Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 3): The great transitional age in the northern and eastern sections of the Palace (London, 1930)

102

TRADITIONAL EGYPTIAN SIEGE SCENES

Example

from

Fifth

Dynasty

Tomb of

Anta.

Its

dramatic

character.

Middle
Empire
examples.

with the Libyan sheath, lying prostrate below 1—in another case the captured
City is symbolized by a lion and vase within its circuit.2 Under the Early
Dynasties this method of drawing the surrounding walls in plan is adapted
to a more dramatic presentation of the incidents of the operations. In the
tomb of Anta, dating from about the middle of the Fifth Dynasty—c. 2680—
2540 B.C.—a plan is thus given of a beleaguered stronghold somewhere in
the Semitic borderlands of Egypt, though a scaling ladder—an incongruous
feature as here introduced—is at the same time set against it (Fig. 57). The
oblong walled enclosure is divided into successive zones depicting a series
of scenes, in the first of which women and children are seen gaining an easy
victory over some Bedouin allies of the Egyptians who have succeeded in
scaling the walls, but cannot find room to use their bows.3 The women and
even the children—alone left to man the walls—have thus a chance of resis-
tance. In the first row a woman stabs a Bedouin archer to the left, while
a second to the right breaks his bow in token of surrender to a mere child
armed with a dagger, who is put forward for the purpose by his mother,
standing behind him. Similar scenes are represented in the other rows,
but, while the artist thus complacently records the discomfiture of the desert
allies and the failure of the escalade, an old man in the lowest compartment
hears the Egyptian sappers breaking through the wall. In the second row
an aged man leaning on his staff, with his hand on the head of his infant
son, and two women, one bowed forward and holding her hand to her fore-
head, the other, perhaps the Queen, prostrated and holding out a lotus
flower, appear before the seated figure of the King—the Priam of a more
ancient Ilion—to announce to him the impending doom.4

In the period of the Middle Empire the besieged strongholds are shown
in elevation, but this advance in artistic method is accompanied by a distinct
falling off in dramatic presentment. In the siege scenes, for instance, from
the tombs of the Twelfth Dynasty Cemetery at Beni Hassan,5 warriors

1 J. E. Quibell, Hierakonplis, PI. XXIX,
and Zeitschrift fiir A. S., 1898, Plates XII,
XIII.

- In a fragment of a tablet in the Louvre,
first published by Heuzey, Bull, de Corr.
Hell., xvi, PI. I, p. 307 seqq.

3 Petrie, Deshasheh, PI. IV, and pp. 5, 6.
Petrie describes the scene as representing
' a war between the Egyptians and a people
of North Arabia or Southern Palestine'. He
calls the allies of the Egyptians ' Bedawi',

while the defenders of the tomb are Sati.

4 In the more or less contemporary
Pyramid of Teti we again see a plan of the
besieged building attacked by a scaling party,
including a ladder on rollers. J. E. Quibell
and A. G. K. Hayter, Excavations at Saqqara
(Pyramid of Teti, North side), Frontispiece.

5 P. E. Newberry, Beni Hassan, Pt. I,
PI. XIV; Tomb of Amenemhat, Pt. II, PI.
V; Tomb (15) of Baqt III, Pt. II, PI. XV ;
Tomb (17) of Khety.