Judging from the available evidence, including that of the noble head of
his mummy, which was found at El-Deir el-Bahari in 1881, Seti I was one of the
best, as he was certainly one of the most dignified, of Egyptian Pharaohs,
and
his tomb in the valley is worthy of the man, being by far the most complete and
imposing piece of work to be seen there .
Seti's reign was not a long one ( 1321-1300, Cambridge Ancient History ;
1314-1292, Breasted ), but his tomb, though not quite finished, is a most
elaborate example of its type . It measures 328 feet in length, and may be
compared in this respect with the tomb of Ramses III, and that of Queen Tausert
( Nos. 11 and 14 ), though it is exceeded considerably by that of Queen
Hatshepsut ( No. 20 ), which, however, has neither reliefs nor inscriptions .
Seti I was the son of Ramses I, whose tomb, as we have just seen, represents
an intermediate stage in the application of artistic work to the walls of the
sepulcher . In Seti's tomb the change to the new method is complete, and the
development must have been very rapid, for the tomb is decorated almost
throughout with admirable bas-reliefs, brilliantly coloured ; and though in
places the work has only been out-lined and never complete, the unfinished
sketches are of extreme value, as showing the methods by which these brilliant
works of art were produced in the darkness of these underground chambers .
If judgments as to style are to count for anything, it would seem
obvious that the same artist who designed the admirable low reliefs of Seti's
temple at Abydos was employed here upon the tomb of the Pharaoh ; but perhaps
it would not be safe to lay too much stress upon this, in view of the
extraordinarily uniform standard of accomplishment attained by Egyptian art in
some periods and localities . At least the work in the tomb is of the same type
as that at Abydos, and is of not less excellence in execution .
The tomb of Seti I was known in Greek times, but was first made known to
the modern world by the work of Belzoni, who reopened it on October 17, 1817 .
Belzoni's account of his great discovery is one of the most interesting and
diverting parts of his most delightful account of his excavations, and
criticisms as to his methods are almost forgotten in presence of the genuine
enthusiasm with which he rejoices in the revelation which he had been able to
make to the world, and of the fact that he spent more than twelve months in
taking impressions in wax of every relief in the tomb, with a view to the
making of his great model of it, which was exhibited in the Egyptian Hall,
Piccadilly, London, along with the beautiful alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I .
Plan of the tomb of Seti I .
The tomb is approached by a wooden stair which leads down to the
entrance to the first corridor . Here on the left we see (1) the king before
Harakhte .
While beyond him (2) is the familiar symbol of the triple sun-god, the
disk, with the beetle, and the ram-headed Atûm, typifying the sun in his
strength, the rising sun, and the setting sun .
The texts are from the
Litanies of Rê . The ceiling is adorned with vultures with outspread wings .
The second corridor is a stairway, on the walls of which are, on the
left, thirty-seven forms of the sun-god, and on the right, thirty-nine, with
texts from The Book of that
which is in the Underworld .
Notice near the bottom of the stairway, the fine figures (3, 4) of Isis
( left ) and Nephthys ( right ) .
In corridor three we have on the right wall (5) the journey of the boat
of the sun through the fourth hour of the night, and on the left wall (6) the
corresponding fifth hour of the journey . The boat is here towed by seven gods
and seven goddesses, and the texts are again from The Book of the Underworld, fourth and fifth chapters
.
We next enter a small antechamber, on the walls of which the king is
seen in the presence of various gods, Hathor, Osiris, Isis, Anubis and Horus
(7, 8, 9) .
We now enter a four-pillared hall, which has a flight of steps descending
from its floor on the left-hand side . On the left-hand side of the wall, the
journey of the sun through the fourth division of the underworld is shown, from
The Book of Gates . The fourth gateway is
guarded by a serpent, and the sun-barque, towed by four men, is heralded by a
coiled serpent with spirits, and by three ibis-headed gods, and nine other
spirits . Notice, in the bottom row, the god Horus (11), with representatives
of the four races of mankind, Egyptians, Asiatics, negroes and Libyans .
The right wall (10) has the journey through the fifth hour, from The Book of Gates . The top row has twelve
gods with forked staves, twelve gods with a serpent from which human heads
project, and twelve gods with a cord fastened to a mummy . The middle row has
the solar barque towed by four men, preceded by demons . The bottom row has
twelve mummies upon a serpent couch, a god leaning upon a wand, and other weird
figures .
The rear wall has the enthroned Osiris, with Hathor-Isis behind him, the
king being led into his presence by the hawk-headed Horus . On the pillars Seti
is seen with various gods .
From the right hand of the rear of this hall a doorway leads into a
second hall with two pillars . Here the decorations have never been finished,
having only been sketched in red, and corrected in black, but never sculptured
. The room is therefore interesting as an illustration of the methods of the
great artist who designed the reliefs of this tomb . The pillars, as usual,
show the king with various gods .
On the left side of the room is the journey of the sun through the ninth
hour, from The Book of the
Underworld . The boat of the sun is towed by genii ; twelve star-gods with oars go
before it . Serpents spit fire, and other monsters and weird figures complete
the scenes .
The rear wall of the room has the journey through the tenth hour, from
the same book, with many monstrous figures . In the top row, notice the
goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt seated beside two serpents which bear the
solar disk . In the damaged bottom row, notice an Egyptian conception of the
destiny of the wicked, in which Horus, leaning upon his staff, watches twelve
damned souls swimming in the waters of the underworld .
