Note: If you would like to read ahead, the next three chapters after this chapter are available on P^A^T^R^E^O^N / Boombox117
Twelve years since the death of Kang… (3223 B.C.)
Tjenu – Sphinx Monument
Nur glared at the holographic computer screen with a barely hidden scowl as the compatibility error message so irritatingly spelled itself out before him.
'And I can bet everything I have that the programs I have written are only one of several dozens of other issues' Nur thought irritated despite his attempts to calm and remind himself that Rome was not built in a day and that considering where he started from, he was certainly doing better than he could have thought.
It was hard though, however, especially since he's been spending years trying to get this damn thing to work, he thought to himself as he turned to look at the machine that was by, what he was taking to call, the central computer hub.
The machine was two metres by four and a metre in height, and was built from the repurposed materials and dissembled machines he had no use for in the Monument and other components and systems from the Time Machine which had already been dissembled for its miniature fusion reactors to power everything in this facility.
Whilst some of the frames and routing cables came from what he could scavenge from the caves in the Western Desert where Baal had died showing him.
The Analysis Machine was not too dissimilar in application to the Synthesising Machine, the machine that made his durable and bio-organic clothing that changed in dimensions as Nur changed in size, yet it proving to be far more difficult to actually get it work.
The machine intended application was basically to analyse the molecular and atomic compositions of materials, both organic and inorganic, utilising a number of programs and systems within the Synthesising Machine, but the software and running applications he wrote was not working.
And he was sure there was also hardware issues that he was missing.
Already he had taken to rebuild the damn machine several times over the past few years and every time he solved one issue – from simple issues of erroneous routing of power to the systems causing the near destruction of several devices to needing to build an entire damn user interface from almost scratch because he couldn't apply whatever it was the Synthesising Machine used to create its UI – a dozen others popped up.
Nur had no experience in coding or computer systems in his past life – a point he strenuously bemoaned more often than was dignified – and neither did he know much about computer engineering and his learning curve had been…significant.
To be fair to himself, he hadn't had a need to learn and he hadn't had the interest of it and his work didn't necessitate him to learn the intricacies of how to get around encryptions or anything like that, no, his skills had lain in getting in and through people.
Still…
It didn't change his current predicament.
Nur sighed heavily as he sat upon his steel stool with his feet resting on the foot ring, a stool that he formed with his own bare hands, and he placed his arm against his thigh before he leaned against his fist as he stared at the holographic display.
Why were the programs, the software, incompatible with the machine?
He was exceedingly proficient with the programming language now – learning it hadn't been an issue and it had been honestly a welcome diversion from his more monotonous daily routines as Pharoah – and his understanding of the programs that were the basis of the software of the Synthesising Machine was not an issue either, at least not an issue he could see at present.
The computer hardware of the Analysis Machine, which was something he had to strenuously learn to understand since none of it was anything like the computer hardware he'd known in his day, was like for like what the Synthesising Machine needed to correctly select the molecular structure of whatever product or material before it proceeded to convert energy to matter.
He'd learnt the how-to guidebook on that machine which detailed everything on how to repair or operate as if it was a religious scripture and he knew that the computer hardware was not the issue either and neither were the devices and components he repurposed from other machines for the intended use for analysis.
So why wasn't it working?
After a long while he considered, once more, as he peered at the holographic display with a look of contemplation, that it wasn't enough, to know the coding language or to assemble a machine with the right parts in the right configuration.
One plus one did not equal two, not in this instance.
Nur stood up and typed upon the flat surface keyboard of the central computer and called up upon the how-to guidebook and read through the descriptions of the devices that made the Synthesising Machine work as it did.
He selected one of the devices, a device that worked with other devices on a spectral basis, and looked upon the details available about the processors the device had.
The device, about as large as his first, had several quantum processors and it was amongst the lowest number of processors a single device had.
He remembered hearing about these things some years before he died but it was not as if it was anything he ever cared about and he doubted it would have been much use anyway had he known how it worked. All of this tech was centuries if not thousands of years older than the time period Nur had lived in, in his first life, plus chances were that there was techno-babble bullshit involved that made things work.
And that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it?
How was he meant to create a machine from scratch when the devices that combine to make it work were not something Nur understood fully nor could be certain were configured rightly in order to perform the same functions as their counterparts did in the Synthesising Machine?
