DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0059
Duplication
of the
cortege
Lower scene.
Last rites
before the
tomb
THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES
have to keep the crazy erection from being jolted off on the rough roads.
Apuki's daughter, Mutnofret, acts the part of Nephthys, and her reiter-
ated complaint, "Fare thee well! Fare thee well! Fare thee well, my
father!" has vivid grief in it. His son, Amenemhet, who has taken up his
father's profession, stumbles along in well-simulated misery. Whether
the tears on his cheeks are real or no, the dust which he heaps on his
head must be uncomfortably so. Henetnofret follows the bier in a simi-
lar attitude to that of the figure beside it. Four male relations (who,
with others in the register above, may make up the nine "companions"
required by custom) close the procession.1 Of their names there survive
only "... [of] Pharaoh [in the] southern [city, Amenhotpe (?)]" and
"His brother the draughtsman, Huy."2 The duplicated legend reads,
"Men of Buto dragging (the sleds) to the West, to the land of the right-
doers, the land of which thou saidest, 'My desire is thitherward/ Let
them say to the cattle, 'Pull, ye biggest of the big, and let your hearts
give no place to fatigue; for the blessed sculptor in Ast-josret is with
you. Pull, biggest of the big, the load of the favorite [of Anion].' To the
West, thy home in which thou shalt dwell for ever, 0 Osiris, sculptor
Apuki. The western horizon is opened to thee. ..."
The picture on the upper half of both walls has shown the essential
features of happy burial—the conveyance of the corpse to the tomb, the
provision of propitiatory gifts, the consequent welcome of the dead by
the tutelary deity of the necropolis, and, on the other side of the doors
of death, the appearance of the dead before the great god. The lower
scene is concerned with what is, after all, secondary—the grief of the
bereaved and their loyal provision for his semi-mundane needs. Their
thoughts do not wander beyond the tomb, seen on the right as the goal
11 now see that the fragment showing four heads on which I have based my restoration in the top
register of PL XXII more probably belongs to the four women who raise their arms in lamentation in the
upper half of PL XIX.
2Tomb 54 belongs to a sculptor ("wielder of the chisel"), Huy, who began to decorate it exactly in
the style of our tomb, but only partially completed it. The son of his daughter finished it for himself in the
most degraded Ramesside style, giving startling proof how completely art-sense could disappear in Egypt in
two generations (See Bulletin of M. M. A., Dec, 1922, Part II, p. 53, Fig. 5). I am inclined to see in this
11 uy the same man as is shown here, though the name is of the commonest; for the similarity of its earlier
parts to the corresponding pictures in our tomb is very striking (cf. PL XXII with PL XXXI).
kk
of the
cortege
Lower scene.
Last rites
before the
tomb
THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES
have to keep the crazy erection from being jolted off on the rough roads.
Apuki's daughter, Mutnofret, acts the part of Nephthys, and her reiter-
ated complaint, "Fare thee well! Fare thee well! Fare thee well, my
father!" has vivid grief in it. His son, Amenemhet, who has taken up his
father's profession, stumbles along in well-simulated misery. Whether
the tears on his cheeks are real or no, the dust which he heaps on his
head must be uncomfortably so. Henetnofret follows the bier in a simi-
lar attitude to that of the figure beside it. Four male relations (who,
with others in the register above, may make up the nine "companions"
required by custom) close the procession.1 Of their names there survive
only "... [of] Pharaoh [in the] southern [city, Amenhotpe (?)]" and
"His brother the draughtsman, Huy."2 The duplicated legend reads,
"Men of Buto dragging (the sleds) to the West, to the land of the right-
doers, the land of which thou saidest, 'My desire is thitherward/ Let
them say to the cattle, 'Pull, ye biggest of the big, and let your hearts
give no place to fatigue; for the blessed sculptor in Ast-josret is with
you. Pull, biggest of the big, the load of the favorite [of Anion].' To the
West, thy home in which thou shalt dwell for ever, 0 Osiris, sculptor
Apuki. The western horizon is opened to thee. ..."
The picture on the upper half of both walls has shown the essential
features of happy burial—the conveyance of the corpse to the tomb, the
provision of propitiatory gifts, the consequent welcome of the dead by
the tutelary deity of the necropolis, and, on the other side of the doors
of death, the appearance of the dead before the great god. The lower
scene is concerned with what is, after all, secondary—the grief of the
bereaved and their loyal provision for his semi-mundane needs. Their
thoughts do not wander beyond the tomb, seen on the right as the goal
11 now see that the fragment showing four heads on which I have based my restoration in the top
register of PL XXII more probably belongs to the four women who raise their arms in lamentation in the
upper half of PL XIX.
2Tomb 54 belongs to a sculptor ("wielder of the chisel"), Huy, who began to decorate it exactly in
the style of our tomb, but only partially completed it. The son of his daughter finished it for himself in the
most degraded Ramesside style, giving startling proof how completely art-sense could disappear in Egypt in
two generations (See Bulletin of M. M. A., Dec, 1922, Part II, p. 53, Fig. 5). I am inclined to see in this
11 uy the same man as is shown here, though the name is of the commonest; for the similarity of its earlier
parts to the corresponding pictures in our tomb is very striking (cf. PL XXII with PL XXXI).
kk