On the right side of the room is the journey through the eleventh hour (
same book ) . To detail the weird figures becomes merely wearisome ; but again
notice may be directed to a bit of the Egyptian hell in the bottom row . Here
the enemies of the sun-god are being burned in furnaces ( four bodies in the last
furnace stand on their heads ), while Horus acts as master of ceremonies, and
fire-breathing goddesses with swords act as guards .
This unfinished room, however, was meant merely to act as a blind, and
to induce the expected tomb-robber to imagine that here the tomb ended . The
actual continuation of the tomb followed the staircase on the left-hand side of
the four-pillared room behind ; and this staircase, of course, was carefully
concealed when once the king was buried .
Indeed the preparations for the bewilderment of the robber began at even
an earlier stage, as when Belzoni entered the tomb he found his way blocked by
a pit, 30 feet deep and 14 feet wide, which immediately preceded the
four-pillared hall . The object of such pits, which had their upper walls
decorated, seems to have been partly to prevent the inner chambers of the tomb
from being damaged by the inflow of water from the rain-storms, which, though
rare, are not unknown at Thebes, and partly to discourage and deceive the
tomb-robbers . They were not so easily discouraged, however, and in this case,
having duly passed the deep pit, probably much as Belzoni did, they sounded the
wall of the two-pillared room which appeared to be the end of the tomb, and
finding that it rang hollow on the left side, they simply broke through there
into the lower corridor beneath, to which the concealed stairway led down .
We return into the four-pillared room, and descend, more prosaically, by
the stairway . The next two corridors have representations of the ceremony of
" Opening the Mouth " of the mummy, a piece of ritual which was
supposed to endow the mummy or the funerary statues of the dead man with life
and power to breathe and eat . Notice the representations of the funerary
statues of the king standing on pedestals (12, 13), while priests make
offerings and perform ceremonies before them . Curious representations of what
were in themselves only representations, yet supposed in both cases to be as
efficient in case of need as the actual original .
We now enter an antechamber which is scarcely more than another
corridor, so far as dimensions are concerned, but which has specially fine
reliefs of Seti in the presence of various gods, Hathor, Anubis, Isis, Horus
and Osiris (14) .
From this antechamber we enter the great burial-hall, a six-pillared
chamber, which has really two sections, a front section which is pillared, and
a rear section, with vaulted roof . This latter section of the hall is on a
lower level, and from it an incline, with stairs at the side, descended to the
mummy-shaft . Two little annexes open off the angles of the first section of
the hall, as in tombs 8, 11, and 14 .
The scenes and texts in the first portion of the hall relate to the
solar journey through the first and second hours of the night, with the usual
allowance of strange figures, of which, to tell the truth, one begins to grow a
little wearied .
Notice, on the right wall, near the beginning of the vaulted section,
the figures of the twelve hours of the night, with their black heads (15), and
on the left other twelve hour figures (16) which are drawn with an unusual
attempt at realizing true perspective .
The little annexe on the right hand has a remarkable scene (17) of the
cow Hathor standing across the heavens, with Shu, the air-god, supporting her,
Rê, in his barque, journeying along her body, other gods grouped beneath her,
and the stars shining along her belly . The accompanying texts are those of the
very ancient legend of the Destruction of Mankind by Rê, a relic of archaic
days which it is somewhat curious to see in such modern surroundings as those
of The Book of Gates, etc. . The corresponding
annexe on the last has the solar journey through the third hour, from The Book of Gates .
The vaulted ceiling of the second section of the hall has an elaborate
series of astronomical figures, decans, stars, and constellations .
A niche in the left wall of this section has a scene of Anubis
performing the " Opening the Mouth " ceremony before the king who is
represented as Osiris, and is supported by the two symbols of god Wepwawet (
God of War, Victory and Hunting ) (18) . The fine figure of Maet, with
outspread wings may be noticed at the top of this wall just below the vaulted
roof .
In this section of the burial-hall stood the beautiful
sarcophagus of alabaster which was one of Belzoni's greatest prizes . His own
description of this splendid piece of work is as follows : " It is a
sarcophagus of the finest oriental alabaster, nine feet five inches long, and
three feet seven inches wide . Its thickness is only two inches ; and it is transparent,
when a light is placed in the inside of it . It is minutely sculptured within
and without with several hundred figures, which do not exceed two inches in
height, and represent, as I suppose, the whole of the funeral procession and
ceremonies relating to the deceased " ( Narrative, p. 236 ) . The cover of
the sarcophagus had been broken, and the pieces of it were found by Belzoni
near the entrance of the tomb . One is glad to know that the discoverer, who
usually got, if his own story is to be trusted, more kicks than rewards for his
labours, did actually get 2000 £ from Sir John Soane for this treasure, which
is now in the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London .
The staircase and incline above which the sarcophagus rested was
explored by Belzoni who found that it extended for another three hundred feet
beyond the burial-hall, but that it contained nothing .
From the burial-hall we pass into another chamber, which has two
pillars, one damaged, and a broad ledge, with cavetto cornice running round
three sides of it . From this circumstance, Belzoni, whose idea of fitting
nomenclature was somewhat peculiar, called this chamber the Sideboard Room .
The right-hand entrance-wall and right wall have scenes from the sixth
hour of the solar journey, from The
Book of that which is in the Underworld . The left-hand entrance-wall and left wall
have scenes from the seventh hour, from the same book, and the rear wall scenes
from the eighth hour of the same book . The last chamber has no decorations .
Part ( 14 ) .. Coming
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