He hoped that they were exactly the same but it was getting clearer than ever that they were not. Devices like these were computers much in their own right and if they were not configured or give out the right instructions, was it any wonder it did not work?
Nur wasn't dull, not in his first life and certainly not in this one where it seemed things came to him much easier, but if his attempts to brute force the machine to work as he wanted it to failed, he had to accept it and he knew that it would take decades for him to figure out how each and every single device worked and to get them to work exactly as he needed them to.
Nur sighed long-sufferingly at the task at hand.
Time wasn't an issue, of course, and neither was power for the reactors should last several hundred years at least if he limited use, but what was an issue was that he'd have to intuitively figure out a lot of this technology since the how-to guide book only says what it was meant to do and some basic information on how to get it to work again within the machine and even then, he wasn't sure if he could manage it.
Nur shook his head.
At least the Synthesising Machine still worked exactly as it was supposed to and Nur was grateful for it even if it wasn't capable of synthesising complex devices – and wasn't that a damn shame? – or materials that were not within its database.
Plus, Nur thought to himself, critically he was learning, even if only second-handedly, chemistry and biology from the machine.
The Synthesising Machine's database of materials and chemical molecular structures was immense, so immense that it would take decades for him to learn each and every one of the materials and structures.
And this function of the machine proved to be as educational as the how-to guidebooks of the still functioning machines that were in this facility.
With his meditation aiding his recollection of his high school chemistry and biology classes – which had the unintentional benefit of sharpening his mind – and the existence of basic chemistry of materials like deuterium and the like, which he could use to understand to chemical formulation, he was growing his knowledge base of chemistry and biology.
In time, he'd have to craft out experiments to make that knowledge base less shallow as it was now, learning how to create chemical formulations and synthetic specifications, but that would come in time.
Nur turned off the computer and the rest of the powered machines which were all connected to the central computer, and in the process, he moved the facility into an idle status to conserve power.
Nur glanced once more at the Analysis Machine. 'One day, I will get you to work as I want you to work.' Nur thought to himself, almost sounding petty in his head, and proceeded to walk out of the central room towards the exit of the facility, the last thought on his mind on the subject being that it was too important that he figured it out.
Nur stopped before the huge steel door that he'd fashioned out of scrap material, a door that easily weighed several tonnes, and pulled it open with an easy exertion of force. He was met with the sight of a darkened chamber and after he stepped inside of it, he pulled the creaking steel door shut, leaving him in total darkness.
Nur turned around and placed his hands against the stone wall and he pushed forward, the gravelly sound of stone on stone echoing in the chamber as Nur pushed upward in an incline.
Light of the moon began to filter in as gaps between the stone block and the walls lessened and it wasn't long before he was back out in the open.
Nur breathed in heavily, enjoying the somewhat cold air entering his nostrils, before he walked around the stone block and pushed against it from the other side, back towards the steel door entrance.
He'd been a little too overzealous when he wanted entry into the Sphinx and had destroyed the entrance. It had been programmed to only allow in Kang and since Kang was dead…well…anyway…he took to secure the Sphinx as best he could against those who had no business entering, which was everyone not named Nur, and decided to secure it with steel and stone. It wasn't as if he had much else.
After carefully having returned the stone block in its place, Nur turned his gaze towards to the direction where the city was, the dim lights of the stars and the crescent moon illuminating the world for him.
Nur bent his knees slightly, his arms moving slightly away from his body, and with an expression of a thought, Nur altered his mass to be as light as a feather even as his musculature and tendons turned as tout as coiled steel wires and then, he leapt.
Nur soared through the air with impressive speed, gravity having less of an effect on him, and Nur used his weak telekinesis to adjust himself as he soared through the air.
A smile formed on his face as Tjenu came into view as he flew towards the capital.
The city over the past decade or so had grown immaculately, boasting a population of some fifty thousand, almost twice that of Men-Nefer which was the nearest in size of population of the towns and villages in Egypt.
And, with his enhanced eyesight, he could still see the stone roads and the stone buildings that grew around the royal palace and the temples of Ra, Amun, Horus, Osiris, Isis, Khonsu and other temples, occupying both sides of the Nile River.
Palm trees and acacias dotted the streets and within the city, there was a miniature oasis in the shape of the Eye of Horus, that looked like a green iris around a blue pupil.
Nur felt the call of gravity despite his telekinesis and increased his weight to almost a tonne, dropping him quickly back to the ground, only for him to change his mass once more to that of a feather and once more was he in the air, soaring over the walls of the city and towards his palace.
