DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0054
DESCRIPTION OF THE MURAL PICTURES
The ancient Theban method of depicting the removal of the dead to
his last home in the western mountains was to show the convoy moving
towards a figure of the deceased sitting at the funeral meal, the tomb
and the gods being alike unrepresented,1 or towards the deities of burial,
the tomb being typified merely by inconspicuous false doors. In the
Ramesside period, the funeral cortege, consisting only of the mourners
accompanying the bier and the bearers of offerings, moves towards the
door of a tomb with pyramidal summit, before which the mummy is set
up and farewell taken of it with signs of extravagant grief. The boxed
corpse in its lamentable inertness thus replaces the pleasant picture of
the dead enjoying the amenities of their new life under the sympathetic
protection of the gods; grief takes the place of acquiescence; the idea of
a far-off realm of the dead succeeds to the hope of a tolerable, or even
happy, existence in the open tomb within sight and reach of the land of
the living.2 In this tomb, as in two contemporary ones, the Ramesside
model has not quite been reached, but an approximation is evident. The
antiquated rites have disappeared; the burial procession now consists
1 For the Middle Kingdom see Davies, Tomb of Antefoker, Pis. XVII-XXIII, and for the XVIIIth
dyn., Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, Pis. X-XII.
2 This contrast is, of course, too positive and only expresses the general tendency. Not only are we
uncertain how far the pictures had always been, or had grown to be, inadequate reflections of custom, but
the tomb-records, while making the above change of sentiment clear, let us see that natural grief and its
expression had always had some place. As we might expect, it is the servants and dependents, those who did
not find life so pleasant and had no prospect of a well-furnished lodging in the necropolis, who seek an unsat-
isfying solace in exuberant emotion. Or the optimistic outlook on life had become hollow, and, though con-
vention restrained the official class, hired mourners expressed a grief it was not proper to show in person.
Thus the succeeding king, Akhnaton, despite his joyous creed and his practice of giving no encouragement
to burial customs in the tombs which he provided for his courtiers (knowing that such rites must prove
antagonistic to natural religion), yet in the tomb of his daughter sets forth his own proper sorrow and the
hysteric grief of his following (Legrain, Culte d'Atonou, Pis. VI-XIII). The tomb of an officer of his mother's
household also shows abundant mourning, and something like the ancient rites (Davies, El Amarna, III, Pis.
XXII, XXIII). In tombs previous to our period, too, signs of mourning are not altogether excluded. The
figures of mourning women in Tombs 75 and 78 of the reign of Thothmes IV have been erased or left unfin-
ished, as if they were deemed an undesirable innovation; of other tombs (e.g. Nos. 53, 55, 57, 69, 89, i3o,
161, 162) which show similar groups, almost all are of a period closely approaching ours. Thus we see that the
Ramesside feeling of the fitness of lament in face of death is, to a large extent, the open sanction of sentiments
long cherished by the mass of the people. Personal emotion has swept away convention and the older fables;
for, while a class, a church, society in general, can afford to be optimistic, the extravagance of personal claims
makes the individual pessimistic. The scene of the lamented mummy seems to be derived from one of the
long series of rites performed on the statue or mummy of the dead which is shown throughout the XVIIIth
dyn. In Tombs 69 and 162 the rite takes a form very similar to that shown here.
39
Ramesside
models fore-
shadowed
here
The ancient Theban method of depicting the removal of the dead to
his last home in the western mountains was to show the convoy moving
towards a figure of the deceased sitting at the funeral meal, the tomb
and the gods being alike unrepresented,1 or towards the deities of burial,
the tomb being typified merely by inconspicuous false doors. In the
Ramesside period, the funeral cortege, consisting only of the mourners
accompanying the bier and the bearers of offerings, moves towards the
door of a tomb with pyramidal summit, before which the mummy is set
up and farewell taken of it with signs of extravagant grief. The boxed
corpse in its lamentable inertness thus replaces the pleasant picture of
the dead enjoying the amenities of their new life under the sympathetic
protection of the gods; grief takes the place of acquiescence; the idea of
a far-off realm of the dead succeeds to the hope of a tolerable, or even
happy, existence in the open tomb within sight and reach of the land of
the living.2 In this tomb, as in two contemporary ones, the Ramesside
model has not quite been reached, but an approximation is evident. The
antiquated rites have disappeared; the burial procession now consists
1 For the Middle Kingdom see Davies, Tomb of Antefoker, Pis. XVII-XXIII, and for the XVIIIth
dyn., Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, Pis. X-XII.
2 This contrast is, of course, too positive and only expresses the general tendency. Not only are we
uncertain how far the pictures had always been, or had grown to be, inadequate reflections of custom, but
the tomb-records, while making the above change of sentiment clear, let us see that natural grief and its
expression had always had some place. As we might expect, it is the servants and dependents, those who did
not find life so pleasant and had no prospect of a well-furnished lodging in the necropolis, who seek an unsat-
isfying solace in exuberant emotion. Or the optimistic outlook on life had become hollow, and, though con-
vention restrained the official class, hired mourners expressed a grief it was not proper to show in person.
Thus the succeeding king, Akhnaton, despite his joyous creed and his practice of giving no encouragement
to burial customs in the tombs which he provided for his courtiers (knowing that such rites must prove
antagonistic to natural religion), yet in the tomb of his daughter sets forth his own proper sorrow and the
hysteric grief of his following (Legrain, Culte d'Atonou, Pis. VI-XIII). The tomb of an officer of his mother's
household also shows abundant mourning, and something like the ancient rites (Davies, El Amarna, III, Pis.
XXII, XXIII). In tombs previous to our period, too, signs of mourning are not altogether excluded. The
figures of mourning women in Tombs 75 and 78 of the reign of Thothmes IV have been erased or left unfin-
ished, as if they were deemed an undesirable innovation; of other tombs (e.g. Nos. 53, 55, 57, 69, 89, i3o,
161, 162) which show similar groups, almost all are of a period closely approaching ours. Thus we see that the
Ramesside feeling of the fitness of lament in face of death is, to a large extent, the open sanction of sentiments
long cherished by the mass of the people. Personal emotion has swept away convention and the older fables;
for, while a class, a church, society in general, can afford to be optimistic, the extravagance of personal claims
makes the individual pessimistic. The scene of the lamented mummy seems to be derived from one of the
long series of rites performed on the statue or mummy of the dead which is shown throughout the XVIIIth
dyn. In Tombs 69 and 162 the rite takes a form very similar to that shown here.
39
Ramesside
models fore-
shadowed
here