The Northern Group of tombs lies on either side of a
bold gap in the line of hills through which a mountain-track across the ridge
from El-Sheikh Said enters the plain of El-Amarna . It includes some of the
best and most important tombs, such as those of Huya, Meryra ( I and II ), Ahmose,
Penehsy, and Penthu .
The Southern Group lies also at the mouth of a similar
valley, through which the track enters the hills again . The northern group is
hewn in the face of the cliff, which here reaches a height of about 280 feet
above the plain of El-Amarna . For the upper half of this height the rock
offers a steep face ; for the lower it is more of the nature of a steep slope ;
the tombs are situated at the meeting-point of the two divisions, say roughly
about 150 feet above the plain . In the case of the southern group, it is
curious that it was not the bold cliffs that were chosen as the site of the
tombs, but a low bank which is the beginning of the rise from the plain to the
hills behind . In neither case is the rock good, or really suitable for
delicate work . The northern rock is much interrupted by great boulders of
harder stone, and the southern is of still worse quality . This accounts for
much of the destruction of the work of the Amarna artists ; but vandalism and
robbery has accounted for a great deal more .
We visit first the Northern Group . Generally speaking, the type of tomb
is the same as that found at Thebes, though there are, of course, individual
variations . There is a forecourt, a hall, usually columned in the case of the
more important tombs, and a second chamber, sometimes with a recess or shrine
for the statue, with a shaft or stairway leading to the actual burial-chamber .
" The method of decoration employed in the tombs ", says Norman De
Garis Davies " is peculiar . The rock in which they are hewn is far from
having the uniform good quality which would invite bas-reliefs of the usual
kind . Nor was Akhenaten willing, it appears, to employ the flat painting on
plastered walls, which was much in vogue and which the artists of Akhetaten
also employed at times with good effect . The idea of modeling in plaster was
conceived or adopted ; and, since figures in plaster-relief would have been
liable to easy injury, the outline was sunk so far below the general surface as
to bring the parts in highest relief just to its level ( relief en creux ) . Nor was this the only measure taken to
ensure durability . The whole design was first cut roughly in sunk-relief in
the stone itself . Then a fine plaster was spread over it, covering all the
inequalities and yet having the support at all points of a solid stone core .
While the plaster was still soft, it was moulded with a blunt tool into the
form and features which the artist desired . Finally, the whole was painted,
all the outlines being additionally marked out in red, frequently with such
deviations as to leave the copyist in dilemma between the painted and the
moulded lines " .
The subject-matter of the scenes depicted is also a
new departure, no less than the method employed . The subjects which we have
seen in the Old Kingdom mastabas and the Middle Kingdom tombs are no longer to
be seen ; nor have we anything like the varied pictures of life which the
Theban tombs of the New Empire had already displayed, and were again to display
in the future .
The Northern Group of tombs lies on the North-East side of the desert
plain . The hills here are cleft by a ravine which brings down the waters of
the occasional torrential rains, formerly of enormously greater volume than now
. The range at this point is not lofty, only reaching an elevation of about 280
feet above the level of the plain, and dipping somewhat on both sides to the wady . It affords, as usual, a more or less abrupt
face for the upper half of its height, and for the lower a steep foot-slope of
looser rock . The rock-hewn tombs naturally lie at the meeting of the two, a
little more than half-way up ( approximately 150 feet for No. 5 ) . The
limestone is of bad quality, and contains enormous flint-like boulders, which,
freed from the rocks by denudation, cover the level heights above, like fallen
fruit . It is in most places very subject to weathering, and many of the rock
stelae have almost disappeared under this process . The stratification of the
range has a dip approaching the vertical, and the weakness thus given to the
surface of the tomb walls has caused much injury to the sculptures .
The Southern Group of tombs, in the main earlier, group lies over three
miles to the South on a low spur after the entrance to the Royal wady is passed . It is curious that the bold cliffs
themselves were not selected as a site for the earliest tombs at Akhetaten, but
a low bank which marks the rise from the level of the plain to that of the
great wady running southward through the mountains . The
rock is of the worst possible nature ; the site was limited in area and lay an
hour's ride South-East of the city . Hence after a few years it was abandoned
for the northern cliffs . These unattractive hills are bounded on the East and
West by two Khors ( drainage valleys ) and
are cut into three parts by dry water-courses, descending from the level of the
wady .
Not only do these tombs give us a vivid picture of
life at Amarna, but they also bear witness to the furious hurry in which
everything was done and to the lack of sufficient skilled artisans and artists
. A tomb would be begun, but no sooner had part of it been excavated than the
quarriers were called off to a new one . In came the draughtsmen, for the owner
must make sure that at least some of his tomb was complete . They decorate such
of the wall as has been completed and are hastily followed by the sculptors,
who in their turn give way to the painters for the final touches . Then if the
owner of the tomb is lucky he may be able to get hold of the quarriers again
for a little while . We can almost see the pen of the draughtsmen following
each stroke of the pick ! .
