DOI Artikel:
Grenfell, Bernard P.; Hunt, Arthur S.: Egypt Exploration Fund: graeco-roman branch
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12052#0015
2
Egypt Exploeation Fund.
tombs which had been covered by the fall of debris from above. These had
almost without exception been opened anciently and the mummies were
much broken, but some fairly well preserved pieces of papyrus cartonnage
were found, and one tomb, which had escaped notice, contained as many as
twenty mummies, of which fourteen had papyrus cartonnage. Over the
door of another of these rock-tombs was an inscription rudely scratched on
a slab of soft limestone :—
Td<fio<; 'Aa<po.
IIeT€^cb{vTO<;) KviS(lov ?)
a.....
At the end of the first line the doubtful o is more like <r and possibly
another letter is lost above the line. The writing suggested a Koman
rather than a Ptolemaic date, and the inscription no doubt refers to a re-
using of the tomb. A certain number of Ptolemaic sarcophagi were also
found in the rubbish of the New Empire town outside the north wall, where
burials of the Koman and Byzantine periods were numerous. Amongst
these were two admirably preserved portrait-mummies of the Eoman period,
one of them being in juxtaposition to a plain mummy dated in the reign of
Trajan. These two, which in style are precisely similar to the handsomely
decorated specimens from Hawara and Rubayyat, have a particular interest
as having been found outside the Fayum, since most, if not all, extant
portraits come from that district. It is, however, probable that this style
of decorating the dead was employed in the richer burials of the second
century throughout the country, even if it was not as widely spread as the
use of papyrus cartonnage in the third and second centuries b.c. is now
known to be. One of the portraits (a woman) is now in the Cairo Museum ;
the other (a man) is in the Eitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. In view
of the fantastic claims which have recently been put forward with regard
to the age of the Rubayyat portraits and the supposed resemblances which
have been traced between some of them and historical characters of the
Ptolemaic period, it is worth repeating that the archaeological evidence in
favour of a purely Roman date for all portrait-mummies is perfectly
conclusive. Adjoining the east side of the town wall on the outside were
the remains of a small brick building, which yielded a large number of
inscribed bases of fuuerary statuettes and a wooden figure of Isis, probably
of the Persian period. Underneath one room was a square shaft descending
eight feet into three rudely cut chambers in the rock. This tomb contained
several sarcophagi, some of plain limestone, others of wood, of which we
brought away two well preserved and richly painted specimens. One,
Egypt Exploeation Fund.
tombs which had been covered by the fall of debris from above. These had
almost without exception been opened anciently and the mummies were
much broken, but some fairly well preserved pieces of papyrus cartonnage
were found, and one tomb, which had escaped notice, contained as many as
twenty mummies, of which fourteen had papyrus cartonnage. Over the
door of another of these rock-tombs was an inscription rudely scratched on
a slab of soft limestone :—
Td<fio<; 'Aa<po.
IIeT€^cb{vTO<;) KviS(lov ?)
a.....
At the end of the first line the doubtful o is more like <r and possibly
another letter is lost above the line. The writing suggested a Koman
rather than a Ptolemaic date, and the inscription no doubt refers to a re-
using of the tomb. A certain number of Ptolemaic sarcophagi were also
found in the rubbish of the New Empire town outside the north wall, where
burials of the Koman and Byzantine periods were numerous. Amongst
these were two admirably preserved portrait-mummies of the Eoman period,
one of them being in juxtaposition to a plain mummy dated in the reign of
Trajan. These two, which in style are precisely similar to the handsomely
decorated specimens from Hawara and Rubayyat, have a particular interest
as having been found outside the Fayum, since most, if not all, extant
portraits come from that district. It is, however, probable that this style
of decorating the dead was employed in the richer burials of the second
century throughout the country, even if it was not as widely spread as the
use of papyrus cartonnage in the third and second centuries b.c. is now
known to be. One of the portraits (a woman) is now in the Cairo Museum ;
the other (a man) is in the Eitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. In view
of the fantastic claims which have recently been put forward with regard
to the age of the Rubayyat portraits and the supposed resemblances which
have been traced between some of them and historical characters of the
Ptolemaic period, it is worth repeating that the archaeological evidence in
favour of a purely Roman date for all portrait-mummies is perfectly
conclusive. Adjoining the east side of the town wall on the outside were
the remains of a small brick building, which yielded a large number of
inscribed bases of fuuerary statuettes and a wooden figure of Isis, probably
of the Persian period. Underneath one room was a square shaft descending
eight feet into three rudely cut chambers in the rock. This tomb contained
several sarcophagi, some of plain limestone, others of wood, of which we
brought away two well preserved and richly painted specimens. One,