DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4858#0080
PROVISION FOR THE DEAD
lying with the parts selected for offering already dismembered, is just
being cut up on a mat by two men, whose legs the artist has continued
below the animal with absurd effect.
Parallel scene
opposite it
PROVISION FOR THE DEAD
(NORTH WALL—PLATES XIII AND XIV)
Despite his priestly office, Nakht does not seem to have attached
much importance to the cult of the dead. Certainly his artist did
not. The labor bestowed on different parts of the tomb has been
determined by artistic considerations, those scenes having been
spoon laid across it (Tomb 69); in the hand of a statuette forms a corner-piece of the great altar (El Amarna
II, PL VIII el passim). Similar cones set on stands without the bowl are frequently seen near offerings (El
Amarna III, Pis. X, XXX). They are not always white, but red or streaked just like one seen on Plate XII
(which in another tomb is labeled "incense"). They then resemble closely the cones of fat for the hair, which
are like them also in this respect that they are often decorated with ribbons or gaily colored (El Amarna II,
Pis. XII, XXXII), apparently because white fat was found unaesthetic in appearance. In Tomb 5i white
pyramids adorned with garlands are placed between flaming tapers, and in a parallel scene in Tomb 3i a
priest is pouring oil (?) from a vase on to the wicks. This action is labeled "making incense."
This explanation of the cones in bowls as piles of odorous fat or gum for burning seems completely
negatived by a representation which is found among the objects presented to Amon by Thothmes III and
definitely labeled ta hed, "white bread" (Sethe, Urkunden IV, p. 637, where no color is assigned to it). In
this connection, however, it could only be an imitation (in silver?) of such a loaf, and on the same wall are
two similar objects, a green one labeled "White bread. Malachite. Eleven" and a blue one labeled "Lapis
lazuli. Thirteen" (Ibid., p. 638). These nicknacks, then, are objects which only have the well-known shape
of white loaves and more likely are meant to look like the loaf-shaped pastilles of incense. These are, in
fact, often colored blue and green (in the hieroglyph A and elsewhere).
If we compare the object we have been considering with the hieroglyph for "flame" fl (painted red,
or white with a flaming red tip), the latter is found to differ only in that, being alight, a trail of smoke or
fire is added. |1 is a similar cone in a bowl which has three or four ears by which it may be held when hot.
So also the hieroglyph for "censer," "incense" is ^, though in pictures burning incense is much more
often shown in a shallow dish with rounded bottom than in a bowl of this form. A pyramidal candle of
tallow would quickly burn down and become a wick floating in a bowl of melted fat, and a pastille of incense
which needed no wick would soon lose its point. Hence fl and §} may really be the same lamp, and the
white cone be properly replaced by a higher or lower flame.
It is always possible that the white cone is not the substance itself but the conical cover of a chafing
dish or protected lamp. The pictures in El Amarna I, PL XVIII; VI, PL XX, seem to point to the exist-
ence of such utensils with a cover of this form and in I, PL XXII, we perhaps see the cover being lifted off.
It is curious that in all acts, whether secular or religious, where fire plays a part, no means of produc-
ing or conveying it is ever shown. Even when the act of lighting is referred to, we see no more than the
lighted taper and the pot of fat (cf. Davies-Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, PL XXIII). This seems to show
that though the lighting of lamps or tapers was a ceremonial act, the actual kindling of flame was not. Yet
one would have thought that no operation could be more impressive or a more fruitful seed of myth and
ritual.
53
Careless exe-
cution of the
scenes of
ritual
lying with the parts selected for offering already dismembered, is just
being cut up on a mat by two men, whose legs the artist has continued
below the animal with absurd effect.
Parallel scene
opposite it
PROVISION FOR THE DEAD
(NORTH WALL—PLATES XIII AND XIV)
Despite his priestly office, Nakht does not seem to have attached
much importance to the cult of the dead. Certainly his artist did
not. The labor bestowed on different parts of the tomb has been
determined by artistic considerations, those scenes having been
spoon laid across it (Tomb 69); in the hand of a statuette forms a corner-piece of the great altar (El Amarna
II, PL VIII el passim). Similar cones set on stands without the bowl are frequently seen near offerings (El
Amarna III, Pis. X, XXX). They are not always white, but red or streaked just like one seen on Plate XII
(which in another tomb is labeled "incense"). They then resemble closely the cones of fat for the hair, which
are like them also in this respect that they are often decorated with ribbons or gaily colored (El Amarna II,
Pis. XII, XXXII), apparently because white fat was found unaesthetic in appearance. In Tomb 5i white
pyramids adorned with garlands are placed between flaming tapers, and in a parallel scene in Tomb 3i a
priest is pouring oil (?) from a vase on to the wicks. This action is labeled "making incense."
This explanation of the cones in bowls as piles of odorous fat or gum for burning seems completely
negatived by a representation which is found among the objects presented to Amon by Thothmes III and
definitely labeled ta hed, "white bread" (Sethe, Urkunden IV, p. 637, where no color is assigned to it). In
this connection, however, it could only be an imitation (in silver?) of such a loaf, and on the same wall are
two similar objects, a green one labeled "White bread. Malachite. Eleven" and a blue one labeled "Lapis
lazuli. Thirteen" (Ibid., p. 638). These nicknacks, then, are objects which only have the well-known shape
of white loaves and more likely are meant to look like the loaf-shaped pastilles of incense. These are, in
fact, often colored blue and green (in the hieroglyph A and elsewhere).
If we compare the object we have been considering with the hieroglyph for "flame" fl (painted red,
or white with a flaming red tip), the latter is found to differ only in that, being alight, a trail of smoke or
fire is added. |1 is a similar cone in a bowl which has three or four ears by which it may be held when hot.
So also the hieroglyph for "censer," "incense" is ^, though in pictures burning incense is much more
often shown in a shallow dish with rounded bottom than in a bowl of this form. A pyramidal candle of
tallow would quickly burn down and become a wick floating in a bowl of melted fat, and a pastille of incense
which needed no wick would soon lose its point. Hence fl and §} may really be the same lamp, and the
white cone be properly replaced by a higher or lower flame.
It is always possible that the white cone is not the substance itself but the conical cover of a chafing
dish or protected lamp. The pictures in El Amarna I, PL XVIII; VI, PL XX, seem to point to the exist-
ence of such utensils with a cover of this form and in I, PL XXII, we perhaps see the cover being lifted off.
It is curious that in all acts, whether secular or religious, where fire plays a part, no means of produc-
ing or conveying it is ever shown. Even when the act of lighting is referred to, we see no more than the
lighted taper and the pot of fat (cf. Davies-Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, PL XXIII). This seems to show
that though the lighting of lamps or tapers was a ceremonial act, the actual kindling of flame was not. Yet
one would have thought that no operation could be more impressive or a more fruitful seed of myth and
ritual.
53
Careless exe-
cution of the
scenes of
ritual