DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0024
THE TOMB AND ITS OWNERS
tive seems to be found in their mutual relations to Henetnofret. Her
connection with them is expressed in both cases by the same term,
senet, which, as we have seen, connotes the two widely different relation-
ships of sisterhood and marriage. As Henetnofret regularly accompanies
Apuki in the role of a wife, her relation to him is beyond question.
Nebamun, on the other hand, has his mother as his companion in the
only scenes where both names are preserved; so that the only absolutely
certain instance of Henetnofret's connection with him is her appearance
before him with the cup (Plate V), a service generally rendered by a
daughter to her parents, but occasionally by a wife to her husband when
she is not sitting with him.1 Had Henetnofret not already been shown
as the wife of Apuki, we should unhesitatingly have recognized her from
this picture as the wife of Nebamun. Proof but little less cogent of the
relation between the two is afforded by the burial scene (Plate XIX),
where the foremost of the two mummies is bewailed by "his sene
Henetnofret." Were there no interest in supposing it otherwise, no one
would doubt but that this is Nebamun's corpse and this his mourning
widow. At need, however, it is no doubt arguable that it is Apuki's
mummy and wife, or Nebamun bewailed by a sister.
Unless, therefore, further evidence arises to justify us in ignoring
the great scarcity of precedents, we must take it that the exceptional
division of a tomb between two men (unique perhaps in the degree of
fusion of the two records) was due to an exceptional situation of which
there are few recognizable instances; that, namely, of a woman who
married twice and commemorated, or persuaded her husband to com-
memorate, both unions in one monument. If Nebamun, as appears to
have been the case, was the survivor, he succeeded not only to the
emoluments of Apuki, but also to the hand of his wife, so that the offices
which had been hereditary in the two families were again concentrated
Henetnofret
the connect-
ing link
She appears
to have
married both
men in turn
1 The wife in Tomb 78 offers the cup, where her husband's mother is seated with him; though elsewhere
she makes offering to the gods at his side, and sits with him at the meal of the dead. Cf. Davies, El Amarna,
II, PI. XXXII. I cannot quote an instance of a sister acting as cup-bearer, still less a married sister. If Henet-
nofret had been Nebamun's sister merely, it would have been easy to add "daughter of Thepu" to obviate
misconstruction of the word senet, as is done once in Tomb 3i.
9
tive seems to be found in their mutual relations to Henetnofret. Her
connection with them is expressed in both cases by the same term,
senet, which, as we have seen, connotes the two widely different relation-
ships of sisterhood and marriage. As Henetnofret regularly accompanies
Apuki in the role of a wife, her relation to him is beyond question.
Nebamun, on the other hand, has his mother as his companion in the
only scenes where both names are preserved; so that the only absolutely
certain instance of Henetnofret's connection with him is her appearance
before him with the cup (Plate V), a service generally rendered by a
daughter to her parents, but occasionally by a wife to her husband when
she is not sitting with him.1 Had Henetnofret not already been shown
as the wife of Apuki, we should unhesitatingly have recognized her from
this picture as the wife of Nebamun. Proof but little less cogent of the
relation between the two is afforded by the burial scene (Plate XIX),
where the foremost of the two mummies is bewailed by "his sene
Henetnofret." Were there no interest in supposing it otherwise, no one
would doubt but that this is Nebamun's corpse and this his mourning
widow. At need, however, it is no doubt arguable that it is Apuki's
mummy and wife, or Nebamun bewailed by a sister.
Unless, therefore, further evidence arises to justify us in ignoring
the great scarcity of precedents, we must take it that the exceptional
division of a tomb between two men (unique perhaps in the degree of
fusion of the two records) was due to an exceptional situation of which
there are few recognizable instances; that, namely, of a woman who
married twice and commemorated, or persuaded her husband to com-
memorate, both unions in one monument. If Nebamun, as appears to
have been the case, was the survivor, he succeeded not only to the
emoluments of Apuki, but also to the hand of his wife, so that the offices
which had been hereditary in the two families were again concentrated
Henetnofret
the connect-
ing link
She appears
to have
married both
men in turn
1 The wife in Tomb 78 offers the cup, where her husband's mother is seated with him; though elsewhere
she makes offering to the gods at his side, and sits with him at the meal of the dead. Cf. Davies, El Amarna,
II, PI. XXXII. I cannot quote an instance of a sister acting as cup-bearer, still less a married sister. If Henet-
nofret had been Nebamun's sister merely, it would have been easy to add "daughter of Thepu" to obviate
misconstruction of the word senet, as is done once in Tomb 3i.
9