Page 5 - The_Field_of_Reeds

It is only fitting I have used the medium of pen and paper: for these were the only means by which those

featured in these pages wrote their letters, penned their books or transcribed their texts; all of which were
achieved in the days before the internet or the coming of the smartphone or the explosion of digital data.
My benefactor was of the opinion that his story should be told, and that my conscience should be enough
to make it a great book, so that as many people as possible should know of it; not just because of the
incredible events it portrays, which in themselves should be enough; but because in its pages lies the key

to understanding that which almost all of us fear and few truly confront – our own earthly mortality, which
we cannot cheat, just postpone, in the hope that each new day is not to be our last.

I must apologise to you for I have been most remiss in failing to state the principal subject of this epic saga.
It is one that would surely never come to the mind of anyone, but only to myself or its principal characters.
For it is but a seemingly unimportant and scarcely heard of small Egyptian hotel. Although now all but

forgotten, the ‘Old Luxor Hotel’ is one, which I must at the very outset make clear, has changed the lives of
every guest that has passed through its doors and whose walls have absorbed the momentous events of its
past. Although the hotel first opened in an age of Empires when the British ruled a quarter of the world -
some of the events of which I am about to relate, took place many centuries before its very existence,

when Pharaohs ruled the two lands of Egypt under the ever-watchful eyes of its Ancient Gods.

It will tell the tale of a Papyrus over three thousand years old that held sacred texts, ones which the
ancient Egyptians believed would cheat death itself; and how it was smuggled out of this hotel under the
very noses of the Egyptian Antiquities Service; and sent back to the British Museum, where it can still be
seen to this day. You will hear of the earliest Christian Gospel written in the time when a rebel Jew, named

Jesus preached in Palestine; and whose disciples spread his word throughout a realm that became
Christendom. And of a meeting in the hotel’s garden, between an English Aristocrat and an out of work
Archaeologist, who together would find the tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamen; and of the curse that
some believed would destroy all who defiled his final resting place. There I must stop before I reveal too

much and spoil the eager anticipation I hope that I have awakened in you my readers.

The main character in the book and my benefactor is the late, Muir Birch, a name much abbreviated from
that given him at birth; who for his entire existence which I must add, far exceeded man’s allotted time of
three score years and ten, had resided at the ‘Old Luxor Hotel’; and who had never left its confines. He was
born in the hotel, the child of a great love between a local physician and the consumptive daughter of a

British Army Officer; one whose father had the misfortune to be the first of the many soldiers to die in the
2nd Anglo-Afghan war. The very same conflict which still rages to this day, but by another name; one with
no end in sight; one where politicians still ignore all that history has foretold.

‘The Field of Reeds’ tells the story of those he and his mother met and the events they experienced; which
together made the ‘Old Luxor Hotel’ the most historically important of any in the world. You will read of its
guests; amongst whose numbers were to be found, the Royalty of Europe, the Aristocratic Elite, the
American Millionaires, the Movie Stars and the Politicians; of the Artists, Writers, Musicians and

Archaeologists who came. And the thousands of ordinary people: the intrepid early tourists, the soldiers of
both World Wars; and the many sick who came in search of a cure for their consumption, but who so often
© A. A. Aziz 2019 2