What lies beneath the paint

Should the scenes in the ancient noblemen's tombs in Beni Hassan be viewed from more than one perspective? One scholar thinks so, writes Jill Kamil

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Lithograph of Beni Hassan; Khnumhotep in papyrus skiff (upper register); Youths train at athletic sport; Khnumhotep traps birds (above doorway)

The Ancient Egyptians decorated their temples, tombs, palaces and houses with scenes and texts. What the images represented and how they functioned within their architectural settings was the subject of a recent lecture by Janice Kamrin, Egyptological consultant to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the American Research Center.

Kamrin raised some interesting questions. Were these scenes symbolic, as well as representing aspects of daily life? Did they allude to the maintenance of the cosmic order, the repelling of chaos, and to fertility, virility and regeneration?

Kamrin's chosen tomb for research was that of a member of an important family. Khnumhotep II was Overseer of the Eastern Desert, a title granted in Year 19 of the reign of the Pharaoh Amenemhet II -- about 1910 BC. This is one of the most beautifully decorated tombs, its painted reliefs falling into various categories: the owner receiving offerings, funerary scenes, and scenes of everyday life which cover agriculturally related activities, manufacture, hunting, fishing, and bird trapping.

The traditional explanation for the choice of subjects -- to repeat in the afterlife the most memorable experiences of life on earth -- has never been entirely convincing, mainly because although the scenes differ from one tomb to another, and no two tombs are alike, there is a notable lack in all of them of certain scenes that one might expect in family life; also a noticeable lack of certain foods on offering tables known to have existed in ancient times.

Viewing what she described as "a complex tapestry of scenes and texts", Kamrin pondered on how they were chosen, what purpose they served, and whether they were arranged in specific patterns or just put randomly onto the walls. "There is no question that the Egyptians were very deliberate in their choice and placement of scenes," she stressed. "These choices were vital to them -- they ensured no less than their own eternal life and happiness and that of their dependents. I believe," she said -- and here was her hypothesis -- "that they were also chosen to contribute their part to the proper functioning of the entire cosmos."

We should miss a great deal if we did not delve beneath the surface, Kamrin said, and this is exactly what she has done. In her study of a single Middle Kingdom tomb she noted that there was remarkable conformity in the placement of the scenes in the different registers, and posed tantalising explanations for this. She conceded that her hypothesis might not be convincing to traditionalists; that there might be some who would argue with her conclusions. However this did not appear to worry her at all. "There is more than one perspective from which tomb reliefs can be viewed," she claimed, and certainly her talk gave some food for thought.

The tomb of Khnumhotep II is cut deep into the eastern cliffs that border the Nile at Beni Hassan. It is full of lively, colourful paintings which, taken together, commemorates the tomb owner, magically provides materials for his perpetual cult, and, Kamrin hypothesises, "also creates a miniature cosmos, in which Khnumhotep II himself lives and functions as a god." She believes that the tomb, and quite possibly others like it, is a not only a tomb but a temple to the deceased, which she describes as "comparable in many ways to the divine temple of the god or the royal temple of the king". The scenes within, she claims, "seem to have been chosen and placed deliberately to create this cosmogram; an arena in which Khnumhotep would not simply perpetuate for all eternity the life as lived on earth, but also function as a delegate of the king and therefore the god."

Analysing the decoration of the tomb on each of its walls anti-clockwise from the innermost chambers, Kamrin studied each scene, translated the texts, and "investigated the various meanings that it might have had, from the superficial to the symbolic". Having done that she then analysed the scenes in the tomb as a whole.

She concluded that some of the earlier translations of the texts accompanying certain images had not been accurate. For example Newberry, who first published this tomb, translated the words " Hor maa-kheru ", inscribed in front of the lector priest near the shrine, as a name. "But this is unlike any name seen elsewhere in the tomb, or elsewhere for that matter," Kamrin said. She suggested that it was a phrase that was recited, and that it meant "Horus, true of voice".

She proceeded to point out that the phrase "true of voice", or "justified", was used in the Pyramid Texts, the earliest mortuary literature, to refer to the Pharaoh as Horus. Its use legitimised him as heir to Osiris, and thus Pharaoh of Egypt. She simplified her argument to say that from the first scene, Khnumhotep II seemed to be identified with the "justified Horus", and thus with the Pharaoh. She pointed to the scene of men dragging the shrine and read the text above it: "The god will come that the earth might be protected." And then she pointed to another scene, a group of men facing the shrine. The first figure is the wab priest, Khety, and he and at least one other man is clapping and singing. The text reads: "Opening of the doors of heaven that the god may come forth." This, Kamrin pointed out, was a basic phrase found in the context of royal and divine inscriptions.

