DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4858#0088
LABOR IN THE FIELDS
tion has just retreated and has left here and there pools which will
take a long while to dry up. Yet the men then, as now, take the
first opportunity to venture out on the soft surface, though they sink
to the ankles in it; for the work of the hoe is now vastly easier than
it will be after a few days' sun, and the seed will quickly bury itself
and be safe from the sharp-sighted birds. This upper row, according
to Egyptian convention, shows us the land nearest the desert where
the pools lie longest and where, when the inundation has been excep-
tionally high, the area of cultivation can be extended by taking in
again a margin of land on which in the meantime rank grass, tamarisk
bushes, or even mimosa trees have managed to push up. Accordingly,
we see men hewing down trees, rooting up weeds with the strong
mattock, and breaking up the surface with the simpler hoe.1
In the lower picture men are shown breaking up the clods with
mallets, to receive the seed. Where deeper sowing is called for, teams
of cows are driven up and down, dragging ploughs whose shares cut
deep into the soft soil. These ploughs are of the new pattern which
had come into use with the dynasty and has lasted to this day, though
the old type was nearer to the modern European model. One of the
ploughmen here is guiding the plough with ease; but the other, a churl
with unkempt locks, such as dwelt on the edge of the desert, leans
with evident labor on the upright stilts. At one end of the scene
Initial labors
Ploughing
and sowing
irrhis design is repeated in the tombs of Khaemhet (Prisse, UAH Egyptien, II, PI. 20) and Joserkerasonb
(Scheil, Mem. Miss. Franqaise, V, p. 576). Cf. also Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, II, p. 3g4- It is
interesting to see how fully the artist is aware of the meaning of the rigid conventions under which he
works. Relieved of the necessity of showing the soil as a ruled black line, he makes it an irregular brown
strip widening out, as it actually would, in the depression where the pool lies. He knows that it appears
to the eye as a background to the figures and that it is omitted only for the sake of clearness; for he runs it
right round the pool. For this touch of perspective compare the winnowing scene above, a scene in Tomb
93 (Kenamon), where the desert forms a complete background to the animals within it, and Der el Gebrdwi,
II, PI. IX. The arm which branches off behind the pond may be a dry torrent-bed up which the cultivable
level would naturally extend a little farther. Its diagonal direction may indicate the rapid rise of the
desert beyond, which sets an absolute limit to cultivation (cf. El Amarna, V, PI. V). The bush which the
artist has set on the under side of the strip of soil is, I think, opposed to the rules of Egyptian design
but is paralleled elsewhere. The artist seems to have forgotten that he was dealing with a base-line, not
with a path. The need of a bush of that shape to fill up the background led him astray. The same neces-
sity and not any feeling for perspective accounts for the trees dotted about the field. It is something, how-
ever, to have judged them to be permissible.
6l
tion has just retreated and has left here and there pools which will
take a long while to dry up. Yet the men then, as now, take the
first opportunity to venture out on the soft surface, though they sink
to the ankles in it; for the work of the hoe is now vastly easier than
it will be after a few days' sun, and the seed will quickly bury itself
and be safe from the sharp-sighted birds. This upper row, according
to Egyptian convention, shows us the land nearest the desert where
the pools lie longest and where, when the inundation has been excep-
tionally high, the area of cultivation can be extended by taking in
again a margin of land on which in the meantime rank grass, tamarisk
bushes, or even mimosa trees have managed to push up. Accordingly,
we see men hewing down trees, rooting up weeds with the strong
mattock, and breaking up the surface with the simpler hoe.1
In the lower picture men are shown breaking up the clods with
mallets, to receive the seed. Where deeper sowing is called for, teams
of cows are driven up and down, dragging ploughs whose shares cut
deep into the soft soil. These ploughs are of the new pattern which
had come into use with the dynasty and has lasted to this day, though
the old type was nearer to the modern European model. One of the
ploughmen here is guiding the plough with ease; but the other, a churl
with unkempt locks, such as dwelt on the edge of the desert, leans
with evident labor on the upright stilts. At one end of the scene
Initial labors
Ploughing
and sowing
irrhis design is repeated in the tombs of Khaemhet (Prisse, UAH Egyptien, II, PI. 20) and Joserkerasonb
(Scheil, Mem. Miss. Franqaise, V, p. 576). Cf. also Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, II, p. 3g4- It is
interesting to see how fully the artist is aware of the meaning of the rigid conventions under which he
works. Relieved of the necessity of showing the soil as a ruled black line, he makes it an irregular brown
strip widening out, as it actually would, in the depression where the pool lies. He knows that it appears
to the eye as a background to the figures and that it is omitted only for the sake of clearness; for he runs it
right round the pool. For this touch of perspective compare the winnowing scene above, a scene in Tomb
93 (Kenamon), where the desert forms a complete background to the animals within it, and Der el Gebrdwi,
II, PI. IX. The arm which branches off behind the pond may be a dry torrent-bed up which the cultivable
level would naturally extend a little farther. Its diagonal direction may indicate the rapid rise of the
desert beyond, which sets an absolute limit to cultivation (cf. El Amarna, V, PI. V). The bush which the
artist has set on the under side of the strip of soil is, I think, opposed to the rules of Egyptian design
but is paralleled elsewhere. The artist seems to have forgotten that he was dealing with a base-line, not
with a path. The need of a bush of that shape to fill up the background led him astray. The same neces-
sity and not any feeling for perspective accounts for the trees dotted about the field. It is something, how-
ever, to have judged them to be permissible.
6l