The head of
the proces-
sion

Cattle drag
the bier of
the dead

THE TOMB OF TWO SCULPTORS AT THEBES

deceased on his various properties, as in the olden days. Instead of that,
the provident Egyptian now made contracts with the neighboring tem-
ples; hence, had these two files of men been preserved, they might have
furnished us indirectly with a list of the gods and sanctuaries of Thebes,
as in the tomb of Rekhmire. As it is, only the names of Ptah and Re-
Harakhti are legible. The formula is, "I have come to bring to thee
offerings presented in the temple of . . . [for the ka of] the chief of the
sculptors. . . ." In the upper row the goddess receives the offerings on
behalf of Nebamun. We catch a broken echo of her customary words
of welcome, "0 Osiris, Neblamun], I receive and embrace thee. . . ."
Behind these caterers for the dead come two processions, beginning on
this wall and continuing on the next (Plate XXII), each (?) headed by
a girl who uses a bivalve shell as a censer of a primitive kind,1 and also,
in the lower register, by a group of mourning women, one of whom is
stooping to scoop up dust from the ground in both hands. The dust
(colored light blue) is thrown on their heads and falls liberally on their
white gowns, their trailing hems gathering it up also from below.

The teams of kine which follow, drawing the funeral biers, are prob-
ably destined to appear shortly on the altars. Certainly that is the end of
the pretty calf gamboling in front and happily ignorant of the fate, more
cruel than simple death, which a barbarous custom prescribed.2 The pair
of cows attached to the bier in the lower register are drawn with as-
tonishing minuteness of detail (Plate XXIII), though the dark dun
color of the outer animal prevents the brushwork being seen, except
under close examination of the original. The attempt of the colorist to
put in every hair and speck of the animal's coat, the impress of the ribs,
and the creases of the skin, may not be meritorious art; but the beauty
of line which he displays lifts it above a mere tour de force. It was

1 Cf. Tomb 55. The cross which is observable on the girl's bosom probably represents the gusset at
the neck of the high dress which the designer intended her to wear. Similar crosses are found on the gowns
of Syrian men on a fresco in the British Museum (No. 37991). The girl and the two fragments of text over-
head may be out of place on PL XIX; but there is scant room for her in the gap in the top register of PL
XXII, and no obvious place for the texts there, though concerned with the "fitting burial" of Nebamun.

2 In Ramesside tombs, if not earlier, the young calf that accompanies its mother in the funeral pro-
cession is continually shown with one of its forelegs severed, or being severed, for sacrifice, while the animal
is still standing. There is nowhere any preparation to kill it.

4a