Davies, Norman de Garis: The tomb of two sculptors at Thebes (New York, 1925)

Mourning by

female

relatives

The
ceremonial

THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES

any reminders of the changes wrought in the body by dissolution or
embalmment. The coffins, perhaps not without intention, are unlabeled.
At the foot of the second a young woman crouches weeping, taking the
foot in her hands as if to acknowledge a husband's authority even in
death. Or we may see in it that gentle stroking of the feet of her lord
by which the Eastern wife is said to induce in him restfulness or sleep,
and which, with pathetic habitude, she now wastes on the insensate wood.
The same office is being performed on the coffin of Nebamun by his
disconsolate and now elderly widow, whose tearful eyes and drawn mouth,
added to the dust she is strewing on her head, witness to the realism of
her acting or the reality of her grief. She, as well as the other female
mourners and the near male relations, wears garments streaked with
that light blue (gray, that is) which has been taken to be the color of
mourning.1

The two rites of the opening of the mouth and of purification are now
performed. The second officiant did not, of course, take his stand behind
the other; it is only that the rite he accomplishes is second in time. For
the words accompanying the first operation are "Spell of opening the
mouth at the first celebration on the statue (its face being towards the
south),2 read (?) at the ceremony of entering into the tomb ... of the
north wind, thy face being towards the south. A shroud3 is round thee.
Thy front is thy front of the burial chamber (lit. "house of gold").4 A
king's purification; for the king is pure!" The text written behind the
performer's back is probably the final part of his utterance. These cus-
tomary words of ritual had from time immemorial imposed on the crowd

1 So in many later tombs and in a few earlier ones. I am convinced, however, that there was no special
garment or color, the tone being simply due to the sprinkling of dust on the dress. Exactly this shade is used
for the dust placed in the hands and on the head, and not only is it seen on the upper part of the dress, but it
is also gathered up on the hems of the trailing gowns. In Tomb 56 those of the women mourners who are
pouring dust upon themselves are given clothes of a dirty yellowish gray, while those who are not doing so have
white garments. In Tombs 53, 162, 333, mourning women who are sitting in the dust wear bright blue dresses.
But, of course, professional mourners might adopt dust-colored gowns and hair-ribbons in advance.

2 Schiaparelli {Libro d. Funerali, I, p. 26) shows that the performance was repeated at anniversaries.

3 Variant mnj}.t (Tomb 107).

4 The reference seems to be to the gilt face of the cartonnage or of the coffin. Perhaps the "house of
gold" is here the gilders' workshop.

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