DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49516#0110
66
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
belonging among Egyptian customs. Not only did the fuller evidence of the better pre-
served graves establish the exact character of this burial type, but every scrap of evidence
recovered from every grave required the assumption of the same general type. No other
type could be reconstructed on the basis of the evidence for any single grave, although the
general type admitted of course of some slight modifications as will be shown later. This
general type had the following characteristics:
(i) The chief burial lay on the south side of the grave, usually on a bed, on the right side, with
the legs slightly bent at the knees, the right hand under the cheek and the left hand on
or near the right elbow. The body was apparently clothed in linen, with the usual
weapons and personal adornments. On the bed was placed, as a rule, a wooden headrest,
an ostrich-feather fan, and a pair of rawhide sandals. At or on the foot of the bed were
also placed certain toilet articles and bronze implements. Near the bed and around the
walls of the pit were arranged a large number of pottery vessels.
(ii) The chief burial and the grave furniture occupied only a small part of the floor area of the
grave. The rest was taken up by other human bodies, ranging from one to twelve or
more in number, and the bodies of one to six rams. The positions of these human
bodies did not follow strictly any one rule; the majority were on the right side; of these
again a majority lay with the head east; but almost every possible position occurred.
The extent of the contraction varied quite as much — from the half extended position of
the chief body to the tightest possible doubling up. Some even were on the back and
some on the stomach. The hands were usually over the face or at the throat, sometimes
twisted together, sometimes clutching the hair. In only a few cases was a person seen
who lay in the attitude of the chief person, but in a number of cases a modification of
that attitude was seen. These extra bodies I call sacrifices.
(iii) The chief body appears always to have been covered with a hide, usually an ox-hide, and
in some cases at least the hide covered the sacrifices as well. It will be recalled by Egyp-
tologists that in the letter of Amenemhat III to Sinuhe,1 the king, after promising Sinuhe
a princely Egyptian burial, goes on to say: “Let not thy death take place in a foreign
land, let not the Bedouin make thy funeral procession, let thyself not be placed in the
hide of a ram.”
The photographs of these graves and the drawings, taken with the detailed descriptions to
be given in their proper place, establish beyond question the exactness of the above state-
ment of facts. They apply not merely to a few graves in an exceptional manner, but to
grave after grave. Even those graves which have been completely cleared out are proved
by their size and often by the traces on the floor to have contained similar burials. A very
few of the smallest graves and those which are oval in form contained only one body, but
even one or two of the poorest contained two bodies or a body and a ram. The sacrificial
burial type extends through the whole Egyptian Cemetery and throughout the southern
part of the Nubian Cemetery. It is only in K Cem. M and K Cem. N., both of them Nubian,
that the single burial graves with ram-sacrifices predominate. The use of the bed continues
even in the northern part of the Nubian Cemetery for larger graves.
(b) Comparison with the multiple burials in Egypt:
In Egypt, graves have been found with more than one body under a variety of circum-
stances:
1 Maspero’s edition, p. 16, line 9ff.
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
belonging among Egyptian customs. Not only did the fuller evidence of the better pre-
served graves establish the exact character of this burial type, but every scrap of evidence
recovered from every grave required the assumption of the same general type. No other
type could be reconstructed on the basis of the evidence for any single grave, although the
general type admitted of course of some slight modifications as will be shown later. This
general type had the following characteristics:
(i) The chief burial lay on the south side of the grave, usually on a bed, on the right side, with
the legs slightly bent at the knees, the right hand under the cheek and the left hand on
or near the right elbow. The body was apparently clothed in linen, with the usual
weapons and personal adornments. On the bed was placed, as a rule, a wooden headrest,
an ostrich-feather fan, and a pair of rawhide sandals. At or on the foot of the bed were
also placed certain toilet articles and bronze implements. Near the bed and around the
walls of the pit were arranged a large number of pottery vessels.
(ii) The chief burial and the grave furniture occupied only a small part of the floor area of the
grave. The rest was taken up by other human bodies, ranging from one to twelve or
more in number, and the bodies of one to six rams. The positions of these human
bodies did not follow strictly any one rule; the majority were on the right side; of these
again a majority lay with the head east; but almost every possible position occurred.
The extent of the contraction varied quite as much — from the half extended position of
the chief body to the tightest possible doubling up. Some even were on the back and
some on the stomach. The hands were usually over the face or at the throat, sometimes
twisted together, sometimes clutching the hair. In only a few cases was a person seen
who lay in the attitude of the chief person, but in a number of cases a modification of
that attitude was seen. These extra bodies I call sacrifices.
(iii) The chief body appears always to have been covered with a hide, usually an ox-hide, and
in some cases at least the hide covered the sacrifices as well. It will be recalled by Egyp-
tologists that in the letter of Amenemhat III to Sinuhe,1 the king, after promising Sinuhe
a princely Egyptian burial, goes on to say: “Let not thy death take place in a foreign
land, let not the Bedouin make thy funeral procession, let thyself not be placed in the
hide of a ram.”
The photographs of these graves and the drawings, taken with the detailed descriptions to
be given in their proper place, establish beyond question the exactness of the above state-
ment of facts. They apply not merely to a few graves in an exceptional manner, but to
grave after grave. Even those graves which have been completely cleared out are proved
by their size and often by the traces on the floor to have contained similar burials. A very
few of the smallest graves and those which are oval in form contained only one body, but
even one or two of the poorest contained two bodies or a body and a ram. The sacrificial
burial type extends through the whole Egyptian Cemetery and throughout the southern
part of the Nubian Cemetery. It is only in K Cem. M and K Cem. N., both of them Nubian,
that the single burial graves with ram-sacrifices predominate. The use of the bed continues
even in the northern part of the Nubian Cemetery for larger graves.
(b) Comparison with the multiple burials in Egypt:
In Egypt, graves have been found with more than one body under a variety of circum-
stances:
1 Maspero’s edition, p. 16, line 9ff.