DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4858#0042
THE FORM OF THE TOMB
in the royal tombs of Thebes, where the places of burial are separated
by more than a mile from the places of offering. The galleries of
Rameses II in the Biban el Muluk are decorated indeed and complex,
yet all the provision of room and ornament is for the dead and for
his gloomy life in the underworld. On the other hand, the gigantic
Ramesseum, on the edge of the cheerful fields, with its lofty halls and
courts, its labyrinth of store-chambers, and its pictures of war and
worship, is the home of the royal spirit. We shall see later how the
two motives are reflected not only in a difference of form but of
decoration also.
If we ask of what sort was that dwelling in the city to which the
Egyptian would wish his tomb also to approximate, we have but slight
information until we come to that city of the desert at El Amarna
which we may reckon as Theban, since it was formed by the artificial
transference of the complete capital to that spot.1 Here the labors of
Petrie and Borchardt have revealed to us the type of the Theban
mansion with its many variations. It generally forms a compact
rectangle, with many smaller rooms ranged round a pillared hall and
with a stairway leading to a second story or to the flat roof. In rock-
tombs of the period there is nothing to correspond to this, though
perhaps the tombs of Mereruka and Ti at Sakkara and the subterranean
chambers of late tombs in the Assasif present a certain resemblance.
But there was another type of Theban dwelling which probably
came nearer to the ancient form and was vastly more adapted to imi-
tation in that curiously inverted construction, the excavated tomb. I
refer to the country house or bungalow, which is often quaintly rep-
resented in Theban paintings.2 It was a light edifice, the chief fea-
tures of which are an elongated ground-plan with narrow frontage, the
rooms lying one behind the other and occupying the whole breadth
and height till the small rooms at the back are reached. The
arrangement is perhaps better revealed in the palace at El Amarna or
1 Kahun is instructive, but too closely settled to be conclusive as regards the single house.
2Cf. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, ed. Birch, I, pp. 35o, 366, 377.
Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 167, 172, 180.
i5
Reconstructed in Erraan,
The royal
tombs betray
the double
motive
The city
house
The country
bungalow
in the royal tombs of Thebes, where the places of burial are separated
by more than a mile from the places of offering. The galleries of
Rameses II in the Biban el Muluk are decorated indeed and complex,
yet all the provision of room and ornament is for the dead and for
his gloomy life in the underworld. On the other hand, the gigantic
Ramesseum, on the edge of the cheerful fields, with its lofty halls and
courts, its labyrinth of store-chambers, and its pictures of war and
worship, is the home of the royal spirit. We shall see later how the
two motives are reflected not only in a difference of form but of
decoration also.
If we ask of what sort was that dwelling in the city to which the
Egyptian would wish his tomb also to approximate, we have but slight
information until we come to that city of the desert at El Amarna
which we may reckon as Theban, since it was formed by the artificial
transference of the complete capital to that spot.1 Here the labors of
Petrie and Borchardt have revealed to us the type of the Theban
mansion with its many variations. It generally forms a compact
rectangle, with many smaller rooms ranged round a pillared hall and
with a stairway leading to a second story or to the flat roof. In rock-
tombs of the period there is nothing to correspond to this, though
perhaps the tombs of Mereruka and Ti at Sakkara and the subterranean
chambers of late tombs in the Assasif present a certain resemblance.
But there was another type of Theban dwelling which probably
came nearer to the ancient form and was vastly more adapted to imi-
tation in that curiously inverted construction, the excavated tomb. I
refer to the country house or bungalow, which is often quaintly rep-
resented in Theban paintings.2 It was a light edifice, the chief fea-
tures of which are an elongated ground-plan with narrow frontage, the
rooms lying one behind the other and occupying the whole breadth
and height till the small rooms at the back are reached. The
arrangement is perhaps better revealed in the palace at El Amarna or
1 Kahun is instructive, but too closely settled to be conclusive as regards the single house.
2Cf. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, ed. Birch, I, pp. 35o, 366, 377.
Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 167, 172, 180.
i5
Reconstructed in Erraan,
The royal
tombs betray
the double
motive
The city
house
The country
bungalow