The Golden Scarab Necklace

1

 

I return

from a language that knows me,

the mother tongue,

although our mother is no longer the same

... .... ...

I am learning the silence of your vulgar dagger

You will never recognise my face

even though you knew me by the sound of my voice when I was your brother

Our father’s inheritance is no longer enough to mediate between us

Now, nothing is left save the trace of a raven

..... .....

 

I take my leave

cloaked in the enigma of the language of Meroe,

with the force and clarity of a river in spate

Bad blood lies between us –

The strife and lies of corruption

 

2

 

Like Meroe, Kurdofal^* has many temples

Fazoghli grants incense

Al‘Ais proudly guards the sacrificial feast

Stone glows

Pottery shines with the proud blood of prophecy

 

... ....

 

The boy fathered a sultanate

from the bloodline that fathered ancient sultanates

The glory of his ancestral banners

is that boy who fathered the ancient sultanates: kingdoms both impossible

and possible

 

3

 

The king in his pomp wallows in his bath

A mirror glints on the wall of miracles

reflecting a virgin, her perfumed lust, her desire

...... ...

To please my stud I dyed my hair with gold

I anointed his bed with incense and sandalwood

 

This is his night:

I take the scull of my pampered king

for my goblet –

for I am the golden scarab of this kingdom!

 

 

Blue and black faience and red carnelian beads, with shells pierced for stringing. The materials are typical of both Sudanese and Egyptian production, but the treatment, range and forms are typical especially for nomadic groups in the eastern Nubian desert. Placed with two Nubian pottery vessels in the burial of a woman, north of Qau in Middle Egypt (see ‘Traces of an Unknown Woman’). 1800–1600 bc. uc26013

 

^* Now a monumental archaeological site, the ancient city of Meroe, near Begrawiya in central Sudan, was the centre of the vast kingdom that ruled central and northern Sudan about 300 bc to ad 200. Kordofan is one area of that realm, in central Sudan, poised in more recent centuries between the Funj Sultans of Sennar to the east, and the Sultans of Darfur to the west. In the Sennar Sultanate, Fazoghli formed the southern border region on the Upper Blue Nile towards Ethiopia and the sources of incense. Al‘Ais evokes al ‘Ais, on the White Nile at the western approach to Jebel Moya, a site to the southwest of Sennar, exca- vated for Henry Wellcome. Jebel Moya finds in the Petrie Museum include the jewellery buried with an elder woman, from the first millennium bc. As well as the Nile, overland routes such as the Darb al-Arbain (see Traces of an Unknown Woman) linked these southern lands to the Saharan oases and Egypt. These desert roads encouraged seasonal migration and trade connections between distant peoples, immortalised in the burial of a woman with Nubian pottery and beads at the mouth of a desert valley north of Qau in Middle Egypt.

 

The scarab or dung beetle is an ancient Egyptian symbol of solar kingship, used from about 2000 bc as the form for stone seals, which were also worn as protective talismans. Already by 1700 bc the kingdom of Kerma in northern Sudan was producing its own versions of these seals. A thousand years later, the palace artists of Napatan kings created new designs in both Egypt and Sudan, where young women were particularly often protected as if sealed by a sacred scarab - as in the Qau burial.

 

1

 

I take my leave

from a language that knows me

to the mother language

our common mother no longer the One and same

… …. …

I am learning the silence of your scoundrel dagger

you will not recognise my face

you used to identify my voice when I was your sibling (brother

now the heritage of our father not enough to intercede for me or you

only the visages of the Raven

….. …..

 ….I take my leave

Shrouded by the enigma of the Meroetic language

with the purity of a running river

a covenant of the True River binds us

Blood binds us

we are bound by the Museum of the Mother Scull

and between us the fallacy and deception of Thrones

 

2

 

*Kurdofal the mistress of the temple or is it Meroe

*Fazoghli grants incense

Alice proudly guards the sacrificial feast

the clay shines 

its pottery shines proud of your prophetic blood

… ……

the Boy fathered a Sultanate

from the blood line that fathered the ancient Sultanates

the impossible kingdoms and the possible ones 

in the glory of his ancestral banners

a boy who fathered the ancient sultanates the impossible kingdoms

and the possible ones 

 

3

 

here the King in his morning bath immersed in his Kinghood

a looking class hanging from the wall of miracles

to deprive a Virgin of her fragrant lust and longings

… … … 

for my Bull I dye my hair a real alloy not a snatch or captive

I anointed his bed with the perfume of Khumra and incense

make ready the jars of coquetry 

a Bull bequeathed its horns from the people of AANAJ

his hove kicks from the Equatorial Sun

… … … 

This the night

the scull of the spoiled (pampered, mollycoddle) King is my drinking chalice (goblet)

 

I, the Scarab of the Kingdom!