"As a whole, this scene seems to record the installation of a statue of the tomb owner at a local temple, and at the same time to represent the subsequent festival procession when the statue would have left the temple in order, as the inscriptions says, to protect the earth. The statue, and therefore its owner, is clearly granted royal and divine stature here," Kamrin said.

This was her first example of the association of the Middle Kingdom nobleman to divine kingship, and his tomb to a temple. She proceeded, with the aid of plans on the walls of the tomb and the decoration and images on each register, to illustrate that all these scenes of apparently mundane activities were symbolic of some higher order. It was an interesting visual journey. Her supposition was well argued, but her conclusions, "when she put them all together" as she said, were not entirely convincing. One reason for questioning Kamrin's hypothesis is because she draws a parallel with decorations on later New Kingdom and Ptolemaic monuments, which do indeed function at different levels. Her argument would have been more persuasive had she been able to trace continuity from an earlier period, the Old Kingdom. But unfortunately, as she pointed out, "not much has been preserved".

The worship of Osiris and the establishment of Abydos as a holy city to which pilgrimage was made developed into a cult in the Middle Kingdom, so Kamrin's explanation of the boat scenes to and from Abydos in Khnumhotep's tombs are credible. She showed a scene on one side of a doorway labelled "Sailing upstream in order to learn the requirements of Abydos, by the Hereditary Prince, High Official, Overseer of the Eastern Desert, Neheri's son Khnumhotep", in which one boat under sail tows a second in the shape of a papyrus skiff -- the cult barque. On it is a lion-shaped couch bearing an anthropoid coffin of the deceased nobleman. A sem priest stands over it, holding a censer and reciting the words: "Horus is justified." The scene thus represents the transition of the tomb owner, as Horus, on his way to become an Osiris.

On the other side of the doorway, two boats return from Abydos. The tomb owner is now seated on a throne on the prow of the first boat. "He has been transformed from a mummy to a resurrected being," Kamrin said, adding that the two scenes, taken together, can be read on a number of levels. "They represent a real or imagined pilgrimage to Abydos," she said, "and they could also be linked to the voyage of the sun god in his day and night barques -- across the sky during the day as a resurrected being, to die and travel through the Duat, the underworld, and at night in order to join Osiris and be resurrected."

Using another parallel, Kamrin claimed that the western wall of the tomb could be seen as insurance that the funerary and mortuary cults would be performed and supplied properly, thus magically ensuring the transformation of the tomb owner into a resurrected being. She alludes to the possible identification of Khnumhotep with both royalty and divinity through the reiterated label "Horus is justified". and through the identification of his statues as divine.

Kamrin has a positive argument for associating scenes of hunting for wild desert game with the cult meal, but I find her explanation of the scene at a symbolic level confusing. While agreeing that the wild bull was highly symbolic of kingship, imbued with power and virility, and at the same time representing "the enemies of Egypt which can be subdued", I find her linking of Khnumhotep with kingship to the extent that the nobleman not only controls the forces of evil (the creatures of the desert) but even the level of solar symbolism, which she claims is "inherent in the scene", somewhat overstated.

Reliefs that show clap netting, feeding animals, and fighting bulls, taken as a whole, make complex statements, as Kamrin said. Khnumhotep is both actor and recipient. "He participates in the hunt and both supervises and benefits from the census of herds and officials; he was responsible for his estate in life and therefore for the setting up of his funerary estate and cult before his death," she said. However, her reading into these scenes, of symbolism alluding to the repelling of chaos and the imposition of order that take place on the fringes of the cosmos, also to fertility, virility, and regeneration, is less convincing.

Certainly the nobleman hunts birds with a throwstick while balancing on a papyrus canoe, wears a kilt similar to the royal shendyt kilt, and wears a long, artificial beard held on by visible straps like the royal beard. But can it be argued convincingly that he represents, in every scene, "the king as an embodiment of Horus, acting to subdue the chaotic forces inherent in the marshes that fringe the ordered cosmos"?

Kamrin conceded that hunting with a throwstick must have been an important sporting activity; she pointed out that actual throwsticks have been found in tombs and that people still practise the sport today. So at one level she sees this scene as Khnumhotep's enjoyable pastime in life, one he wanted to repeat after death. But she also pointed out that throwsticks "have been found in the sacred lakes of the Deir Al-Bahri temples, suggesting that rites involving such weapons were performed by the king or his substitute in the 18th Dynasty", and suggested an association with the celebration of a cultic rite in the service of Hathor. "It may also have erotic overtones, enhanced here by the presence of Khnumhotep II's two wives," she suggests, and adds: "Erotic overtones, linked with fertility, are also connected with rebirth and resurrection."

