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THE BLACK PHARAOH The glorious reigns of Narmer, Cheops and Ramses are lost to the past and Egypt in 730 BC is a very different place. Northern Egypt has been all but lost and the Nubian Piankhy now rules from the Southern City of Napata. His dream is to unite the two lands once more but unfortunately it is also the dream of the Libyan Tefnakt who rules from the North and has his eye on the whole of Egypt and a spot of empire building. He sweeps down into the country and towns and cities fall to him as what is the distant Piankhy to them? It is up to him and his beautiful wife Abilah to win back the favor of these northern places and oust the conqueror for good. Helping him is his faithful scribe the Dwarf Cool-Head, rotund bon-viveur Otoku, brave archer Puarma and the indefatigable Lemersekny with his wooden arm. If you have read the Ramses quintet you will find yourself on familiar ground here. Jacq would do well to realise that he loses something in populating his novels with black and white characters; the grey ones truly have the most appeal and the loudest ring of authenticity. Piankhy’s loyal friends are brave, tireless and lacking in any particular vices beyond a love of wine, women and song in a few cases. The Libyans are all villains – hot-eyed Tefnakt and his two henchmen Yegeb and Nartreb who exist in tandem and are so very gleefully bad in a way which is almost comic but never quite gets there. I could not quite decide whether this was a good thing or not! It is saved from being flat and one-dimensional though by the fact that it bears so much similarity to a heroic epic, Gilgamesh-style, told in the way the ancients would have told it. A tale of heroes and villains painted in broad strokes told around a campfire by a venerable storyteller – the type of story that predates all others. Also in its favor is the fact that this is life the way the ancients must have seen it and I never felt that these were modern folk in costume. Nothing supernatural happens but people think that it does and the pantheon intrudes into all aspects of life. This is partly what Piankhy is trying to do – bring back worship of the Egyptian deities, which has fallen into disuse. Religion and superstition govern the way people lived their lives and Jacq never lets us forget this. An entertaining chronicle of a little-known part of Egyptian history. |