As he continued to gaze upon the oasis, he thought back on what he'd done technologically over the years. One of the earliest and simplest things he'd introduced was the matter of using canals to irrigate fields, obsoleting the need for carrying vases of water to the fields.
The river Nile did run in somewhat of a depression in comparison to the rest of the lands – the reason why Egypt was as successful as it was for the floods deposited silts and soil onto the floodplains – so the need to constantly use shadufs to collect water and empty it into a stone basin that is connected to the canals that irrigate the fields was still necessary though Nur was working on a few solutions that he remembered from his studies of Al-Andalus, such as the Sindi Wheel or an Arabic water wheel pump that uses pistons and cranks powered by the flow of the Nile.
The first solution, the Sindi Wheel, was a technology that he could build tomorrow if he so wished, having worked out the mechanisms of the wheel over the years, but the more advanced water wheel would need some thinking.
In either case, he had a way forward to reduce the need of manpower for some of the laborious tasks. The only restriction he had was the impact it would have on Egypt and importantly, the rest of the world.
Egypt was well connected to Mesopotamia and much of the Levant and the technologies he'd introduce would undoubtedly, at some time point, make their way into their civilisations.
And even the simplest technologies would have a consequence down the line. After all, gears and pulleys and cranks were amongst the more important technologies that made the lives of people easier and consequently allowed more time to be devoted for other things.
How much would he be changing with this introduction?
Nur shook his head. He'd already decided to take Egypt to a path of the most powerful people on Earth. That decision alone guaranteed that world history would not be as he knew it if he succeeded.
Nur came to see his palace, a palace that was akin to a miniature town on its own, with its high walls and its obelisks that towered over all other structures save for the pyramid and the sphinx, and with one more leap, he made course for the balcony of his chambers which was several stories high.
As graceful as a cat, Nur landed in his balcony, a balcony he had made to allow him easy access to his bedroom, and walked towards the bed as silently as he could.
Ha'Nepthi was asleep in their bed, the linen sheets draped over her form and Nur allowed a faint smile to grace his face. Over the years, he'd come to care greatly for the woman.
His rule over Egypt was made easy with her by his side, dutiful as she was.
She was seen by the people as the chosen of the Goddess Mut, someone who all Egyptian women should strive to emulate. The only downside, Nur thought as the smile faded from his face, was that the lack of more children.
Nefer-Tentamun was cherished greatly by the people of Tjenu, especially once they got to know that his daughter bore his otherworldly eyes, a sign, they had said, that the favour of the Gods would continue in the next generation of the Divine shepherds.
But…
Nefer-Tentamun was the only child that came from the union of himself and Ha'Nepthi, despite the numerous attempts between himself and his wife.
It surprised him, to be truthful, given that Nefer had been easily conceived and childbirth had not strained Ha'Nepthi so he did not think there was issues with her reproductive organs.
He'd wondered if he'd been the cause, that he was subconsciously preventing himself from begetting her with child through the use of his powers, but he was doubtful of it. He was not averse to another child, especially since he cherished Nefer like nothing else, but he was not sure what else could be the cause.
Nur shook his head. Whatever the case, what is done is done, he thought as he climbed into their bed. Ha'Nepthi made some sound and Nur was quick to wrap his arm around her and hold her flush to him, an act that caused Ha'Nepthi to relax against him, still blissfully asleep.
Nur tucked a strand of her beautifully black hair behind her ear and gazed upon her. She still looked beautiful to him, even as time was affecting her. The years had flown by. The skin on her face was slightly looser, wrinkles made their presence known. Ha'Nepthi was in her mid-thirties now and she had come to understand her mortality every day as she looked upon him as she aged and as he did not.
Nur sighed silently as he remembered the looks of devotion of his wife. She truly believed that he was a son of the Gods and he supposed that she likely suspected him to be a living God as well.
It wasn't an opinion that was unpopular, rather it was the contrary, but to see such a look on the woman he called fondly wife was not something that he could easily suppress away like he did with everything else regarding the charade of godhood.
But there was little he could do to make her understand without breaking her.
Nur leaned forward and gently kissed her cheek before he placed his head down and joined her in the world of dreams.
Hours later…
He awoke when he felt her stirring with drowsy sounds escaping her lips and after she turned towards him, he opened his eyes to come to see her smile lovingly at him.
