Mohamed is the Egyptian foreman of the German excavation at Ashmunain, an old dig companion of Irti, who warned that Roeder’s expedition had not come to excavate.
| Type | Character (excavation foreman) |
| Era | 21 December 1928 |
| Place | Ashmunain camp |
| Chronicle | LDC |
| Spanish entry | Mohamed |
History
When Irti sat eating dates with the workers, apart from the camp, Mohamed recognized him: as young men they had worked together on Howard Carter’s first campaigns, and before that with the old Englishman who dug the heretic pharaoh’s city without finding a tomb — who went naked into the holes for the heat, came out covered in bat guano, and worked from dawn to dusk.
He noticed what no one else had: the Germans had unloaded from the train bars, padlocks and chains of the kind only seen at Tutankhamun’s tomb — brought by those who already know there is something to lock away, though the dig had not even begun.
Asked whether his country’s things could stay in his country, he named an oasis and a warning: toward the western desert lives an ancient tribe with eyes like Irti’s (Guardians of the Desert), and one day he may take what is his — but the desert has its wind and spirit, there are ifrit, and not every call should be answered. He recalled Khartoum and the English fear of another uprising, and parted with an inshallah for freedom from the yoke. “Egyptian heart. That’s how I loved you.” His information made the escape from the camp possible.