DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4858#0043
The country
bungalow
The latter
type imitated
in the rock-
tomb
THE NECROPOLIS OF THEBES
the arrangement of the simpler temples. Practical and ideal ends
met in the selection of this type of house as a model for the rock-
tomb. For not only was this house of narrow frontage, with the
light streaming down the axis from room to room, almost the only
one suitable for a cliff-side; but the love of the Egyptian for an out-
door life, surrounded by his garden, his vineyard, and his pond, would
of itself have led him to choose this country cottage as the model of
his eternal home in the necropolis.
Now there is a type of rock-tomb which corresponds closely to
such a house, having its rooms in an axial series. It sprang into gen-
eral favor along with the movement of Akhnaton, as if the love of
domesticity and the bright faith which that monarch exhibited had
influenced even the form of the tomb. There are examples at Thebes
of that period in the Tombs of Ramosy (No. 55) and Surer (No. 48)
(see Figure i). Other tombs, like that of Amenemhab (No. 85),
approximate roughly to the type. The principal feature is a wide
hall, supported on pillars or columns; one or two rooms lie beyond it
without an intervening passage. The burial in such tombs at El
Amarna was often at the bottom of a stairway descending from the
hall, as if from a wish to afford the spirit still easier communication
with his pleasant rooms. Tombs like this might have been common at
Thebes also, had the quality of the rock generally admitted of columnar
halls leading out of one another. As it is, the ordinary tomb at Thebes
is one that seeks to provide both seclusion for the body and a home
for the spirit and is therefore marked both by a passage leading directly
toward a place of interment in the heart of the hill, and by an outer
chamber transverse to the axis (see Figure 2), this latter being usually
of the same narrow character as the passage and only by exception
pillared and spacious.
Occasionally the likeness of the tomb to the garden villa is enhanced
by the provision of a portico in front of it (see Figure 3). We find
this already in Fifth Dynasty mastabas at Sakkara and in one of the
rock-tombs at Beni Hasan. At Thebes, owing to the nature of the
16
bungalow
The latter
type imitated
in the rock-
tomb
THE NECROPOLIS OF THEBES
the arrangement of the simpler temples. Practical and ideal ends
met in the selection of this type of house as a model for the rock-
tomb. For not only was this house of narrow frontage, with the
light streaming down the axis from room to room, almost the only
one suitable for a cliff-side; but the love of the Egyptian for an out-
door life, surrounded by his garden, his vineyard, and his pond, would
of itself have led him to choose this country cottage as the model of
his eternal home in the necropolis.
Now there is a type of rock-tomb which corresponds closely to
such a house, having its rooms in an axial series. It sprang into gen-
eral favor along with the movement of Akhnaton, as if the love of
domesticity and the bright faith which that monarch exhibited had
influenced even the form of the tomb. There are examples at Thebes
of that period in the Tombs of Ramosy (No. 55) and Surer (No. 48)
(see Figure i). Other tombs, like that of Amenemhab (No. 85),
approximate roughly to the type. The principal feature is a wide
hall, supported on pillars or columns; one or two rooms lie beyond it
without an intervening passage. The burial in such tombs at El
Amarna was often at the bottom of a stairway descending from the
hall, as if from a wish to afford the spirit still easier communication
with his pleasant rooms. Tombs like this might have been common at
Thebes also, had the quality of the rock generally admitted of columnar
halls leading out of one another. As it is, the ordinary tomb at Thebes
is one that seeks to provide both seclusion for the body and a home
for the spirit and is therefore marked both by a passage leading directly
toward a place of interment in the heart of the hill, and by an outer
chamber transverse to the axis (see Figure 2), this latter being usually
of the same narrow character as the passage and only by exception
pillared and spacious.
Occasionally the likeness of the tomb to the garden villa is enhanced
by the provision of a portico in front of it (see Figure 3). We find
this already in Fifth Dynasty mastabas at Sakkara and in one of the
rock-tombs at Beni Hasan. At Thebes, owing to the nature of the
16