What Lies under the Chair! A Study in Ancient Egyptian Private Tomb Scenes, Part II: Objects /
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Following on the rst part of the study, which dealt with scenes of animals under the chairs of nobles and members of their families, the main interest of the second part is the various objects represented under those chairs. The present article seeks to categorize types of objects and analyze the reason behind their representation under the chairs. Over fty private tombs and reliefs supported by similar scenes on stelae were examined and analyzed. The objects that appeared under chairs are chests and boxes, mirrors, vessels, cosmetics, scribal equipment, ewers and basins, owers, and miscellaneous objects such as bowls, sandals, headrests, and the senet game. The study revealed that placing objects under the chair began during the Sixth Dynasty. Chests and boxes were preferred under the chairs during that period while vessels were preferred during the New Kingdom. The existence of objects under the chair in certain tombs does not exclude animals from being represented in the same tomb occupying their own scenes or being represented next to objects. As with animals, scenes of objects under the chairs were rare during the Middle Kingdom. The study also noted explicitly that each of these objects was placed under the chair either to serve personal purposes in the afterlife as they did in real life, indicating the deceased’s occupation, or to serve in some religious ceremonies. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5913/jarce.52.2016.a002
What Lies Under the Chair! A Study in Ancient Egyptian Private Tomb Scenes, Part I: Animals /
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The depiction of daily life scenes in ancient Egyptian tombs is an expression of their way of life. It is a reflection of their ideas, concepts, messages, and lifestyle. The scenes of the chairs of the tomb owners, their wives, and their relatives reveal large numbers of items under those chairs. Those items can be classified into several groups, namely, animals, objects, and people. Each group consists of different elements. This paper, which is the first part of the study, concentrates on the animal group depicted under the chair. The aim of this paper is to categorize the animals under the chairs, identify the cause of their depiction in this place and discuss the possibility of dating the tomb through this depiction. This paper employs the descriptive-analytical methodology. Through studying over than one hundred tombs scenes from various periods, the findings revealed that animals under the chair are dogs, monkeys, cats, geese, ibexes, and gazelles. The possibility of dating the scenes from the Old and the New Kingdoms by identifying the animal under the chair is suggested as highly likely. Animal caretakers are only represented under the chair in the Old Kingdom while cats, geese, gazelles, and ibexes are only represented in the New Kingdom.