The workmen engaged on these tombs were housed in a walled village some
miles to the east of the Southern City . To the " County Council "
type of workman's cottage we shall return in detail later ; at the moment we
must look at the village as a whole . The walls surrounding the village are
high, but in no sense defensive, for the village is commanded by the
surrounding spur . But walls can keep people in as well as out . There is only
one entrance and there are marks of patrol roads all round . Evidently the
necropolis workmen of Akhetaten were as rowdy a lot as those at Thebes with
their rioting and strikes . It was just as well to have them housed as far away
from the city as possible . The regularity of planning with the neat rows of
cottages side by side reminds us of the town built at Lahun to house those
employed on the pyramid of Senusert II of the 12th Dynasty . There,
however, were found great store-houses and lodgings for the high officials,
while here we find only one house of a superior type which must have belonged
to the foreman . The workmen belonging to the lowest social class were
naturally not such devoted adherents to the Aten as the rest of the population
pretended to be . They clung to their old gods and their favourite seems to
have been Bes, the little dancing lion-dwarf .
Last of all comes the Royal Tomb . It lies about four miles from the
plain in a small side wady which branches off the
great main wady whose entrance lies
between the Northern and Southern groups of tombs . It has been terribly
damaged not only in antiquity but also in recent times during some feud between
the guard and his fellow-villagers . You descend a flight of twenty steps, with
a smooth incline in the middle for lowering the sarcophagus . The entrance is
uninscribed . From here a long sloping passage descends to a second flight of
steep steps at the bottom of which is the pit where the sarcophagus once stood
. Beyond lies a great chamber decorated with low reliefs showing the Royal
Family worshipping the Aten . Of the rock pillars which were left to strengthen
the roof all but one have disappeared .
At the top of the stairs above the pit opens a small series of rooms to
the East which were the tomb chambers of the Princess Meketaten, who died young
. On the walls of these chambers we first see the usual scenes of worship, here
elaborated by the presence of the foreign races of the Empire adoring the disk
. Elsewhere is depicted the funeral of the princess herself, with her family
mourning for her . In the train behind are the courtiers, among whom an elderly
man occupies an important position . Perhaps he is Ay . The youngest princess
too is there with her nurse, uninterested in the scene . Higher up the entrance
corridor another series of rooms opens . These are quite unfinished, and the
great dolerite and diorite pounders with which the levelling was done are still
lying about .
Perhaps the King lost interest in the tomb after his
daughter's death . Perhaps he deliberately tried to put the idea of death from
him and would no longer allow work to go on there once Meketaten's chamber was
finished . We shall never know . Many fragments of the pink granite sarcophagi
have been found . Instead of the usual goddesses at the four corners there are
figures of the Queen . Was Akhenaten ever buried here ? . The alabaster chest
in which the canopic jars holding his heart and other organs were put was never
used, for there is no trace on it of the stain of bitumen which was always used
to seal the jars into the chest . But his ushabti figures were there
and they were not put into the tomb until the funeral occurred . They may, of
course, have been used for the princess, whose death must have come
unexpectedly before her funeral furniture could be prepared . But it seems best
to assume that Akhenaten was laid here as he intended and that his sarcophagus
and probably his very body were broken up by order of his successors .
The building of the new city must have required a great deal of stone .
The limestone of which the cliffs are made is of a very variable quality . Much
of it is exceedingly poor . It may well be partly owing to this that solid
masonry is so rare, rubble faced with stone being preferred . There is only one
limestone quarry, which lies just over the edge of the Northern cliffs . It is
cut into galleries, leaving pillars of rock to support the roof . On one of
these pillars is the cartouche of Queen Tiy, lately defaced in the belief that
there must be a door behind it . This quarry may have been the source of the
stone for the " Sun-Shade " of Tiy which Akhenaten built for her .
Alabaster, however, of a good quality is found in abundance up in the high
desert . The most important quarry, that of Hat-Nub as the ancient Egyptians
called it, lies seven miles from the South-East corner of the plain . It was
originally worked by Khufu of the 4th Dynasty, who may have made the
causeway which leads to it . The kings of the 6th Dynasty obtained
stone from there . Pepy I and Pepy II have had their names inscribed on the
rock, while an official, Uni, tells how he procured a great alabaster altar for
King Merenra . The 12th Dynasty seems to have deserted this for a
quarry about a mile farther South where the name of Senusert III is found .
Probably this quarry too went under the name of Hat-Nub . To the north of the
site is a good vein of alabaster worked in the reigns of Ramses II and
Merenptah . Traces of workmen's shelters can be found by nearly all the
quarries ; the waste heaps are often scattered over a large area and fragments
of alabaster dropped during transport litter the roads .
Part ( 5 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....
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