The Wife's Request of the Tomb Maker

A lesser known squandering cousin of Tutankhamen was embalmed with an erection wrapped in papyrus. The hieroglyphics reluctantly inscribed on the door of his shrine described the royal penis driving a chariot through the gates of death while straddled by an angry Sekhmet wearing sun hat and holding the ankh of life. She protected him, he thought, from Montu, who considered infidelity an abomination. The tomb maker had been instructed that Sekhmet’s breasts were to remain buoyant and sweaty for all eternity, that her head be tilted backwards and her two lion’s claw hands be digging into his chest. The man’s wife, buried next to him, arms crossed conventionally, had privately requested of the same tomb maker that her own eternal fingers be curled inward and embedded deeply within her chest wall.  To assure this posture, before her passing, the wife delivered one thousand jars of beer to the tomb maker's mud brick home.