DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0043
30
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
stoppered, as those were represented as being, with a ball of clay.
But the beer had worked, shot the stopper off in one direction and
rolled the jug over the opposite way, and where it had spilled on the
floor there was a hard dried crust.
Wah was a person of no very great importance, and his funerary
equipment was not elaborate, but so perfectly was everything pre-
served that we could hardly grasp the eternity that it had lain buried.
When the lid was raised from the coffin we found it filled right up to
the top with sheets of linen. One was nearly 26 meters long and
almost 2 meters wide, beautifully ironed, and starched apparently
with some sort of gum. Several others bore Wall's name and a date-
marked as household linen is to-day, in ink in the corner.
All over the last sheet put in on top, the priest had smeared aro-
matic gum with his bare hand, leaving his finger prints distinctly
showing where he had wiped them off. Farther down among the
sheets lay three new, unused quarter staves, oiled just as the natives
oil their quarter staves in Upper Egypt to-day. Finally, as we raised
the last sheet the mummy of Wah was disclosed, lying on his side
with a gilded mask upon his head, facing toward the two eyes on the
outside of the wooden coffin. Below his feet lay two sandals; in front
of his face was a copper mirror; under his head was a wooden pillow;
and beside it lay a small lump of rosin. The most attractive object in
the tomb was his statuette—a little wooden figure about thirteen
inches high which lay beside the mummy’s feet (pl. 30). As first we
lifted it out of the coffin very gingerly, it almost seemed as though
the varnished paint was fresh and would come off on the handkerchief
with which we touched it.
All of the contents of the little tomb of Wah except a sample of the
sheets and of the bread fell to the share of the Metropolitan Museum
in the division with the Egyptian Government. Of the models from
the “sirdab” of Meket-Ref, one of the girls bringing offerings to the
tomb, the counting of the cattle, the carpenters’ and weavers’ shops,
one of the gardens, and six of the boat models including the canoes
seining, are now in the National Museum in Cairo. The other girl
bringing offerings, the procession of four offering bearers, the stalled
oxen and the butcher shop, the granary, the combined bakery and
brewery, and the remaining six boats are in the Metropolitan Museum.
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
stoppered, as those were represented as being, with a ball of clay.
But the beer had worked, shot the stopper off in one direction and
rolled the jug over the opposite way, and where it had spilled on the
floor there was a hard dried crust.
Wah was a person of no very great importance, and his funerary
equipment was not elaborate, but so perfectly was everything pre-
served that we could hardly grasp the eternity that it had lain buried.
When the lid was raised from the coffin we found it filled right up to
the top with sheets of linen. One was nearly 26 meters long and
almost 2 meters wide, beautifully ironed, and starched apparently
with some sort of gum. Several others bore Wall's name and a date-
marked as household linen is to-day, in ink in the corner.
All over the last sheet put in on top, the priest had smeared aro-
matic gum with his bare hand, leaving his finger prints distinctly
showing where he had wiped them off. Farther down among the
sheets lay three new, unused quarter staves, oiled just as the natives
oil their quarter staves in Upper Egypt to-day. Finally, as we raised
the last sheet the mummy of Wah was disclosed, lying on his side
with a gilded mask upon his head, facing toward the two eyes on the
outside of the wooden coffin. Below his feet lay two sandals; in front
of his face was a copper mirror; under his head was a wooden pillow;
and beside it lay a small lump of rosin. The most attractive object in
the tomb was his statuette—a little wooden figure about thirteen
inches high which lay beside the mummy’s feet (pl. 30). As first we
lifted it out of the coffin very gingerly, it almost seemed as though
the varnished paint was fresh and would come off on the handkerchief
with which we touched it.
All of the contents of the little tomb of Wah except a sample of the
sheets and of the bread fell to the share of the Metropolitan Museum
in the division with the Egyptian Government. Of the models from
the “sirdab” of Meket-Ref, one of the girls bringing offerings to the
tomb, the counting of the cattle, the carpenters’ and weavers’ shops,
one of the gardens, and six of the boat models including the canoes
seining, are now in the National Museum in Cairo. The other girl
bringing offerings, the procession of four offering bearers, the stalled
oxen and the butcher shop, the granary, the combined bakery and
brewery, and the remaining six boats are in the Metropolitan Museum.