"Blessed morning, husband." Ha'Nepthi said warmly as she placed her hand onto Nur's cheek before she leaned forward and kissed him chastely on his lips.
"And to you, Ha'Nepthi." Nur returned with a smile against her lips as they remained close to one another's faces.
"When did you return?" she asked him curiously as she let off a small yawn.
"The height of the night." Nur told her as he glanced towards the sky as light crept into their bedroom. It wouldn't be long before the servants arrived.
"You usually stay out longer." Ha'Nepthi remarked and Nur turned back towards her. Ever since he figured out what his ability was, he spent every night in the Sphinx to come up with ways to understand his ability to its fullest, often only returning just before dawn broke.
"I did not have much to work on. I may not have much to work on for some time." Nur admitted to her, unable to help the faint amount of frustration from creeping into his voice.
"Perhaps Imhotep may offer you aid?" Ha'Nepthi proposed as the doors to their chambers opened. "He'd be most keen to assist you in your projects." Ha'Nepthi eyes turned shrewd as she looked upon him "Unless what you do there is not the matters of us mortals?" Ha'Nepthi not-so-innocently inquired.
He allowed none to know of what is in the Sphinx…which naturally peaked the curiosity of all. Had he not been seen as a divine representation of the Gods, he doubted he could have kept their interest from boiling over.
People now were the same as people thousands of years later…interest and curiosity and the allure of the forbidden made for a potent mixture and it often sent tongues waggling. Honestly, if he introduced gossip magazines, he did not think it would be incorporated into the fabric of Egyptian society in an instant.
"He will not be able to assist." Nur said to her, evading her searching question, as the maids placed fresh clothing and pots of water before them whilst a few of the other servants carried in beer, bread and honey.
Ha'Nepthi stood up and dropped her garments, her immaculately shaped body there to be seen by all, and the servants began to dip cloth into the pots of water and began to clean her with the wet cloth.
"Hmm." Ha'Nepthi said as she eyed him curiously "I understand." She said with a faint smile as she lifted her arms and let the servants clean her armpits.
Nur got up as well and allowed the servants to approach him too as he dropped his clothing and soon enough he too was being cleaned by the maids whose always-wondering eyes looked over his form.
As Pharoah, he could not simply refuse this kind of…extravagance. Like the aristocrats in his day that still persisted, there were expectations levied upon the Pharoah and his family, and everything that happens, from dawn till dusk, was as much a ritual as it was work and duty.
Cleaning the body was not simply cleaning physically, but it was also cleaning the body spiritually, to prepare for the long day ahead.
And, considering that the people considered him divine, the principle of Ma'at, one that spoke of living in according to the will of the Gods, his daily routine was seen as to be one of ultimate balance, to be with harmony with the people, the Gods, and the Earth, and so, things like this, Nur thought as he felt the cool wet cloth cleaning his body on multiple locations, were considered to be a vital part of the Pharoah living in accordance to Ma'at.
He considered a number of times of changing this aspect of worship and deification of himself, at the very least remove this rather…too muchness aspect of being Pharaoh but he knew his reasons would not be understood by the High Priests…or by Ha'Nepthi who saw this as the natural way of life for the Pharoah.
'The People of Egypt cleaned your body and your spirit so that your body and your spirit may guide the People of Egypt'
He had enough authority with the High Priests and the people to make them accept whatever he wished them to accept but the point of whether he should – the implications it had for social and religious cohesion – always made him push it slightly further down the line.
And, Nur supposed as he glanced at Ha'Nepthi, he did not want cause too much change until after…he was alone. Nur tensed ever so slightly as the wet cloth was placed and cleaned inside of his thighs and forced himself to relax.
The servants dressed him and Ha'Nepthi and it was when the servants moved to place Ha'Nepthi's wig on that they heard a commotion.
"Princess!" the familiar exasperated sound of Nefer-Tentamun's priestess-cum-governess across the hall from their chambers rang out.
Ha'Nepthi sighed long-sufferingly and Nur allowed himself to chuckle at the look on his wife's face. "She'll grow out of it." Nur said to Ha'Nepthi with a smile.
"She won't if you keep indulging her wilfulness." Ha'Nepthi said to him with a raised eyebrow. "She knows the protocols but she also knows she can get away with breaking them because you allow her to."
