we should camp.
When we had camped, I showed the map to Horhotep, and asked him if he could find our location. He studied the map, and the various landmarks which were shown on the map. And then Horhotep laughed with a long heart, as he saw that, according to the map, we were camped on a mountain top. Where had the mountain gone, for we were camped in a valley?
Horhotep showed the map to the various priests. And they made offerings to their gods. And we celebrated for several days, for we had witnessed the great miracle of the mountain that moved. Horhotep erected a stone stela to commemorate the miracle. I and my assistants carved this story onto the surface of the stela. As we found out later, that story was not yet complete. As we camped there, I also made several drawings of the surrounding landscape.
I then suggested to Horhotep that we explore in a south-west direction. After three days of marching in this direction, I asked Horhotep to look in the direction we had come from, back toward his stela. He said that he saw a mountain. I suggested that this might be the mountain that his stela now rested upon. He was amused, and said that surely that mountain, which we now saw, was farther away than his stela was.
I then suggested that we march northward. After several days, I asked Horhotep if he could point to the position of his stela. He studied the map and the landmarks. And he laughed, and pointed to the same mountain upon which his stela now rested. The mountain had returned. And the map had not been in error.
After a day of praise to the gods, I showed Horhotep and the priests my drawings of the landscape around Horhotep's stela. And I showed them that the mountain was not one mountain but two mountains. The two mountains looked very much alike. We had earlier seen one mountain, and we now saw its twin.
When we saw these two twin mountains from different angles, mistaking one for the other, we were also mistaken about the position on the map of the supposed one mountain. And we had erected a stela at the place where our fictitious one mountain stood.
The expedition was a great success. We found a little gold. The magician was rewarded with more gold than he had found. And we witnessed a great miracle.
Note: these are the stories of Nefer-Djehuti, so far: