DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0044
DESCRIPTION OF THE MURAL PICTURES
life on To, the flat plain of earth, and To-joser, the desert hills and god's
domain an hour's walking distance away. Nor is this mere verbiage.
The Egyptian had a word makheru, the easy insertion of which would
have plainly distinguished between named figures of the living and the
dead. If we can in no wise trust its use and disuse to indicate this differ-
ence to us, it is because the ancients did not feel the chasm as we do, or
were able to make their wish not to feel it more operative. Nebamun
and Apuki themselves might have been puzzled to answer our question.
Inextricably mixed motives and beliefs, often quite incongruous, are the
source of action more often than we like to think, and we should not lose
sight of their existence, even when selecting the paramount incentive
for simplicity's sake.
On the west side of the doorway, then, the owner (Nebamun in
this case, as the erasure of his name shows)1 is found in an act of wor-
ship (Plates V, VIII); his gifts and prayers, here and elsewhere, being
impartially distributed among a host of deities or deified entities. "Put-
ting oil of incense and sacred gum on the flame for [Amon-] Harakhti;
for Osiris-Khentamentet; for Anubis, the lord, chief of his mountain; for
Hathor, the chieftainess of the temenos; for the evening bark; for the
morning bark; for its crew and its oarsmen; for Re and his disk; for
the [greater company of gods] and for the lesser; [for the gods] who are
in the necropolis; for the unresting stars and for the indestructible
constellations; on the part of the chief of sculptors of the Lord of the
Two Egypts, the child of the nursery, [Nebamun, makheru, (and) his]
mother, the house-[mistress] Thepu." Nebamun, dressed in his best,
Significance
of pictures of
sacrifice
Nebamun
sacrifices to
the gods
'For a similar scene and text cf. my Tomb of Nakht, pp. ii-i3. The texts used in this scene are the
only ones which are given a decorative value by being executed in polychrome. The hieroglyphs combine
the fine detail of the older period with the careless forms of the approaching era. Thus also in Tomb 57. As
will be noticed, the word "gods" is attacked by the illiterate iconoclasts only when written in its triple form
and thus visibly polytheistic, whereas the very syllabic of Amon's name is defaced in the most innocent con-
nections, and, once or twice, that of his wife Mut also. Khons, their son, is generally spared as a moon god;
as are also the names of all the gods of burial, even here where the spirit of polytheism has run riot and be-
stowed new patents of divinity on the impulse of the moment. The term "monotheist" is one of which the
followers of Aton are scarcely worthy. The movement was a vendetta against Amon, chiefly for political
reasons; but with a more or less strong leaning on the part of the leaders to a purer and more natural
religion.
29
life on To, the flat plain of earth, and To-joser, the desert hills and god's
domain an hour's walking distance away. Nor is this mere verbiage.
The Egyptian had a word makheru, the easy insertion of which would
have plainly distinguished between named figures of the living and the
dead. If we can in no wise trust its use and disuse to indicate this differ-
ence to us, it is because the ancients did not feel the chasm as we do, or
were able to make their wish not to feel it more operative. Nebamun
and Apuki themselves might have been puzzled to answer our question.
Inextricably mixed motives and beliefs, often quite incongruous, are the
source of action more often than we like to think, and we should not lose
sight of their existence, even when selecting the paramount incentive
for simplicity's sake.
On the west side of the doorway, then, the owner (Nebamun in
this case, as the erasure of his name shows)1 is found in an act of wor-
ship (Plates V, VIII); his gifts and prayers, here and elsewhere, being
impartially distributed among a host of deities or deified entities. "Put-
ting oil of incense and sacred gum on the flame for [Amon-] Harakhti;
for Osiris-Khentamentet; for Anubis, the lord, chief of his mountain; for
Hathor, the chieftainess of the temenos; for the evening bark; for the
morning bark; for its crew and its oarsmen; for Re and his disk; for
the [greater company of gods] and for the lesser; [for the gods] who are
in the necropolis; for the unresting stars and for the indestructible
constellations; on the part of the chief of sculptors of the Lord of the
Two Egypts, the child of the nursery, [Nebamun, makheru, (and) his]
mother, the house-[mistress] Thepu." Nebamun, dressed in his best,
Significance
of pictures of
sacrifice
Nebamun
sacrifices to
the gods
'For a similar scene and text cf. my Tomb of Nakht, pp. ii-i3. The texts used in this scene are the
only ones which are given a decorative value by being executed in polychrome. The hieroglyphs combine
the fine detail of the older period with the careless forms of the approaching era. Thus also in Tomb 57. As
will be noticed, the word "gods" is attacked by the illiterate iconoclasts only when written in its triple form
and thus visibly polytheistic, whereas the very syllabic of Amon's name is defaced in the most innocent con-
nections, and, once or twice, that of his wife Mut also. Khons, their son, is generally spared as a moon god;
as are also the names of all the gods of burial, even here where the spirit of polytheism has run riot and be-
stowed new patents of divinity on the impulse of the moment. The term "monotheist" is one of which the
followers of Aton are scarcely worthy. The movement was a vendetta against Amon, chiefly for political
reasons; but with a more or less strong leaning on the part of the leaders to a purer and more natural
religion.
29