Before Nur could respond, his daughter ran into their chambers with the guards and the priestess on her heels. His daughter was a caramel skinned girl with hair as dark as midnight and eyes as bright as the glare of the sun. She was dressed in her royal teal clothing and her hair braided with golden threads and in her hands was a polished black stone that Nur had given his daughter to practice with. "Father, father, look, I finally did it! I can make it fly!" his daughter exclaimed with a bright grin and shining white eyes before it all faded as she scrunched up her face in concentration.
Nur waved his hands at his servants, dismissing them from him, and he eyed his daughter carefully.
She'd been born with her powers much like Nur had been and much like Nur, her powers were latent in that she'd need to train in order to get them under control and to fully use them.
Her bouts of accidental use of her powers had been impressive, causing on one instance, when she was four, the caving in half of one of the royal halls which fortunately did not cause any deaths, and he'd spent much of his time getting her to get a handle of her powers through meditation and, much to the disapproval by many of the clergy, physical training, which he had gotten them to accept lest they disappoint him.
He did not train her hard, she was still but a child, but enough so that she got a handle of her body and how it felt which Nur thought was important in gaining control over one's power.
The stone began to vibrate in her hands, a whizzing and wiring sound emanating from her palms that filled the chambers, so much so, it caused the servants to gasp in surprise and wonder though that surprise and wonder deepened when the stone began to levitate above her palms before it rose and rose until it was level with Nefer's eyeline.
Murmurs and prayers to Ra and Horus but most specifically Shu was uttered around Nur, Shu being the God of wind and air, whom the Priests had said blessed his daughter with a fragment of his power.
His daughter lost her concentration and the stone fell back onto her palms and he could see that the effort was difficult for his daughter. Not physically but rather mentally and he was reminded that he was not sure if the basis of her powers was dependent on her concentration.
"Well done, my daughter." Nur said proudly as he moved towards his daughter who looked up at him with a childish look of pride on her face and Nur scooped her up into his arms before he set her down on his shoulder which he widened a little to accommodate his nine-year-old daughter.
"You have succeeded in the task I have set in front of you. Though you could have waited until after my morning briefing with my Vizier?" Nur said to his daughter with a questioning note to his voice as he looked at her.
His nine year old daughter flushed a little embarrassed "I wanted to show you, father. I got it to work this morning before dawn after all this time and I…"
"Didn't care to behave as a Princess should, as you well know?" Ha'Nepthi remarked as she stood beside us as she looked upon Nefer.
"I wouldn't say I didn't care, mother…" Nefer said with some embarrassment as her eyes fluttered to look at the guards and the priestess, specifically avoiding to look at Nur.
Ha'Nepthi had an unimpressed look on her face. "Did you at least perform morning rites?" she asked of their daughter and Nefer nodded fervently.
"The Princess did, Your Highness." The priestess said with an allowing voice "Though she did rush through them." The Priestess paused as she looked towards the stone before she looked at Nefer with a more daunted look "But perhaps I can understand the…breach in decorum of the Princess, given who she is."
This did not please Ha'Nepthi and Nur agreed with it. "Expectations are still the same for us all, priestess. Even for those such as myself and my daughter." Nur said as he looked to Nefer who looked chastised.
"It won't happen again, father."
Nur wanted to smile knowing that it would absolutely happen again. His daughter was most certainly a wilful one and full of energy and all of the lessons that she'd been given had done little to smooth out her rough edges.
"Hmm. It will not for if it does happen again, I will have no choice but to punish you. Your stones, your toys and the promise I made you will all go away." Nur said gravely and his daughter's expression was struck with horror.
His daughter made to speak but he raised his hand, silencing her. "I have been lenient with you and though I am proud you are learning to control your gifts bestowed upon you, you are also the Princess of Egypt and as such, you have equal responsibility to learn to be a Princess of Egypt. Do you understand?"
"Yes father." His daughter said glumly as she clutched onto the stone tightly.
"Good." Nur said before he looked to his wife. "I will take her with me to meet with the Vizier and the advisors. We'll break out fast afterwards." The declaration made his daughter look at him with curiosity and confusion.
"Why?" his wife asked him with a look of surprise.
"She should come to see the decisions that are taken for the people of Egypt so that she may appreciate her position as my daughter." Nur told his wife.
His wife looked at him shrewdly and he figured that she probably guessed rightly that he had an ulterior motive. "Very well, husband." Ha'Nepthi said before she bid him and their daughter goodbye.
As they walked towards the royal assemblage where Nur met with his Vizier and his officials, his daughter asked him the question he knew had been on her mind "Father, should I really be with you in there?" she asked tentatively.
