Abu Simbel, Egypt
1517 BC
The sun rises over the Nile, and the man is awake. He is 37, an old man. His sons have left his
home years before, so it is his responsability to tend to the crops, which now wave in the
breeze coming from the river in the hot Egyptian summer.
The man eats. His wife sleeps still.
Soon he slips out among the tall crops on the fertile Nile soil, and begins to toil in the heat. He sees no
one, and hears nothing but the flooded river rushing by his fields.
He does not enjoy the farmwork so much as his other skill; sculpture in stone. But one could not
survive by eating crafted stone, so the man sculpts during the midday, when it is too hot to work in the
field.
He has a special statue to make today. Messengers from the Pharaoh have visited asking for a certain
commission. He will do it, after he finishes pruning, which is a far more imporant task at this moment.
