DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4859#0060
DESCRIPTION OF THE MURAL PICTURES
of the action.1 This building has a peculiar form, which is not met with
again, and has no resemblance to the actual sepulchre or to any other in
the cemetery (Plate XXI). It consists of a plain white fagade which,
instead of extending to right and left of its doorway, towers narrowly
upwards and admits there a little window or stela and a decorative
string-course. The actual door is of grained wood with a carved panel
showing the worship of Osiris by the owner.2 As no traces of a sky-line
like this occur in tombs, the representation must be derived from the
rounded stela which in later pictures is often shown by the side of a
pyramidal tomb, and which, by synecdoche, may often stand for the
tomb itself. The forms of tomb and stela are thus combined into a curi-
ous unreality. A study of it might give useful insight into the mental in-
stincts on which Egyptian symbolism rests. The string-course is formed
of red disks on a lighter red ground, but no such decoration of a tomb-
front, or even of a stela, is extant. Rhind, however, avers that he found
at Thebes a fagade ornamented with inset pottery cones, and the sup-
position that the picture is to be interpreted in this way is not negli-
gible.3
Before this tomb two exactly similar anthropoid coffins are set up
for farewell demonstrations by the women. Both coffins are bearded,
and are presumably those of the two husbands of Henetnofret. Cones
of ointment are placed on their heads, as if they were the mummies
themselves. A great bouquet is set up before the coffin, and the strong
scent of lotus, mandrake, and poppy could be relied on to overpower
1 The duplication of the tomb may be due either to the double burial commemorated or to the incon-
venience and faulty composition which would have been involved in a drawing of the tomb which took in both
registers.
2 Carved wooden doors preserved to our day are those of Sennojem in Cairo Museum, of a small shrine
of Mose in Moscow (Musee des Beaux Arts Alexandre III, PI. XIII), of Khenshotpg in the British Museum
of Senennuter in Berlin, and of Mery in my possession. Mr. Carter reports an ebony tablet above a tomb
entrance at Thebes. Framed windows or stelae are shown from this time onward in the pyramidal super-
structure of tombs, and are found as actual features in the Ethiopian pyramids.
3 Bhind, Thebes, p. i36. This string-course is again shown on a false door in Tomb 55 and in Tomb
49 on a structure containing the mummy and its supporters (Wilkinson, M. and C, III, PI. LXVII). There
are other reasons for believing that these cones were employed as decorative building material on the exterior
of the tomb, but the difficulties are serious. It would perhaps be an imitation of Babylonian precedent, but
the original use of these cones in Egypt may have been quite different.
45
Lower scene.
Last rites
before the
tomb
Mourning by
female
relatives
of the action.1 This building has a peculiar form, which is not met with
again, and has no resemblance to the actual sepulchre or to any other in
the cemetery (Plate XXI). It consists of a plain white fagade which,
instead of extending to right and left of its doorway, towers narrowly
upwards and admits there a little window or stela and a decorative
string-course. The actual door is of grained wood with a carved panel
showing the worship of Osiris by the owner.2 As no traces of a sky-line
like this occur in tombs, the representation must be derived from the
rounded stela which in later pictures is often shown by the side of a
pyramidal tomb, and which, by synecdoche, may often stand for the
tomb itself. The forms of tomb and stela are thus combined into a curi-
ous unreality. A study of it might give useful insight into the mental in-
stincts on which Egyptian symbolism rests. The string-course is formed
of red disks on a lighter red ground, but no such decoration of a tomb-
front, or even of a stela, is extant. Rhind, however, avers that he found
at Thebes a fagade ornamented with inset pottery cones, and the sup-
position that the picture is to be interpreted in this way is not negli-
gible.3
Before this tomb two exactly similar anthropoid coffins are set up
for farewell demonstrations by the women. Both coffins are bearded,
and are presumably those of the two husbands of Henetnofret. Cones
of ointment are placed on their heads, as if they were the mummies
themselves. A great bouquet is set up before the coffin, and the strong
scent of lotus, mandrake, and poppy could be relied on to overpower
1 The duplication of the tomb may be due either to the double burial commemorated or to the incon-
venience and faulty composition which would have been involved in a drawing of the tomb which took in both
registers.
2 Carved wooden doors preserved to our day are those of Sennojem in Cairo Museum, of a small shrine
of Mose in Moscow (Musee des Beaux Arts Alexandre III, PI. XIII), of Khenshotpg in the British Museum
of Senennuter in Berlin, and of Mery in my possession. Mr. Carter reports an ebony tablet above a tomb
entrance at Thebes. Framed windows or stelae are shown from this time onward in the pyramidal super-
structure of tombs, and are found as actual features in the Ethiopian pyramids.
3 Bhind, Thebes, p. i36. This string-course is again shown on a false door in Tomb 55 and in Tomb
49 on a structure containing the mummy and its supporters (Wilkinson, M. and C, III, PI. LXVII). There
are other reasons for believing that these cones were employed as decorative building material on the exterior
of the tomb, but the difficulties are serious. It would perhaps be an imitation of Babylonian precedent, but
the original use of these cones in Egypt may have been quite different.
45
Lower scene.
Last rites
before the
tomb
Mourning by
female
relatives