A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Georges Perrot; Charles Chipiez

The same sentiment led to the burial with the dead of all arms, clothes, jewels, and other objects of which they might have need in the next life. We know what treasures of this kind have been obtained from the Egyptian tombs and how they fill the cases of our museums. But neither was this habit peculiar to Egypt. It was common to all ancient people whether civilized or barbarous. Traces are to be found even in the early traditions of the Hellenic race of a time when, like those Scythians described by Herodotus,[138] the Greeks sacrificed, at the death of a chief, his wives and servants that they might accompany him to the next world. When she began to reveal herself in the arts Egypt was already too far civilized for such practices as these; thanks to the simultaneous development of science, art and religion, she found means to give the same advantages to her dead without permitting Scythian cruelties. Those personal attendants and domestic officers whose services would be so necessary in another life, were secured to them at a small expense; instead of slaying them at the door of the tomb, they were represented upon its walls in all the variety of their occupations and in the actual moment of labour. So too with all objects of luxury or necessity which the double would wish to have at hand, as for instance his food and drink.[139]

A custom which would seem to have established itself a little later may be referred to the same desire; we mean the habit of placing in the tomb those statuettes which we meet with in such vast numbers after the commencement of the second Theban Empire.[140] Mariette obtained some from tombs of the twelfth dynasty, and the sixth chapter of the Book of the Dead, which is engraved upon them, seems to be one of the most ancient. Egyptologists are now inclined to believe that the essential parts of this ritual date back as far as the Memphite period.

Fig. 94.—Labourers heaping up ears of corn, from a tomb at Gizeh.
(Description de l'Égypte.)

These statuettes are of different sizes and materials. As a rule they do not exceed from eight to twelve inches, but there are a few which are three feet or more in height. Some are in wood, some in limestone, and some in granite, but as a rule they are made of that kind of terra cotta which, when covered with green or blue enamel, has been called Egyptian porcelain. They are like a mummy in appearance; their hands are crossed upon the breast and hold instruments of agriculture such as hoes and picks, and a sack meant for grain hangs from their shoulders. The meaning of all this is to be sought in the Egyptian notions of a future life; it is also explained by the picture in chapter XC. of the Ritual, which shows us the dead tilling, sowing and harvesting in the fields of the other world. The texts of the Ritual and of certain inscriptions call these little figures oushebti or answerers from the verb ousheb, to answer. It is therefore easy to divine the part attributed to them by the popular imagination. They answered to the name traced upon the tomb and acted as substitute for its tenant in the cultivation of the subterranean regions.[141] With the help of the attendants painted and sculptured upon the walls they saved him from fatigue and from the chance of want. This is another branch of the same old idea. In his desire to take every precaution against the misery and final annihilation which would result from abandonment, the Egyptian thought he could never go too far in furnishing, provisioning and peopling his tomb.

Figs. 95, 96.—Sepulchral statuettes, from the Louvre.

The ingenuity of their contrivances is extraordinary. Food in its natural state would not keep, and various accidents, might, as we have shown, lead to the death of the double by inanition. It was the same with furniture and clothes; the narrow dimensions of the tomb, moreover, would forbid the accumulation there of everything which its sombre tenant might desire. On the other hand the funerary statuettes were made of the most indestructible materials and the bas-reliefs and paintings were one with the thick walls of stone or living rock. These have survived practically unaltered until our day. We visited the tomb of Ti a short time after its chambers had been opened and cleared. It was marvellous to see how form and colour had been preserved intact and fresh under the sand, and this work which was four or five thousand years old seemed to be but lately finished. By the brightness of their colours and the sharp precision of their contours these charming reliefs had the effect of a newly struck medal. Such scenes from the daily life of the people continued to be figured upon Egyptian tombs from the old empire to the new. When their study and comparison were first begun different explanations were put forward. Some believed that they were an illustrated biography of the deceased, a representation of his achievements or of those over which he had presided during the course of his mortal life; others saw in them an illustration of his future life, a setting forth of the joys and pleasures of the Egyptian Elysium.

Both these interpretations have had to give way before the critical examination of the pictures themselves and the decipherment of their accompanying inscriptions. It was soon perceived, through comparisons easily made, that these scenes were not anecdotic. On a few very rare occasions they seem to be connected with circumstances peculiar to the inhabitant of the tomb. There are a few steles and tombs upon which the dead man seems to have caused his services to be described, with the object, no doubt, of continuing in the next world his career of honour and success in this. Such an inscription is so far biographical, and a similar spirit may extend to the decorations of the stele and walls of the tomb. As an example of such narrative epigraphs we may cite the long inscription of Ouna, which gives us the life of a sort of grand-vizier to the two first Kings of the sixth dynasty;[142] also the inscriptions upon the tombs of those feudal princes who were buried at Beni-Hassan. In the latter there are historical representations as commentaries upon the text. Among these is the often reproduced painting of a band of Asiatic emigrants bringing presents to the prince and demanding, perhaps, a supply of wheat in return, like the Hebrews in the time of Jacob.