"Should you be? Maybe, maybe not. You are very young." Nur said to his daughter before continuing "But nonetheless I want you there. It will do you good to see how I perform my duties. After all, one day, you will be amongst my advisors and perhaps even my Vizier."
His daughter, like the rest of the people of Tjenu, knew of his immortality and as such knew that he was always going to be Pharoah.
"Really?" his daughter said with surprise and awe. "I can be Vizier?"
The position of Vizier was a coveted one, one that anyone with the highest of ambitions would see as the pinnacle of political power to reach.
"Of course. The position of Vizier is one meant of those who can act as my right hand." Nur smiled a little at his daughter "It does not have to be a man's hand."
And, Nur thought to himself, he wanted to explore this world at some point in the next five decades for a few years. His daughter could rule in his stead in his absence.
"Do I have to have a staff too?" his daughter asked with a scrunched up nose and Nur laughed heartily.
"And what is wrong with a staff?" Nur asked with a smile as they approached the royal hall where his government officials waited on him.
"I would rather not have one. At least not like the one Vizier Imhotep has." Nefer said to Nur and Nur looked at his daughter amused.
The staff that Imhotep had was rather gaudy, to be fair. It was in-lain with golden hieroglyphics that exemplified Imhotep as the chosen hand of the Gods and it also curved much like a shepherd's staff.
"Yes…I think you can probably have a better staff made." Nur agreed with his daughter, though not quite negatively speaking out against the Vizier like his daughter did. Hmm…he'd have to have lessons with her about being careful with words.
Nur and his daughter, escorted as they were with the guards, walked into the royal hall, his eyes scanning the room. The hall was spacious, the smells of honey and beer masking the more distasteful smells that lingered, and the men all stood up from their stools and bowed from the hip to Nur.
Nur walked towards his throne and after walked up the steps, he removed his daughter from his shoulder and sat her down beside him in the overlarge throne chair.
"Your Eminence." His Vizier spoke up and Nur saw the frown on his face as he looked at Nefer with some confused curiosity "May I inquire why the Princess is here?"
"She's here to observe our discussions. Do not fret. She will not disrupt this meeting." Nur said with authority as he waved dismissively with his hand.
This did not please the Vizier but nonetheless the man accepted it without further question and so began the meeting.
The majority of the meeting was with regards to the affairs of Tjenu, Abedju (Abydos) and Nekhen, the three settlements that his court officially oversaw whilst the twenty other provinces were overseen by the heri-tep, heri meaning 'being upon' and tep meaning 'head', the words combining to mean the equivalent of a chief, that Nur had chosen to govern.
Whilst Tjenu and Men-Nefer were two cities that Nur paid exceptional attention to with regards to construction and development, both Abedju and Nekhen also had public works in the process though for both, most of it was in regards to temple construction.
Nekhen was an important city, almost as old as Tjenu and Abydos, and for the Priests of Horus, it was the holiest city as it boasted the oldest temple in honour to Horus, a god that was worshipped as much as Ra, Atum or Amun, and as such, Nur had granted leave to build a greater temple in honour of Horus around the same site as the old temple using the current techniques of construction.
Abedju on the other hand was the site that boasted the necropolis where Ha'Nepthi's father and her forefathers were entombed and, had he and Kang not existed, so would have Sekhen and his descendants.
As such, Nur was half a mind to use it as the official location of the Kingdom to bury its people, at least those who lived nearby Tjenu and so on. And that was what they were discussing at present when the topic of the town came up.
The Vizier had consulted with the Priests of Anubis and Osiris, the men who trained and oversaw the embalmers who prepared the bodies of the deceased for the afterlife, about the possibility of preserving the bodies long enough to journey to Abydos from Tjenu or elsewhere nearby.
The priests were reluctant, as they feared there were consequences for delaying the burial of the deceased – it took three or four days to get to Abedju from Tjenu – but they confirmed that they will try with one of the People once one has died.
Once the discussion on the construction works came to an end, the discussion moved towards the construction works in other parts of the Kingdom which was much shorter given that communication between the north and south was lengthy.
Egypt was broken down in twenty one provinces, which Nur expected to be broken up even more once the population and towns grew over time, and each of these provinces had their own construction works ongoing though most of it was of much lesser scale and honestly really only involved the building or repairs of temples.
