DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4860#0054
The exterior
THE TOMB OF APY
buttress common to both. The kink in the north wall is due to there having
been an entrance there to a burial pit lying beyond it. An opening in the
south end of the facade admits to another burial place (No. 5) which the
arrangement shows to be original. After use, the opening had been
blocked up. It led into a very irregular cave cut in the rock, which here
lies in loose and almost vertical strata, so that even the narrowest nat-
ural roof is liable to fall in. A corresponding hole (No. 6) exists on the
north side of the tomb-chapel, but, as in this case there is no visible en-
trance, it must have been reached from the top of the fagade. Being little
more than a fissure, it was unsafe for us to empty it completely. It runs
so close to the brick lining of the chamber that it broke into the latter at
this point, destroying the paintings in the northeast corner. The courtyard
contains two other places of interment on the north side of the axis. One
is a small subterranean cave reached from the west side of a brick-lined
shaft (Nos. 3, 4). To the east of this again lay a collapsed cave (No. 2),
entered from the east—possibly from outside the court: it appears to be
earlier than the shaft, as the latter is partly built in loose filling.
A little depression in the floor of the court close to the mouth of ^garden
the shaft had been filled with earth, and a stunted date palm planted
there.1 This miserable specimen, which can scarcely have reached a
height of more than two or three feet, or struggled through as many
years of parched existence, represents, no doubt, the garden in which
the dead man hoped to rest, sitting in the refreshing shade of the tree
and receiving from its goddess luscious fruit and streams of cool water.
A rough hole (No. 1), a foot or so deep, in the southwest corner of the
court may have been another plot, or, being given shape and filled with
water, have become, by the algebra of faith, the pool in which the de-
ceased culled the lotus and quenched his thirst.2
Two accessories of ritual are also found here. South of the entrance
to the tomb a brick bench for offerings is built against the front, having
1 Mr. Mond found a somewhat larger one before a tomb near Tomb 106.
2 In the court of the next tomb but one (No. 6) three neat little basins are cut in the rock pavement,
plastered with mud, and painted white. They are 3o inches long, 24 broad, and 3 or 4 deep, thus sufficing only
for a faith with the multiplying power of mustard seed. For three sacred pools in the ritual of burial see Virey,
he Tomheau de Eekhmara, PI. XXIV.
35
Provision
for ritual
THE TOMB OF APY
buttress common to both. The kink in the north wall is due to there having
been an entrance there to a burial pit lying beyond it. An opening in the
south end of the facade admits to another burial place (No. 5) which the
arrangement shows to be original. After use, the opening had been
blocked up. It led into a very irregular cave cut in the rock, which here
lies in loose and almost vertical strata, so that even the narrowest nat-
ural roof is liable to fall in. A corresponding hole (No. 6) exists on the
north side of the tomb-chapel, but, as in this case there is no visible en-
trance, it must have been reached from the top of the fagade. Being little
more than a fissure, it was unsafe for us to empty it completely. It runs
so close to the brick lining of the chamber that it broke into the latter at
this point, destroying the paintings in the northeast corner. The courtyard
contains two other places of interment on the north side of the axis. One
is a small subterranean cave reached from the west side of a brick-lined
shaft (Nos. 3, 4). To the east of this again lay a collapsed cave (No. 2),
entered from the east—possibly from outside the court: it appears to be
earlier than the shaft, as the latter is partly built in loose filling.
A little depression in the floor of the court close to the mouth of ^garden
the shaft had been filled with earth, and a stunted date palm planted
there.1 This miserable specimen, which can scarcely have reached a
height of more than two or three feet, or struggled through as many
years of parched existence, represents, no doubt, the garden in which
the dead man hoped to rest, sitting in the refreshing shade of the tree
and receiving from its goddess luscious fruit and streams of cool water.
A rough hole (No. 1), a foot or so deep, in the southwest corner of the
court may have been another plot, or, being given shape and filled with
water, have become, by the algebra of faith, the pool in which the de-
ceased culled the lotus and quenched his thirst.2
Two accessories of ritual are also found here. South of the entrance
to the tomb a brick bench for offerings is built against the front, having
1 Mr. Mond found a somewhat larger one before a tomb near Tomb 106.
2 In the court of the next tomb but one (No. 6) three neat little basins are cut in the rock pavement,
plastered with mud, and painted white. They are 3o inches long, 24 broad, and 3 or 4 deep, thus sufficing only
for a faith with the multiplying power of mustard seed. For three sacred pools in the ritual of burial see Virey,
he Tomheau de Eekhmara, PI. XXIV.
35
Provision
for ritual