The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185 B.C. In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of the Romans, and termed by them the “Tomb of Memnon;” it was greatly admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture, recording the name of a daduchus, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine.
No. 4. The Cat and the Geese.
No. 5. The Fox turned Piper.
The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the same idea—such as that of figuring animals employed in the various occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him. The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus, originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent part he afterwards played in mediæval satire. Perhaps, however, the most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey, which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer, who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6) represents a scene in which the game of draughts—or, more properly speaking, the game which the Romans called the ludus latrunculorum, and which is believed to have resembled our draughts—is played by two animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the Roman period.
No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn.
No. 7. Typhon.