DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4862#0049
Causes of the
king's dis-
pleasure
A clue to the
date of restor-
ation
PERSONALIA
lower and that no imports from Punt, no erection of obelisks in Karnak,
could mean the same to him as that first great adventure of the queen,
or the more daring height of her monuments. It was perhaps becoming
customary to show the foreign tribute as tendered to the monarch in his
kiosk of state, rather than to his representative (thus in the contemporary
tomb of the high priest Menkheperraseneb); but what was permitted in
the tombs of Anena and Rekhmire would have passed muster well enough,
had not the king read into the figure of Puyemre here all that he would
fain have forgotten, but could not forget, of the queen's high temper
and her successes alike in her servants' affections and her public enter-
prises. Our sympathies are with the official; but we can see that only
an intimate knowledge of the spirit in which he wrote this only too cir-
cumspect autobiography would enable us to pass a judgment on the
respective responsibility of king and courtier for the mutilation of the
scenes. Thothmes may well have felt "damned with faint praise."
As the royal throne could not be inserted, Thothmes fell back on
the royal standard, remembering perhaps the employment of an almost
similar emblem of authority by Hatshepsut in the corresponding scene in
her temple.1 That Thothmes' displeasure was measured, or his agents
amenable, is shown by the survival of the name and titles, and by the
rehabilitation of the words recording Puyemre's advance in favor owing
to this very mission. That the erasures went beyond a mere correction
of a departure from good taste is shown, not merely by the unnecessary
erasure of the whole figure and the permanent disfigurement of the tomb,
but by its extension to cases where the insertion of the standard was
not deemed necessary, including perhaps all but one of the figures in the
lower scenes of the corridor.
HIS TITLES
Empty titles
The titles of an Egyptian official, though they may afford us occa-
sional glimpses of his career, do so through an atmosphere that quivers
1 Naville, Deir el Bahari, PL LXXYI, where her Horus-name and two (?) cartouches stand on the
symbol of Egypt's unity.
26
king's dis-
pleasure
A clue to the
date of restor-
ation
PERSONALIA
lower and that no imports from Punt, no erection of obelisks in Karnak,
could mean the same to him as that first great adventure of the queen,
or the more daring height of her monuments. It was perhaps becoming
customary to show the foreign tribute as tendered to the monarch in his
kiosk of state, rather than to his representative (thus in the contemporary
tomb of the high priest Menkheperraseneb); but what was permitted in
the tombs of Anena and Rekhmire would have passed muster well enough,
had not the king read into the figure of Puyemre here all that he would
fain have forgotten, but could not forget, of the queen's high temper
and her successes alike in her servants' affections and her public enter-
prises. Our sympathies are with the official; but we can see that only
an intimate knowledge of the spirit in which he wrote this only too cir-
cumspect autobiography would enable us to pass a judgment on the
respective responsibility of king and courtier for the mutilation of the
scenes. Thothmes may well have felt "damned with faint praise."
As the royal throne could not be inserted, Thothmes fell back on
the royal standard, remembering perhaps the employment of an almost
similar emblem of authority by Hatshepsut in the corresponding scene in
her temple.1 That Thothmes' displeasure was measured, or his agents
amenable, is shown by the survival of the name and titles, and by the
rehabilitation of the words recording Puyemre's advance in favor owing
to this very mission. That the erasures went beyond a mere correction
of a departure from good taste is shown, not merely by the unnecessary
erasure of the whole figure and the permanent disfigurement of the tomb,
but by its extension to cases where the insertion of the standard was
not deemed necessary, including perhaps all but one of the figures in the
lower scenes of the corridor.
HIS TITLES
Empty titles
The titles of an Egyptian official, though they may afford us occa-
sional glimpses of his career, do so through an atmosphere that quivers
1 Naville, Deir el Bahari, PL LXXYI, where her Horus-name and two (?) cartouches stand on the
symbol of Egypt's unity.
26