DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0033
Its form
and features
Previous
publications
and the
present
enterprise
THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES
one wall. A small side-chamber leading out of this is occupied by the
burial shaft, which, at a couple of meters down, gives access to a broad,
but roughly cut and extremely low, burial chamber. Another shaft in
the courtyard also gives entrance to underground rooms at the same
level, perhaps originally separated from the former by narrow partitions
of rock, but now in communication with them. It is possible that the
two shafts provided for the double occupation of the tomb. From a
breach in the floor of the outer shaft one can drop into meandering pas-
sages both to east and west, belonging to a still lower tier of tombs.
The rough walls of the upper chamber were coated thickly with
mud plaster, and faced merely with a thin wash of lime instead of a layer
of good stucco; a new practice which has been the ruin of numberless
later pictures. In both rooms slots were cut in the walls at ceiling-height,
and the mud was spread into them in the vain hope that it would there
find a support which the friable shale did not afford. For the same reason,
the walls of both rooms, but especially those of the inner chamber, were
drawn in at the top, so as to lessen the span of ceiling. It must be con-
fessed that those who quarried the tombs of Thebes showed no construc-
tional ability, nor any solicitude for the stability of these monuments.
The chambers being small, the pictures have been carried down to within
a few inches of the floor, and it is astonishing what fine and detailed
work was done by the decorators in the cramped attitude forced upon
them, the drawing in these parts reaching at least as high a standard as
elsewhere. Owing to the trend of the hillside, the tomb runs into it in a
northerly direction. The end wall of the right-hand bay is therefore the
east, and that of the left-hand bay the west, wall of the tomb.
The scenes have been published by Pere Scheil, with plates in color
by Georges Legrain, whose recent death has been deplored by all.1 The
second room, however, was not penetrated by them. The beauty of the
coloring disclosed in this publication made me eager to copy the scenes
1 Memoires de la Mission Frangaise, V, p. 189. M. Maspero takes pride in the merit of these plates,
"mises sur pied d'apres des croquis tres sommaires du Pere Scheil" (ibid, Vol. XVIII, p. 1). I scarcely think
that the procedure can have been quite so irresponsible as that; but the engaging frankness of the admis-
sion is very characteristic.
l8
and features
Previous
publications
and the
present
enterprise
THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES
one wall. A small side-chamber leading out of this is occupied by the
burial shaft, which, at a couple of meters down, gives access to a broad,
but roughly cut and extremely low, burial chamber. Another shaft in
the courtyard also gives entrance to underground rooms at the same
level, perhaps originally separated from the former by narrow partitions
of rock, but now in communication with them. It is possible that the
two shafts provided for the double occupation of the tomb. From a
breach in the floor of the outer shaft one can drop into meandering pas-
sages both to east and west, belonging to a still lower tier of tombs.
The rough walls of the upper chamber were coated thickly with
mud plaster, and faced merely with a thin wash of lime instead of a layer
of good stucco; a new practice which has been the ruin of numberless
later pictures. In both rooms slots were cut in the walls at ceiling-height,
and the mud was spread into them in the vain hope that it would there
find a support which the friable shale did not afford. For the same reason,
the walls of both rooms, but especially those of the inner chamber, were
drawn in at the top, so as to lessen the span of ceiling. It must be con-
fessed that those who quarried the tombs of Thebes showed no construc-
tional ability, nor any solicitude for the stability of these monuments.
The chambers being small, the pictures have been carried down to within
a few inches of the floor, and it is astonishing what fine and detailed
work was done by the decorators in the cramped attitude forced upon
them, the drawing in these parts reaching at least as high a standard as
elsewhere. Owing to the trend of the hillside, the tomb runs into it in a
northerly direction. The end wall of the right-hand bay is therefore the
east, and that of the left-hand bay the west, wall of the tomb.
The scenes have been published by Pere Scheil, with plates in color
by Georges Legrain, whose recent death has been deplored by all.1 The
second room, however, was not penetrated by them. The beauty of the
coloring disclosed in this publication made me eager to copy the scenes
1 Memoires de la Mission Frangaise, V, p. 189. M. Maspero takes pride in the merit of these plates,
"mises sur pied d'apres des croquis tres sommaires du Pere Scheil" (ibid, Vol. XVIII, p. 1). I scarcely think
that the procedure can have been quite so irresponsible as that; but the engaging frankness of the admis-
sion is very characteristic.
l8