DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4858#0039
A purely
biographical
impulse lack-
ing in the
tombs
Clarity of
thought not
to be ex-
pected
An era ends
with the
XVIIIth dyn.
THE NECROPOLIS OF THEBES
The facts of life and character are thus engraved upon the walls of
the tomb with a view to proper rank in the world to come. In this
the stelae of the Middle and New Kingdoms with their shrewd delin-
eations of personal character and habits mark a great advance on the
older lists of titles. They show a thirst for individuality and individual
existence, combined with a keen sense that character makes the man.
The stela thus became a pendant to the statue or the painted figure.
One perpetuated the outer, the other the inner man, in the hope that
both men might survive as an indestructible unity to all time.
Therefore in turning to consider the reflections of these ideas in
line and color in Theban sepulchres, we must be chary of assigning
simple motives without admixture in explanation of what we find, or
of forcing on this ancient people a scheme of salvation and a consistent
picture of heaven which they did not cherish and under which they
would have felt the greatest uneasiness. Rather, we must postulate an
intense love of life and hope of happiness which overbore all difficulties,
an instinct for evading controversy which accepted and combined all
the products of thought and imagination, and perhaps the customs and
traditions of several races as well.
It only remains to be said that what follows is concerned almost
entirely with monuments of the Eighteenth Dynasty. With the failure
of the mysterious movement, political and religious, which culminated
under Amenhotep the Fourth (Akhnaton), the most promising era of
Egyptian history came to a sudden end in full prime and every subse-
quent growth was checked. The reflection of this change in the Theban
tombs is very marked, both as regards execution and the ideas that
inspire it, though the influences of the past era are carried over into
the first reigns of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The predominance of the
priest and of sacerdotal thought and motive in the new era is marked
from the very first, and the beliefs and imaginations which are kindled
by, and in touch with, life suffer a fatal defeat. In the tomb, the
thoughts and imaginations of the burial vault rise up like spectres and
invade the freer air of the upper chambers, filling them with mephitic
12
biographical
impulse lack-
ing in the
tombs
Clarity of
thought not
to be ex-
pected
An era ends
with the
XVIIIth dyn.
THE NECROPOLIS OF THEBES
The facts of life and character are thus engraved upon the walls of
the tomb with a view to proper rank in the world to come. In this
the stelae of the Middle and New Kingdoms with their shrewd delin-
eations of personal character and habits mark a great advance on the
older lists of titles. They show a thirst for individuality and individual
existence, combined with a keen sense that character makes the man.
The stela thus became a pendant to the statue or the painted figure.
One perpetuated the outer, the other the inner man, in the hope that
both men might survive as an indestructible unity to all time.
Therefore in turning to consider the reflections of these ideas in
line and color in Theban sepulchres, we must be chary of assigning
simple motives without admixture in explanation of what we find, or
of forcing on this ancient people a scheme of salvation and a consistent
picture of heaven which they did not cherish and under which they
would have felt the greatest uneasiness. Rather, we must postulate an
intense love of life and hope of happiness which overbore all difficulties,
an instinct for evading controversy which accepted and combined all
the products of thought and imagination, and perhaps the customs and
traditions of several races as well.
It only remains to be said that what follows is concerned almost
entirely with monuments of the Eighteenth Dynasty. With the failure
of the mysterious movement, political and religious, which culminated
under Amenhotep the Fourth (Akhnaton), the most promising era of
Egyptian history came to a sudden end in full prime and every subse-
quent growth was checked. The reflection of this change in the Theban
tombs is very marked, both as regards execution and the ideas that
inspire it, though the influences of the past era are carried over into
the first reigns of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The predominance of the
priest and of sacerdotal thought and motive in the new era is marked
from the very first, and the beliefs and imaginations which are kindled
by, and in touch with, life suffer a fatal defeat. In the tomb, the
thoughts and imaginations of the burial vault rise up like spectres and
invade the freer air of the upper chambers, filling them with mephitic
12