Over time, he'd need to develop a more involved plan for the settlements, especially since he wanted the cities to built to a specific city and town plan rather than let the towns grow in disorganised fashion, as he'd seen during his travels across Egypt.
And, Nur mused to himself, he wanted to have the practice of building homes out of stone to be a standard practice amongst his people. Mudbrick homes were faster, and far more easily accessible, yes, but stone homes lasted longer and they required far less repair.
Around Tjenu, Abedju and Nekhen, there were four different known locations of stone that they could mine stone for whilst further north in Lower Egypt, there were three though Nur was sure there were several other locations that hadn't yet been surveyed.
That was one of his many, many goals over the coming decades, to slowly develop the cultural want of stone. Stone at the moment was used mostly for religious or kingly purposes which, while fine, created an unconscious limitation to what it could be used for in the minds of people.
Already in Tjenu he was seeing colourful decorations of the homes of the common people, and the application of colouring on the stone homes, and in time, he wanted to see people develop different ideas what their homes should look like.
After all…
Ideas breed creativity and creativity breeds innovation.
The next topic point was the matter of expanding the innovation of canals to other settlements, particularly in Lower Egypt which would definitely benefit the most of the introduction of canals to irrigate the bountiful fields there.
It had been shelved for the moment since they did not have enough craftsmen-cum-engineers to send away to Lower Egypt to oversee the construction of the canals as most of them were working on the nearby settlements to build up their canals.
Nur decided in the end that he'd sent five of the men to Lower Egypt along with a number of officials to help pick suitable men to learn how and where to build canals though he warned that he would not suffer failure because of choosing favourites or relatives who were unsuited for the role.
Nepotism was a fact of life, and would be until the end of time, but Nur would be damned if he let it affect his country negatively. After the not-so-subtle threat was given, they moved onto the matter of oxen breeding and their mixed results.
At the moment, most of the farms were worked with manpower. Oxen were not cheap nor were they plentiful or easy to feed and as such they were a rare sight in the fields of Egypt…something that Nur was eager to see changed.
And so, he initiated a breeding program of the oxen, to see their numbers increased drastically so that each allotted land had at least one oxen.
The oxen would help to break the soil and plough the fields using copper tools and ploughs made from copper they found in the mines of Gebtu which were surprisingly of a harder kind of copper than the copper found elsewhere in Egypt.
The officials had returned last evening and the results of the breeding program was less than they expected.
Oxen were adult bovines, cattle, that were castrated at a young age to inhibit their testosterone and aggression, and subsequently trained to follow voice commands.
The Egyptians knew that the removal of the testicles was responsible for the docility – Nur wondered if notions of manhood, fertility of bovines and other such related beliefs and ideas and so on came from this observation – but not the underlying cause of the effect, which, was of course understandable.
Still, it was quite interesting to see right yet wrong these people were with their intuitions and beliefs.
In any case, cattle had a sixty-four day breeding season, cattle had a few opportunities to be bred and it seemed like some of the nobles that had been tasked to see to the breeding program had been more successful than others. Nur ordered the successful nobles to oversee the breeding of the cattle in their immediate regions.
It would likely cause some feathers to be ruffled but Nur cared not, only that the end results were obtained.
With oxen assisting the working of the fields, more land could be farmed and thus more barley and emmer wheat could be planted, increasing the stores of food of the Kingdom.
At present, the economy was more or less entirely based on barley and wheat, and the more Nur had, the more food security he held for the Kingdom whilst also granting him greater wealth, in theory, to use for the development of Egypt like more public works or feeding his troops as they conquered their neighbours south.
By the time the meeting ended, it was time for religious ceremony though he was taking her to grab some food first. Nur glanced at his daughter who looked somewhat worn. "What did you think, daughter?"
Nefer was startled by the question before she looked up to meet Nur's gaze. "It…it was a lot, father." Nefer said somewhat hesitantly. "Is it always like that?"
Nur smiled at his daughter "Some days." Nur told his daughter who looked somewhat crestfallen at, likely, having to suffer more meetings like that "But other days, it's just my advisors and Vizier wanting to talk a lot without saying anything."
He hated those days the most.
"I don't understand?" his daughter asked somewhat confused.
"I don't understand either." Nur said with a laugh as he placed his hand on her shoulder "Come, let's go and eat before we meet with your mother." At the word 'eat', his daughter perked up and Nur only somewhat managed to suppress the chuckle in his throat.