A Museum in Baghdad by Hannah Khalil

Author:Hannah Khalil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Then

Woolley enters and regards the crown.

GertrudeYou’re here – alone?

Woolley Hello – where did you find that?

GertrudeHow did you get in?

Woolley Abu Zaman – but he’s gone – patrolling the corridors again.

GertrudeHe does that ... But it’s not patrolling ... It’s as though he’s lost something. Like he’s retracing his steps ...

A beat.

Woolley (of the crown)You know, this is very like some we’ve come across at the royal cemetery in Ur.

GertrudeDon’t say it like that. I didn’t steal it. Someone found it and brought it here. (A beat.) You can’t have it.

Woolley You’re welcome to it. I’m sick to death of getting out gold headdresses. There are many more interesting things coming out of what I’m calling ‘The Great Death Pit’.

GertrudeSounds charmant.

Woolley It is incredible, Gerty. The burial pit covers an unusually wide area – the grave itself has not yet been opened and all our discoveries have been in the wider area of the pit. But what discoveries! Apparently after the body was laid in and a certain amount of earth put back, the general offerings were laid in a shaft above the grave. With the offerings were put the bodies of a large number of people who must have been sacrificed in order that they might accompany the king /

Gertrude/ Or queen /

Woolley / To the next world. The first object was a harp elaborately inlaid.

GertrudeHow many?

Woolley Harps – just one.

GertrudeNo, bodies – humans, sacrificed.

Woolley Oh we can’t be sure yet. Thirteen of them were laid in parallel rows except for one which was crouched up by the harp – the rest were women wearing identical headresses.

GertrudeBut how many have you taken out so far?

Woolley Seventy-four.

GertrudeSeventy-four dead women, all laid out in rows.

Woolley Not all women – six were men. Don’t look like that. Imagine it – down the sloping passage comes a procession of people, the members of the court, soldiers, menservants and women, the latter in all their finery of brightly coloured garments and headdresses of lapis lazuli and silver and gold, and with them musicians bearing harps or lyres, cymbals and sistra; they take up their positions in the farther part of the pit. Each woman brought a little cup of clay or stone or metal, the only equipment required for the rite that was to follow. Each drinks from the cup; either they brought the potion with them or they found it prepared for them on the spot – and they composed themselves for death. Then someone came down and killed the animals and perhaps arranged the drugged women, and there’s evidence to suggest that when that was done the whole pit was set alight before earth was flung from above on them, and the filling-in of the grave shaft began.

Gertrude‘Composed themselves for death’.

Woolley They went willingly to a less nebulous and miserable existence – the evidence is there.

GertrudeWhat about the men – where were they? Laid out like dolls in a toy box too?

Woolley No. By the door.

GertrudeGuarding it. Locking them in.

Woolley That’s very dramatic.

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