DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4860#0078
THE TOMB OF APY
owner gets the credit; for the figure of the serpent is held tenderly to
the breast of his kneeling figure. The group is mounted on a naos-like
pedestal.1
The final phase of the harvest home is now reached. However
carefully the crop is cut, and however well-swept the threshing floor,
some grain is spilled and a few inches of stubble are left standing. It
is therefore the business and joy of the younger population to take the
herds of omnivorous goats over the parched fields (Plate XXXIV). The
animals spread eagerly over the grounds that have been so long denied
them, the patriarchal leader of the flock with proper dignity, the young
kids leaping and frisking wherever there is room. Four lads accompany
them, provided with all the necessities for a long day in the fields. One
brings his fieldsman's crook, his dog, a skin of water, a sack of bread,
and his flute (?) in a case. Another, behind his charges, plays his pipe
with one hand. The goats wander as they will, often browsing on the
leaves of trees. When they have stripped these as far as their necks
will reach, their guides cut off the upper branches also for them. The
animals show red, black, and white varieties, besides signs of unrestricted
interbreeding. Some of them exhibit the two wattles which are often
seen on both sexes of the modern breed. One goat is drawn full-faced,
but neither thus nor in profile is the curve of the horns given the true
twist.
The scenes in the marshlands are irregularly distributed between
the lowest register of this wall and the subscene on this and the north
wall. The separation of the subscene is not only marked on both walls
by a heavy black line, dividing it from the pictures above, but also by
a complete change of subject or a new treatment of the background,
the latter forming a very pleasing innovation. On the north wall the
usual device has been adopted of placing in the foreground a strip of
water, on top of which the action takes place, as if the men were seen
on the far side of a narrow inlet. But on the east wall so high a point
1 For kneeling figures holding a patron god, see Legrain, Statues et statuettes de rois et de particuliers,
III, Pis. XVII, XXIII, XLIII, XLVII, LI, and especially Catalogue of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Posses-
sion ofF. G. Hilton Price, II, PL XV.
59
The
grain-store
The
gleaning
The yield of
the marshes
owner gets the credit; for the figure of the serpent is held tenderly to
the breast of his kneeling figure. The group is mounted on a naos-like
pedestal.1
The final phase of the harvest home is now reached. However
carefully the crop is cut, and however well-swept the threshing floor,
some grain is spilled and a few inches of stubble are left standing. It
is therefore the business and joy of the younger population to take the
herds of omnivorous goats over the parched fields (Plate XXXIV). The
animals spread eagerly over the grounds that have been so long denied
them, the patriarchal leader of the flock with proper dignity, the young
kids leaping and frisking wherever there is room. Four lads accompany
them, provided with all the necessities for a long day in the fields. One
brings his fieldsman's crook, his dog, a skin of water, a sack of bread,
and his flute (?) in a case. Another, behind his charges, plays his pipe
with one hand. The goats wander as they will, often browsing on the
leaves of trees. When they have stripped these as far as their necks
will reach, their guides cut off the upper branches also for them. The
animals show red, black, and white varieties, besides signs of unrestricted
interbreeding. Some of them exhibit the two wattles which are often
seen on both sexes of the modern breed. One goat is drawn full-faced,
but neither thus nor in profile is the curve of the horns given the true
twist.
The scenes in the marshlands are irregularly distributed between
the lowest register of this wall and the subscene on this and the north
wall. The separation of the subscene is not only marked on both walls
by a heavy black line, dividing it from the pictures above, but also by
a complete change of subject or a new treatment of the background,
the latter forming a very pleasing innovation. On the north wall the
usual device has been adopted of placing in the foreground a strip of
water, on top of which the action takes place, as if the men were seen
on the far side of a narrow inlet. But on the east wall so high a point
1 For kneeling figures holding a patron god, see Legrain, Statues et statuettes de rois et de particuliers,
III, Pis. XVII, XXIII, XLIII, XLVII, LI, and especially Catalogue of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Posses-
sion ofF. G. Hilton Price, II, PL XV.
59
The
grain-store
The
gleaning
The yield of
the marshes