After settling Filch and Lawrence and his wife, Severus and Susanna returned to the National Library of France.
Lucius, disguised as Alessandro, had gone off somewhere. Gong Saiyi was the only one in the reading room.
"How's the research going?" Severus asked.
"Do you remember those city sculptures at Place de la Concorde?" Gong Saiyi asked.
"Like Strasbourg?" Severus asked.
"You can think of them as personifications of cities." Gong Saiyi turned a book around and handed it to Severus. "Thebes was also personified, except it was represented by a male warrior carrying a composite bow and a Hyksos-style curved sword."
"So?" Severus countered.
"His name was Waset. He was erected during Thebes's Thirteenth Dynasty, which later corrected itself to Egypt's Seventeenth Dynasty. You know pharaohs loved making statues in their own image. Ahhotep, the queen mother of the Eighteenth Dynasty, was also from Thebes. After driving out the Hyksos, she razed Avaris to the ground, including the Temple of Sobek. During the Seventeenth Dynasty, Sobek was once a symbol of royal power, much like Amun and Horus. He was often worshipped alongside Hapi, the god representing the Nile River. In Egyptian mythology, Osiris governed resurrection, rainfall, and plants. Wherever water flowed, the land became fertile."
"Get to the point," Severus said impatiently.
"Avaris is Abydos. After Ahhotep ordered it leveled, she was cursed by the gods, and her family later died out without a trace. During the period when Sobek was worshipped, the Nile River always rose to precisely its highest level. Any higher, and there would have been floods. Kings even used Sobek's name as part of their royal titles, like Sobekkara. She was a queen. The Moon God family's inheritance had already ended with Thutmose I, because Amenhotep I had no male heirs. Thutmose I married Ahmose,