the funerary formula down the centre, for it is a list of family members. This is a family monument 43
8. Stela of Seru in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham. Dated to Dynasty 12.
with as many people as possible mentioned on this one piece of stone so that they can have existence in the afterlife.
In looking at a wall covered in scenes and texts the most striking impression is that everything is well ordered in lines called registers. The scenes and texts are all written in straight lines. This may derive from the riverine nature of life in Egypt. The most common place to travel in Egypt would have been alongside or on the River Nile. From this perspective the whole world is ordered in horizontal registers: the river itself at the bottom, then a line of river bank, then a cultivated strip, then the trees, then the desert, and above the terrestrial sphere the sky. If this is viewed in the Egyptian way as a flat surface, then all of these elements are not arranged by perspective, one in front of the other, but in horizontal registers, one above the other. Within this context the lines of text fit well into scenes, interacting with the images depicted there or framing whole Hieroglyp scenes. Most figures in a scene are accompanied by a line of hieroglyphs, usually identifying the person shown and often hs an
containing the words the figure is saying. The ‘speech-balloon’
d ar
always reads towards the face of the person speaking the words. In a t temple, the king ‘speaks’ the offering ritual to the god of the temple and the gods reply with the appropriate reward speech. Even if the orientation of the texts at this point in the temple is left to right (for example, entering a room), the speech can be turned against this direction (retrograde) in order to suit a figure of the king coming through the door and speaking. 1 In more informal scenes the hieroglyphs record the more everyday speeches of ordinary people going about their daily business and reflect the positions of people as they face each other. Busy agricultural scenes in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep record the words of agricultural workers, with the hieroglyphs acting like speech balloons in a cartoon strip. They provide a script to ensure that everyone in the scenes performs their role correctly, so that the tomb owner is not deprived of anything in his next life. The scenes may be to provide all the agricultural produce from seed to processed foodstuff in case the real offerings fail in the years ahead. Anybody who is anybody is 45
phs
ogly
9. Catching fish in a trap, Tomb of Kagemni, Dynasty 5, Saqqara Hier
Necropolis.
named so that they can carry out their function. The scenes and text provide a memory of this life too, however idealized, so that the status of the tomb owners is also maintained and assured.
In the Tomb of Kagemni a boatman puts his fish trap into the water, hoping to land one of the many fish in the shallow waters. His words,
snHw n pr-Dt ‘Fish-trapping for the House of Eternity’, leave no doubt as to the eventual destination of the fish. If all the hieroglyphs could be imagined as sound, the tombs would be full of noise, with the chatter of hundreds of people.
Perhaps in an even clearer illustration of words as pictures, the prayer for ‘Drinking Water’ in the afterlife is shown in the Tomb of Pashedu as hieroglyphic wall decoration, with the hieroglyphs of the prayer filling the air as his words float up into the air around him.
46
10. Pashedu in his tomb at Deir el Medina, Thebes, from Dynasty 19.
The words of his prayer float up into the air around him like a designer wallpaper.
Proportion and aesthetic variation
For practical purposes the lines of hieroglyphic texts had to be able to fit into the spaces allocated for them. The versatility of the hieroglyphic script and the artistic sense of proportion of those who drew the hieroglyphs mean that there is hardly ever a space at the end of a line
8. Stela of Seru in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham. Dated to Dynasty 12.
with as many people as possible mentioned on this one piece of stone so that they can have existence in the afterlife.
In looking at a wall covered in scenes and texts the most striking impression is that everything is well ordered in lines called registers. The scenes and texts are all written in straight lines. This may derive from the riverine nature of life in Egypt. The most common place to travel in Egypt would have been alongside or on the River Nile. From this perspective the whole world is ordered in horizontal registers: the river itself at the bottom, then a line of river bank, then a cultivated strip, then the trees, then the desert, and above the terrestrial sphere the sky. If this is viewed in the Egyptian way as a flat surface, then all of these elements are not arranged by perspective, one in front of the other, but in horizontal registers, one above the other. Within this context the lines of text fit well into scenes, interacting with the images depicted there or framing whole Hieroglyp scenes. Most figures in a scene are accompanied by a line of hieroglyphs, usually identifying the person shown and often hs an
containing the words the figure is saying. The ‘speech-balloon’
d ar
always reads towards the face of the person speaking the words. In a t temple, the king ‘speaks’ the offering ritual to the god of the temple and the gods reply with the appropriate reward speech. Even if the orientation of the texts at this point in the temple is left to right (for example, entering a room), the speech can be turned against this direction (retrograde) in order to suit a figure of the king coming through the door and speaking. 1 In more informal scenes the hieroglyphs record the more everyday speeches of ordinary people going about their daily business and reflect the positions of people as they face each other. Busy agricultural scenes in the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep record the words of agricultural workers, with the hieroglyphs acting like speech balloons in a cartoon strip. They provide a script to ensure that everyone in the scenes performs their role correctly, so that the tomb owner is not deprived of anything in his next life. The scenes may be to provide all the agricultural produce from seed to processed foodstuff in case the real offerings fail in the years ahead. Anybody who is anybody is 45
phs
ogly
9. Catching fish in a trap, Tomb of Kagemni, Dynasty 5, Saqqara Hier
Necropolis.
named so that they can carry out their function. The scenes and text provide a memory of this life too, however idealized, so that the status of the tomb owners is also maintained and assured.
In the Tomb of Kagemni a boatman puts his fish trap into the water, hoping to land one of the many fish in the shallow waters. His words,
snHw n pr-Dt ‘Fish-trapping for the House of Eternity’, leave no doubt as to the eventual destination of the fish. If all the hieroglyphs could be imagined as sound, the tombs would be full of noise, with the chatter of hundreds of people.
Perhaps in an even clearer illustration of words as pictures, the prayer for ‘Drinking Water’ in the afterlife is shown in the Tomb of Pashedu as hieroglyphic wall decoration, with the hieroglyphs of the prayer filling the air as his words float up into the air around him.
46
10. Pashedu in his tomb at Deir el Medina, Thebes, from Dynasty 19.
The words of his prayer float up into the air around him like a designer wallpaper.
Proportion and aesthetic variation
For practical purposes the lines of hieroglyphic texts had to be able to fit into the spaces allocated for them. The versatility of the hieroglyphic script and the artistic sense of proportion of those who drew the hieroglyphs mean that there is hardly ever a space at the end of a line
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