DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0084
SEASON OF I922-I923
71
At the back of the corridor was the square chapel of the tomb
(pl. 16). In its center stood Khety’s statue, expectantly awaiting the
offerings brought on New Year’s day and the other holidays. To-day
nothing remains but the stone on which it stood, and around the walls
only a few ragged paintings picturing his servants butchering, bak-
ing, and brewing and bringing to him all manner of meat and drink.
The ancient visitor could go no further into the tomb, and he
could only guess that somewhere beyond in the rock Khety lay in
his sarcophagus.
The floor gave no sign and the walls were painted and plastered
uniformly all around, but to-day the paintings and the plaster are
gone, and the mouth of a tunnel gapes directly behind the statue
base. One walks along a few paces, and then down a slope to another
square chamber which in its day appeared again to be the end of the
series of crypts. But the persevering thieves recognized that this was
only a blind and broke through the further wall; descended another
corridor to a second blind; through the floor of that into still another
passage which turned them back on their tracks; and sliding down
that, arrived at Khety’s final resting-place. Even yet, all of the futile
ingenuity of the tomb planner was not exhausted. No sarcophagus
was in sight, but it was a fairly simple matter to detect that it was
merely buried underfoot.
The sarcophagus chamber of Khety has been left in place, protected
by a steel door. Damaged as it is, still it is one of very few in Thebes
of all of the burial crypts of the nobles of the day sufficiently preserved
to give an idea of what the others must have been (pl. 16). The native
rock is a miserable medium for a decorator to work with, and there-
fore with fine white limestone blocks the four walls were built up to
give a surface almost as smooth as bristol board. On this were painted
the equipment and the provender which Khety wanted—and there
was nothing mean about his desires. Jewels, perfume pots, bows,
arrows, and battleaxes were requisitioned by the hundreds and by
the thousands. On either side of the room the tables groaned with
vegetables and fruits, loaves and joints, and above was the astound-
ing menu of the meal of the dead, running to one hundred dishes.
A smaller tomb, near the eastern end of the line, like several others
in the cemetery, had a secret statue chamber cut in the cliff high
above. There was no means of approach except by a scramble up the
rocks, and in ancient times the doorway was doubtless blocked up
and invisible. When all else was destroyed in the tomb below, the
statues hidden here above would still supply the dead man’s soul
71
At the back of the corridor was the square chapel of the tomb
(pl. 16). In its center stood Khety’s statue, expectantly awaiting the
offerings brought on New Year’s day and the other holidays. To-day
nothing remains but the stone on which it stood, and around the walls
only a few ragged paintings picturing his servants butchering, bak-
ing, and brewing and bringing to him all manner of meat and drink.
The ancient visitor could go no further into the tomb, and he
could only guess that somewhere beyond in the rock Khety lay in
his sarcophagus.
The floor gave no sign and the walls were painted and plastered
uniformly all around, but to-day the paintings and the plaster are
gone, and the mouth of a tunnel gapes directly behind the statue
base. One walks along a few paces, and then down a slope to another
square chamber which in its day appeared again to be the end of the
series of crypts. But the persevering thieves recognized that this was
only a blind and broke through the further wall; descended another
corridor to a second blind; through the floor of that into still another
passage which turned them back on their tracks; and sliding down
that, arrived at Khety’s final resting-place. Even yet, all of the futile
ingenuity of the tomb planner was not exhausted. No sarcophagus
was in sight, but it was a fairly simple matter to detect that it was
merely buried underfoot.
The sarcophagus chamber of Khety has been left in place, protected
by a steel door. Damaged as it is, still it is one of very few in Thebes
of all of the burial crypts of the nobles of the day sufficiently preserved
to give an idea of what the others must have been (pl. 16). The native
rock is a miserable medium for a decorator to work with, and there-
fore with fine white limestone blocks the four walls were built up to
give a surface almost as smooth as bristol board. On this were painted
the equipment and the provender which Khety wanted—and there
was nothing mean about his desires. Jewels, perfume pots, bows,
arrows, and battleaxes were requisitioned by the hundreds and by
the thousands. On either side of the room the tables groaned with
vegetables and fruits, loaves and joints, and above was the astound-
ing menu of the meal of the dead, running to one hundred dishes.
A smaller tomb, near the eastern end of the line, like several others
in the cemetery, had a secret statue chamber cut in the cliff high
above. There was no means of approach except by a scramble up the
rocks, and in ancient times the doorway was doubtless blocked up
and invisible. When all else was destroyed in the tomb below, the
statues hidden here above would still supply the dead man’s soul