Pharaoh is dead and his funerary barge sails slowly down the Nile toward his tomb where his spirit will stand before the judgement of Osiris.

Pharaoh had no offspring so tradition holds that the governors of the land be tasked with building monuments to Pharaoh’s glory so that Osiris will favor his spirit in the afterlife. Accordingly, Pharaoh’s successor will be the governor who builds the greatest tribute to the late king.

Resources and laborers are limited, the gods are capricious, and time is short; the memorials must be finished before the barge reaches the t ...