OMM SETY’S EGYPT
OMM SETY’S EGYPT
A Story of Ancient Mysteries, Secret Lives, and the Lost History of the Pharaohs
Hanny el Zeini & Catherine Dees
Omm Sety’s Egypt
A Story of Ancient Mysteries, Secret Lives, and the Lost History of the Pharaohs
Copyright © 2007 by Hanny el Zeini and Catherine Dees
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9767631-3-0
ISBN-10: 0-9767631-3-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006927425
CIP information available upon request
First Edition, 2007
St. Lynn’s Press • POB 18680 • Pittsburgh, PA 15236
412.466.0790 • www.stlynnspress.com
Grateful acknowledgment is given to the following: to Jonathan Cott for permission to quote from the poems of Omm Sety; to Dr. Nicholas Reeves for permission to quote from copyrighted material posted on valleyofthekings.org; to Mark Stone for the maps and diagrams and other original artwork that appear in this book. Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are copyrighted by Hanny el Zeini. Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. If an omission is brought to our notice we will be pleased to correct the situation in future editions of the book.
Cover Design – Jeff Nicoll
Book Design – Holly Wensel, NPS
Editor – Abby Dees
Printed in the United States of America
on recycled paper
This title and all of St. Lynn’s Press books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write:
Special Markets Department, St. Lynn’s Press, POB 18680,
Pittsburgh, PA 15236
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
to
Omm Sety
True-of-Voice
Maat-Kheru
that her name may be remembered
Table of Contents
Four: Signs of Egypt Everywhere
Twelve: In the House-of-Men-Maat-Ra: the Temple
Thirteen: In the House of Mysteries: the Osirion
Sixteen: Royal Family Secrets: Two Queens
Seventeen: The Lost Per-Medjat
Eighteen: She Who Waits: Finding Nefertiti
Plans of the Sety Temple and the Osirion
I wake in the dark to the stirring of birds,
a murmur in the trees, a flutter of wings.
It is the morning of my birth, the first of many.
The past lies knotted in its sheets asleep.
from Awakening Osiris: the Egyptian Book of the Dead trans. by Normandi Ellis
What if, one day, you fell down and lost consciousness, and when you woke up you found strange memories in your head? And what if you pursued those memories, only to discover that they had instead been pursuing you?
PROLOGUE
Egypt
Giza – March 23, 1956
Just before midnight, a sun-bronzed Englishwoman climbed unnoticed to the top of the Great Pyramid and stayed through the long, cold night. She was 52, an accomplished student of ancient Egypt, and a woman with a complicated inner life.
She hugged herself against the chill and watched the dazzling bowl of stars turn slowly overhead.
In a few hours she would board a train with a one-way ticket in her hand – her destination, Abydos, a remote village with a ruined temple where she had left her heart more than 3000 years before. She knew that