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The broad piece of gold was studded with what looked like genuine lapis, turquoise and red carnelian. Likewise, the plumage that started around the edges of the necklace and flowed up onto the head was carved from some kind of blue stone—agate perhaps? Whatever it was, the fine striations perfectly mimicked the look of feathers.
The head itself was a masterpiece, fierce and intelligent in its expression, with a vicious looking beak and gleaming dark eyes. And even more than the rest of the murals, this one was done in deep bas-relief. To the point that it looked as if Ra was stepping out of the wall, about to descend on us puny visitors.
I belatedly noticed that we had been included on the murals, too, or people like us. Small, brown humans, hunched over in deep obeisance, littered the area around the gods’ feet, not even coming up to their knees. No jewels had been wasted on them, nor any differentiation in the features. They could have been clones of one another, with the only variance being dresses for the women instead of the loin cloths the men wore.
Way to let us know our place, I thought. Although, in comparison to Ra, the gods weren’t in much better shape. Not only were they smaller than the big, main mural, they were also bearing gifts, their hands clasped around boxes and baskets overflowing with grain, incense, gold or jewels, which they were about to present to their lord and master. Those near the front of the line, where
the upper edges of the octagon pushed them closer to the stairs, were already beginning their obeisance, sinking to one knee with their offerings raised high above their heads.
The message was clear: gods they might be, but one was far above the rest, as much so as they were above the pathetic humans.
“There, you see?” Hassani said, pointing, and jolting me out of the almost reverie I’d fallen into. “There is the sun disk, above Ra’s head. It was the symbol of godhood to the ancients, and became the royal emblem of pharaonic Egypt as well. The cobra that surrounds the disk was even added to the royal crown.”
I nodded, but I was finding it hard to focus on where he was pointing, because the disk in question was blinding. Instead of the usual, plain, orange-red sphere that decorated tourist statues and tomb walls alike, this was a huge, polished bronze mirror, which reflected the firelight like the sun’s rays, spearing them out to all points of the hall. It was dazzling.
But after a moment and some squinting, I finally located a black cobra wrapped around and then protruding outward from the sun. It looked like its scales might be obsidian, but I couldn’t look at it long enough to tell. It was also probably as big as me, but from this angle, it looked tiny.
“Is there a story behind it?” I asked, because I assumed so.
Hassani chuckled. “There are always stories in Egypt, and many for the Uraeus. I have my own theory as to its origins, but many believe it to be the symbol of Wadjet, a flame breathing snake god who destroyed Ra’s enemies.”
I blinked. “That’s . . . pretty hardcore.”
“Indeed. What I find most interesting, however, is that the pairing is similar across so many cultures.”
“The pairing?”
“Sun gods and serpents. Take the Aztec snake god, Quetzalcoatl, for instance. He vanquished an early sun god, Tezcatlipoca, and took his place during the second age of mankind—”
“The what?”
Hassani flipped a hand. “Part of the Aztec creation myth. Likewise, the sun god of the current age, Huitzilopochtli, was conceived on Mount Coatepec, ‘Serpent Hill’, and held a scepter in the form of a snake. And in Toltec mythology, the sky is symbolized by the sun god looking out of the jaws of a snake.”
“That’s . . . very interesting,” I lied. I wanted to run across the hall, to examine a voluptuous version of the cat goddess Bastet, who was wearing a net-like dress that concealed basically nothing, but appeared to be woven out of genuine diamonds. They weren’t faceted like modern stones, but they caught the light in unmistakable ways, casting dancing prisms all around her, which I thought low-key hilarious.
It could have been a coincidence, but I liked to think that some ancient sculptor had enjoyed the idea of her chasing the lights cast by her own dress.
“It is, isn’t it?” Hassani smiled at me. “For their part, the Maya worshipped Kukulkan, a divine snake that served as a messenger between the king and the gods. He is still remembered among the modern Maya as a pet of the sun god.”
“Fascinating.”
“And we find the same sort of thing in other mythological traditions. The Babylonian god Marduk, a child of their sun deity, vanquished the great snake Tiamat and used her flesh to make the world. He also had as a companion and protector a "furious serpent" known as Mushussu. Indra, the sun god of the Hindu pantheon, likewise fought and defeated the great serpent Ahi.”
“You don’t say,” I said, wondering how I ended up in this conversation, and how I was supposed to get out. There was so much to see, but Hassani was fixated on snakes for some reason.
“Then there was Apollo—god of the sun to the ancient Greeks—who defeated the Python at Delphi, which afterward became one of his symbols. That is why the staff of Asclepius, his son, has a snake entwined around it. Likewise, Helios, the god whom the Greeks identified with the sun disk itself, had a chariot pulled by serpents instead of horses. And Sulis-Minerva, the syncretism of a Celtic sun goddess and the Roman goddess of wisdom, had a snake for an emblem.”
I decided that it was just possible that Hassani’s devious plan was to bore me to death.
“But it was here where the most references are to be found,” he continued obliviously. “There were many snake gods in Egypt, either helping or opposing Ra. However, you see a difference over the dynasties. In the earliest records, snake gods are almost always seen as helpful to Ra, and many are depicted wearing his solar disk above their heads, linking them to him and his children.”
“His children?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
Hassani didn’t look at me that time, but something changed in the air. As if the rest of this had been a prelude, and we were finally getting down to business. Whatever the hell his business was.
“Do you know how the pharaohs justified their rule?” he asked, his voice deliberately light.
“Through armies, like everybody else?”
