DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0018
CHAPTER I
THE TOMB AND ITS OWNERS
common
grave
TOMB 1811 at Thebes, the subject of the present memoir, received The Egyptian
tomb a pri-
from Pere Scheil, its first editor, a designation,2 "Tombeau des Graveurs," vate, not a
which is misleading in so far as it suggests that this was a sepulchre
common to a professional guild rather than one of persons connected as
usual by family ties. The name offered a convenient evasion of the
problem set by the incomplete and unprecise records of the tomb as to
the real owner and his relation to another person equally, or almost
equally, prominent on its walls. But it lightly leapt over the obstacle
that, with few exceptions, the Theban tomb is the personal possession
of a single householder who, though he may often have offered its hospi-
tality to many members of the family besides his own descendants and
possibly even to humbler members of his household, so jealously guarded
his proprietary rights and exclusive enjoyment of the burial privileges
which the pictures and prayers in the tomb ensured him, that he allowed
no other name to be linked with his, nor any visible record of subordinate
burials to appear upon the walls. Such persons being interred without
further record than the prayers that might be placed on coffins, jars of
viscera, shawabtis, cones, and other burial furniture, we cannot, in the
case of a plundered tomb, know who, or how many, had found shelter
there. Though these relatives and servants appear in the scenes, they
1 For names, etc., of numbered tombs see Gardiner & Weigall, Topograph. Cat.; also my Puyemre, I, p. 107.
2 Mem. Miss. Franc., V, p. 189.
THE TOMB AND ITS OWNERS
common
grave
TOMB 1811 at Thebes, the subject of the present memoir, received The Egyptian
tomb a pri-
from Pere Scheil, its first editor, a designation,2 "Tombeau des Graveurs," vate, not a
which is misleading in so far as it suggests that this was a sepulchre
common to a professional guild rather than one of persons connected as
usual by family ties. The name offered a convenient evasion of the
problem set by the incomplete and unprecise records of the tomb as to
the real owner and his relation to another person equally, or almost
equally, prominent on its walls. But it lightly leapt over the obstacle
that, with few exceptions, the Theban tomb is the personal possession
of a single householder who, though he may often have offered its hospi-
tality to many members of the family besides his own descendants and
possibly even to humbler members of his household, so jealously guarded
his proprietary rights and exclusive enjoyment of the burial privileges
which the pictures and prayers in the tomb ensured him, that he allowed
no other name to be linked with his, nor any visible record of subordinate
burials to appear upon the walls. Such persons being interred without
further record than the prayers that might be placed on coffins, jars of
viscera, shawabtis, cones, and other burial furniture, we cannot, in the
case of a plundered tomb, know who, or how many, had found shelter
there. Though these relatives and servants appear in the scenes, they
1 For names, etc., of numbered tombs see Gardiner & Weigall, Topograph. Cat.; also my Puyemre, I, p. 107.
2 Mem. Miss. Franc., V, p. 189.