CHAPTER VIII
PTOLEMAIC VAULTED GRAVES
By Howard Carter
COVERING the upper stratum of the sites explored in the Birâbi were numerous brick-vaulted graves, mostly found not more than a metre or so beneath the surface rubbish ([Pl. XXXIII]).
Probably when these vault-graves were first made they actually stood above the surface, their superstructures being in all probability intended to be exposed, as would be gathered from the fact of their external walls showing, in some cases, painted decoration upon the plaster still adhering to them ([Pl. XXXIV]. 2). In every case they were found to be plundered, and in the course of examining some forty examples that we came across, we rarely found but the very slightest traces of the burials they once contained. And all that we were able to gather from these vestiges of the actual interments was that they were of the Ptolemaic period, but almost pure Egyptian in type. This fact thoroughly corroborates Mr. Edgar’s statement that ‘during the Ptolemaic period many of the Greek inhabitants began to adopt the practice of mummification. At first naturally their custom went to the native undertakers, and their mummies were decorated just like those of the Egyptians. Here and there as time goes on, signs of Greek influence begin to appear. But it is not till the Roman period that the style becomes what could be properly called Greek.’[20]
In these graves the coffins were of rectangular and anthropoid form, and the mummies were enclosed in canvas cartonnages covered with stucco elaborately decorated with pictures of the numerous Egyptian deities and ritual inscriptions of the usual formulae. Their funerary objects were glazed faience bowls of several colours, such as many different blues, violets, &c.; small roughly glazed shawabti figures; porcelain deities and amulets; painted carved wood Ba-birds; erotic figures in faience; and beads, &c. There were also vases and bowls in pottery; and in two instances we found a bowl of copper gilt (Fig. 12) and vases in lead, left or forgotten by the plunderers.
Luckily the substructure of these graves was nearly always found intact, and likewise in many cases their superstructure. And by this we were able to gather that it was a common custom for them to have small brick vestibules or shrines before their entrances; and that under the floors of either the out-buildings or the vaulted chambers themselves, one or more amphorae were buried for water or food for the dead ([Pl. XXXIV], Fig. 1); the mouths of these jars were covered by inverted bowls and sealed with mud.
