DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4862#0080
FEASTING AND FARMING
figure is repeated in each register. A final ploughing is taking place in
the row above this, where a bald old ploughman drives his team behind
the sower, that the seed may be safely buried. A scene of reaping follows
hard upon the sowing. The final operations are the treading out of the
ears on the threshing floor by oxen and the winnowing (on the left hand;
the measurement of the grain was probably shown in the gap on the
right). The oxen are linked to one another by the neck to prevent
straying and the abstraction of the corn.1 As one of them stumbles in
the deep straw, it has to be dragged to its feet again by the head.
With this the pleasant hours of Puyemre end and his official duties
begin, wherein at first he seems to have given no little satisfaction to
the king and perhaps still more to the priesthood of Amon; but in the
depiction of which he was impolitic enough to incur the deep displeasure
of his sovereign.
1 This custom is still observed in the rice-fields of Khargeh. For the scenes of ploughing, measure-
ment, and winnowing, see my Tomb of Nakht, PI. XVIII. The fragment of the winnowing scene here is be-
wildering, but is to be interpreted as a girl gathering up the grain between two scoops (right), a comrade
throwing it in the air (left), and a third between them brushing it up with two besoms.
His tilled
fields
57
figure is repeated in each register. A final ploughing is taking place in
the row above this, where a bald old ploughman drives his team behind
the sower, that the seed may be safely buried. A scene of reaping follows
hard upon the sowing. The final operations are the treading out of the
ears on the threshing floor by oxen and the winnowing (on the left hand;
the measurement of the grain was probably shown in the gap on the
right). The oxen are linked to one another by the neck to prevent
straying and the abstraction of the corn.1 As one of them stumbles in
the deep straw, it has to be dragged to its feet again by the head.
With this the pleasant hours of Puyemre end and his official duties
begin, wherein at first he seems to have given no little satisfaction to
the king and perhaps still more to the priesthood of Amon; but in the
depiction of which he was impolitic enough to incur the deep displeasure
of his sovereign.
1 This custom is still observed in the rice-fields of Khargeh. For the scenes of ploughing, measure-
ment, and winnowing, see my Tomb of Nakht, PI. XVIII. The fragment of the winnowing scene here is be-
wildering, but is to be interpreted as a girl gathering up the grain between two scoops (right), a comrade
throwing it in the air (left), and a third between them brushing it up with two besoms.
His tilled
fields
57