To claim that this scene "is not meant to represent an actual sport, or even the gathering of food for the cult, but instead serves to emphasise the role of the tomb owner as the repeller of chaos and the maintainer of order" is over-egging the cake. Clap-nets can be pulled closed single-handed -- it is done until today. And although there are scenes in Ptolemaic temples of fish-nets filled with enemies of the Pharaoh, the suggestion that here they symbolise the enemies of Khnumhotep, a Middle Kingdom nobleman who lived at a time of peach and security, is not convincing.

Likewise, the arguments that the scene of Khnumhotep II spearing two Tilapia fish alongside the text reading: "I speared 30 fish; how pleasing was the day of the shooting of the hippopotamus!" has "important connotations of sexuality, rebirth, and renewal, and served as a protector of the dead" are not persuasive. True, Khnumhotep wears the shendyt kilt and a false beard. However sport fishing was not restricted to high officials, as Kamrin suggested, and therefore its main message may have nothing to do with subduing the enemies of order.

The focus in New Kingdom and Ptolemaic temples is primarily on the relationship between the Pharaoh and the god. It is a reciprocal gesture, in which the Pharaoh makes offerings to the god, and in return the god provides the Pharaoh with what he needs to keep his rule, and the cosmos, stable. Within the temple both Pharaoh and god are responsible for maintaining order.

However, does the same apply to the tomb chapel of the Middle Kingdom nobleman Khnumhotep II, who appears to assume the roles of both Pharaoh and god? Kamrin maintains that it does. Her analysis places the tomb of Khnumhotep on a plane comparable with the divine and royal temple, which also functioned as a cosmogram within which the actions performed were effective in the larger cosmos. She postulates that a narrative progression can be seen in the tomb: that the sequence moves from the north wall, counterclockwise around the walls of the main chamber, and into the shrine: The north wall shows Khnumhotep within his personal cosmos collecting taxes for the Pharaoh, and thus doing his duty as an effective noble; this wall also refers to the setting up of his mortuary estate. Here, the nobleman also functions as a delegate of the Pharaoh. The west wall depicts preparations for and the celebration of the funeral, and so illustrates his effective transformation into an effective divine being. The south wall is dedicated to the celebration of the mortuary cult, the actual consequence of the activities on the north and west walls. On the east wall, Khnumhotep repels isfet, the forces of chaos. He is enabled to do this by the activities on the north, west, and south walls. He has become a divine being, who is placated and empowered through the cult rites and meal, and thus can play the role of the creator/sun god. Thus he protects the images in the shrine, and re-enacts the moment of creation.

Thus, within his own tomb, Khnumhotep plays the role of both actor and cult recipient. Kamrin posits that the nobleman's images are carefully oriented to reflect his role. When he faces in to the axis of the temple, he is acting, like the Pharaoh in the divine temple, to ensure on one level that the cult is performed successfully, and on another, as a delegate of the Pharaoh (who is in turn a delegate of the god) to repel isfet and maintain maat by re- enacting the daily life, death, and resurrection of the sun and the eternal repetition of creation. When he faces out or away from the tomb's axis, he receives the cult. This all takes place within a model of the cosmos on three levels, symbolically rendering the actions carried out both by and for him effective in the real cosmos.

To a traditionalist who enjoys viewing the reliefs from the romantic vantage point: that of a nobleman who chose scenes of the most pleasant and noteworthy experiences and achievements in life for his tomb, Kamrin's hypothesis might remove some of the magic, but it clearly opens an attractive new avenue for thought.

Kamrin pointed to a scene showing a procession of some kind, ending with a scribe named Netjernakht holding a scroll and making a gesture of respect towards the tomb owner and other figures identified as an architect and stone carver. She suggested that "the master craftsmen seem to be reporting to Khnumhotep himself", and said this clearly showed the master craftsmen might well have guided the actual placement of the choice of scenes selected by the tomb owner. However, she seems to be overlabouring the argument for the identification of Khnumhotep II with the sun god which moved from west to east on his nightly journey through the dangers of the Duat (of which there are no scenes in the tomb). Ancient Egyptians were usually most explicit in their use of symbols.

So while agreeing that tomb decoration was carefully planned by the owner, that each nobleman had his own preference in the way of scenes, and that their placement was important, there are many scenes that do not fit into Kamrin's thesis. Youths in sports activities, for example -- including the famous scene showing Asiatics bringing eye-paint to Egypt, and boatmen in papyrus skiffs playing a game in which each team tries to topple its adversaries with oars.

Fortunately Janice Kamrin invites discussion. "There is no simple answer to the question of how tomb decoration functioned in Ancient Egypt," she concluded. "The interpretation I have just presented might be completely invalid, a construct of our modern imaginations, [but] we will miss a great deal if we do not continue to delve beneath the surface."