DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49271#0042
20
G. A. Reisner
(3) Series of shawwabti-figures, canopic jars, alabaster vessels, stelae, altars, and other
objects found in and about the pyramids.
(4) A series of foundation deposits, including pottery, inscribed and uninscribed tablets
of metal, stone and faience, and model implements of bronze and iron.
(5) The relative positions of the pyramids.
The evidence is almost entirely archaeological, but of a very special character. The
material comes from successive royal tombs separated in time by one generation or less.
Each pyramid with its contents represents the work of the best craftsmen of that generation.
Each generation of craftsmen learned from the preceding generation and produced from
time to time new methods and new styles. All the crafts were based originally on the
forms and traditions of the Egyptian XXV Dynasty, and successive schools of crafts-
men, striving to maintain these traditions, continued each craft through a period of twenty
lives. There are many crafts, each represented by its series of schools. For example,
in the reign of Senkamanseken, the masons, the faience-workers, the potters, the makers
of stone vessels, the sculptors, the scribes, the metal workers, each formed a separate
group, or school, of workmen. Some of these continued to live in the reign of the next
king; some died and handed on their traditions to their apprentices of the next genera-
tion; and some were supplanted by men who invented new methods, or new forms, or
both methods and forms. Thus the objects of each royal tomb contained examples of
the work of both the preceding and the succeeding generations, but formed as a whole
a unique group. As a result, the task is to arrange in order a series of unique archaeologi-
cal groups, each of which is connected by some members to the preceding group and by
some to the succeeding group. The perfection of the material for the purpose in view
is modified only by accidents of preservation and by the lack of time and means at the
disposal of certain kings. Enough material, however, has been recovered to establish in
the main the chronological order set forth above.
In considering the series of objects, it must be remembered that the foundation
deposits and the pyramid come early in the reign in the case of kings with large pyramids,
while the objects placed with the burial date from the end of the reign. In the case of
small pyramids, all material probably comes from the same year.
VII (1). The inscriptions and other material found in Egypt and at Gebel Barkal.
The Egyptian material bearing on this period of Ethiopian history may be summed up
in the statement that Tirhaqa reigned over Egypt and Ethiopia from 688 B. C. to 663
B. C. (or thereabouts), that Tanutaman came to the throne, possibly as co-regent, in 663,
and was finally expelled from Egypt by Asurbanipal in 661 B. C. These facts form the
point of departure for the whole discussion.
The Gebel Barkal material consists of the reports of Cailliaud and Lepsius, the
G. A. Reisner
(3) Series of shawwabti-figures, canopic jars, alabaster vessels, stelae, altars, and other
objects found in and about the pyramids.
(4) A series of foundation deposits, including pottery, inscribed and uninscribed tablets
of metal, stone and faience, and model implements of bronze and iron.
(5) The relative positions of the pyramids.
The evidence is almost entirely archaeological, but of a very special character. The
material comes from successive royal tombs separated in time by one generation or less.
Each pyramid with its contents represents the work of the best craftsmen of that generation.
Each generation of craftsmen learned from the preceding generation and produced from
time to time new methods and new styles. All the crafts were based originally on the
forms and traditions of the Egyptian XXV Dynasty, and successive schools of crafts-
men, striving to maintain these traditions, continued each craft through a period of twenty
lives. There are many crafts, each represented by its series of schools. For example,
in the reign of Senkamanseken, the masons, the faience-workers, the potters, the makers
of stone vessels, the sculptors, the scribes, the metal workers, each formed a separate
group, or school, of workmen. Some of these continued to live in the reign of the next
king; some died and handed on their traditions to their apprentices of the next genera-
tion; and some were supplanted by men who invented new methods, or new forms, or
both methods and forms. Thus the objects of each royal tomb contained examples of
the work of both the preceding and the succeeding generations, but formed as a whole
a unique group. As a result, the task is to arrange in order a series of unique archaeologi-
cal groups, each of which is connected by some members to the preceding group and by
some to the succeeding group. The perfection of the material for the purpose in view
is modified only by accidents of preservation and by the lack of time and means at the
disposal of certain kings. Enough material, however, has been recovered to establish in
the main the chronological order set forth above.
In considering the series of objects, it must be remembered that the foundation
deposits and the pyramid come early in the reign in the case of kings with large pyramids,
while the objects placed with the burial date from the end of the reign. In the case of
small pyramids, all material probably comes from the same year.
VII (1). The inscriptions and other material found in Egypt and at Gebel Barkal.
The Egyptian material bearing on this period of Ethiopian history may be summed up
in the statement that Tirhaqa reigned over Egypt and Ethiopia from 688 B. C. to 663
B. C. (or thereabouts), that Tanutaman came to the throne, possibly as co-regent, in 663,
and was finally expelled from Egypt by Asurbanipal in 661 B. C. These facts form the
point of departure for the whole discussion.
The Gebel Barkal material consists of the reports of Cailliaud and Lepsius, the