DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0110
91
arc six other female figures approaching towards the guests, each
holding a sistrum in her right-hand; but it is difficult to say
whether they arc mortals to add to the gaiety of the scene, or
imaginary beings to remind the spectator that mirth is not the
end of life. One might indeed conjecture, from the introduction
of these instruments peculiarly appropriated to the goddess of
vengeance, that the festival which is here pourtrayed is one of
the Nemesia: these were celebrated by the antients in honour of
that goddess, in her supposed character of protectress of the body
and memory of the deceased from all insult.
The master is then represented walking, attended by his ser-
vants, who among other tilings arc carrying a chair, a water-jar,
and a mat, to visit his labourers at work : and accordingly the
artist has here depicted the mode of hoeing, ploughing, sowing,
rolling; of reaping the corn, gathering it in; winnowing the
grain, and the carriage of it to the granary ; and finally the em-
barking bread or biscuit on board the Germes. The farm-yard
is then seen crowded with oxen, cows, sheep, goats, asses, mules,
and other animals. Again, we sec the vintage, and the process
of making wine, the mode of catching and salting fish and water-
fowl. Fruits are then presented to the master and his friends,
and the whole concludes with the offerings of gratitude to the
gods. As Costaz, in the third volume of the Egyptian Decade,
lias remarked on many of the peculiarities of this interesting
picture, any further detail of them may be confined to the in-
stances where he appears to have been mistaken, and to those
circumstances which he has entirely omitted.
In antient Egypt there was no want of hands for the labours
of the field, and accordingly we see that men were employed in
every possible way for the tillage of the land. Some were har-
nessed to the plough, andothcrs preceded it with hoes. This in-
strument,
arc six other female figures approaching towards the guests, each
holding a sistrum in her right-hand; but it is difficult to say
whether they arc mortals to add to the gaiety of the scene, or
imaginary beings to remind the spectator that mirth is not the
end of life. One might indeed conjecture, from the introduction
of these instruments peculiarly appropriated to the goddess of
vengeance, that the festival which is here pourtrayed is one of
the Nemesia: these were celebrated by the antients in honour of
that goddess, in her supposed character of protectress of the body
and memory of the deceased from all insult.
The master is then represented walking, attended by his ser-
vants, who among other tilings arc carrying a chair, a water-jar,
and a mat, to visit his labourers at work : and accordingly the
artist has here depicted the mode of hoeing, ploughing, sowing,
rolling; of reaping the corn, gathering it in; winnowing the
grain, and the carriage of it to the granary ; and finally the em-
barking bread or biscuit on board the Germes. The farm-yard
is then seen crowded with oxen, cows, sheep, goats, asses, mules,
and other animals. Again, we sec the vintage, and the process
of making wine, the mode of catching and salting fish and water-
fowl. Fruits are then presented to the master and his friends,
and the whole concludes with the offerings of gratitude to the
gods. As Costaz, in the third volume of the Egyptian Decade,
lias remarked on many of the peculiarities of this interesting
picture, any further detail of them may be confined to the in-
stances where he appears to have been mistaken, and to those
circumstances which he has entirely omitted.
In antient Egypt there was no want of hands for the labours
of the field, and accordingly we see that men were employed in
every possible way for the tillage of the land. Some were har-
nessed to the plough, andothcrs preceded it with hoes. This in-
strument,