The Ancient Egypt: The southern tombs of El Amarna .. The Tomb of Mahu ( No. 9 ) .. Part ( 21 )

A. Site and Condition of the Tomb

Tomb No. 9 belongs to Mahu or Meh, who was Akhenaten's chief of police . This tomb was opened by M. Urbain Bouriant in 1883 for the first time . Norman De Garis Davies has suggested that it was because the head of the New Scotland Yard at Akhetaten knew better than any one else ' the risk, or rather the certainty, that his tomb would be plundered after his death ' that he chose its location in such an inconspicuous position .

Instead, therefore, of hewing his chambers conspicuously in the face of the hills overlooking the plain, he chose a retired spot where the ground was almost flat . Driving a narrow stairway to a sufficient depth he formed his " eternal home " cellar-wise there, where the whirling sands would quickly conceal it . Be that as it may, he was more successful than most men in securing immunity for his resting-place . ' The little tomb remained immune, not only during the religious reaction that soon occurred, but from the assaults of modern thieves ' . It is now perhaps the most attractive of the southern group, owing largely to the better condition in which it has survived . If his little chamber is now the most attractive of the Southern tombs, it is owing not only to the peculiar interest of the scenes but also to the unsullied whiteness of a large part of the walls .

B. Architectural Features

The tomb is of the simple cross-corridor type, with a second chamber in the axis of entrance through which the place of burial is reached, the first hall being set transverse to the general axis, and the inner chamber, which in this case forms the leg of the T, being a little askew, as well as roughly hewn . The shrine at the back of it remains an unfinished doorway . From this chamber a winding flight of forty-seven steps leads down to the burial-chamber, making more than a complete turn before the owner was satisfied . Two flights bring one to a small chamber, and from the floor of this two flights more descend to a room at double the depth of the first . This contains a burial-pit with a rough chamber at one end for the actual interment . The pit had been filled up with round boulders and loose stones . A niche in the wall at the foot of the first flight of steps may be a later loculus for burial ( Plate 14 ) .

The intermediate chamber seems to reflect the uncertainty of life and fortune in Egypt . Had Mahu died or fallen from favour just then, this provisional chamber must have formed his place of sepulture . The prospect of sudden arrest, or of possible elaboration of the work, seems to have often affected the plans of the Egyptian architect, as it not infrequently does those of his modern successors . Sometimes, perhaps, the stoppage was deliberate, the coveted achievement being so far beyond the immediate resources of the official that it was impossible to execute the whole plan at one outlay .

The inscribed chamber in all finished tombs of this group has a doorway at each end . In this tomb, however, this feature is replaced at the North end by a round-topped stela ; while the other, though of the usual form, has its inner part inscribed, thus obviating the possibility of hewing a chamber or statue-shrine there . These doorways, plainly, have been interpreted as door-shaped stelae and decoratively treated as such ; the North stela being just a repetition of the inner design of its fellow, omitting the door-framing ( Plate 16 ) . A single step leads up to the latter ; two steps to the former . The sculpture in each case shows acts of worship by the royal family . The profile of the Queen is repeated in line on Plate 29, and in photograph on Plate 42 .

The façade of the tomb occupies only the breadth of the narrow stairway, and hardly admits even of the door-framing . The cornice and the scene on the lintel are almost weathered away . The inscriptions on the jambs, as well as those on the corresponding doorway to the inner chamber .

The walls of the outer hall were to have been fully occupied by scenes in two series, an upper and a lower : but, as is invariably the case in these tombs, the work is unfinished . As a consequence the walls afford a most interesting exhibition of the technical methods employed ; for they remain in almost every stage from the ink sketch to the finished relief . In most cases the paint seems not yet to have been applied . The scene on Plate 15, however, has received part, if not all, of its colouring, and the hieroglyphs on the door-jambs, instead of being as elsewhere in simple blue, are in varied colours .

C. The Scenes and Inscriptions

1 - The Wall-thicknesses ( Plates 15, 29, 40 ) :-

The thicknesses of the walls in the entrance-passage are occupied by a scene of the king, queen, and a princess ( Merytaten ) in presence of the sun, towards whom the queen and princess shake their sistra ; Mahu kneels below . The sides of the short entrance-passage to the tomb ( representing the thicknesses of the wall ) are ornamented in the way almost universal in the Southern tombs . On the left, namely, the Royal family are shown sacrificing at the altar of the Aten ( Plates 15, 40 ), and, in a lower panel, the figure and liturgy of the deceased ( Plate 29 ) .

On the other side ( right hand ) Mahu again kneels in prayer, the latter subject occupies the whole wall ( Plate 29 ) . The prayer ( Hymn ), which is a duplicate of that on the opposite wall with one or two variants in spelling, occurs four times in this tomb alone, as well as in those of Apy, Any, Tutu, and of Meryra in the North Group .

The texts in this tomb contain the most extraordinary errors and are often unreadable as they stand, the decorator being plainly incapable of reading a word of that which he copied and having besides a corrupt or illegible exemplar . The portraits of Mahu which so often recur in the tomb agree fairly well with one another ; but as they also differ little, if at all, from the typical Egyptian official, they cannot be taken as a serious attempt at portraiture .

The faces of the royal pair in the tomb are well preserved and confirm the most pleasing and least bizarre examples elsewhere . The King's profile in Plate 15, where the work is on the largest scale and most carefully executed, strikingly resembles the plaster head found by Professor Flinders Petrie in the ruined town . The proportions of the figures are bad, erring above all in the excessive size of the head and shortness of the thighs . Yet they do not show the anatomical enormities which, though rarely perpetrated in tomb-sculpture, are often considered characteristic of the period, and are even supposed to reproduce similar physical peculiarities of the unhappy pair .

The scene in Plate 15, in which the King pours incense or oil on the flaming bowls, while the Queen offers the sceptre and a lamp (?) such as already burns on the sacrifice, calls for little comment . Ribbons secure the uraei to the Queen's headgear or coiffure . The King's sporran ( in faint red ink ) seems to have been sewn with ornaments of inlaid enamel and fringed with glaze pendants .

Here and elsewhere in the tomb only the first-born daughter, Merytaten, is shown ; but against the inference that the work belongs to the earliest years of the reign is to be set the fact that in this tomb the cartouches of the Aten take their later form .

It scarcely seems possible that the tomb should have been decorated before the birth of Meketaten . For we find the hymn to the Aten already composed, plagiarized and corrupted ; the town guarded by forts ; its police and government organized ; the peculiar artistic style and methods of decoration fully developed . It seems more likely that the artist had no place in the pictures except for the heiress, who was now old enough to appear with her parents in public .

2 - The Rewards or Mahu . Front and back wall - North half ( Plates 17, 18, 19, 29, 42 ) :-

The scenes in the hall itself have two subjects, the duties and the rewards of Mahu . The former subject occupies the South, the latter the North half of the chamber . In every case the scenes on each side of the stelae on the end walls form a part of the larger picture on the adjacent wall .

The design on the North half of the front wall is gone, but a fragment in ink which survives ( Plate 29 ) shows that on the upper part Mahu was seen receiving the customary honours at the hands of the King from the window of the palace .

On the North half of the back wall we have as the upper picture the ink fragment shown in Plate 17 ; the parts on the extreme left ( end wall ) and on the extreme right are completely effaced . The former probably contained additional attendants and soldiery ; the latter evidently showed the loggia of the palace from which the collars were being handed to Mahu by the King . What is left shows us the waiting chariots, the crowd, the close attendants of Mahu, and a second figure of that official, " Mahu, commandant of the Mazau of Akhetaten " . By virtue of his office he appears to have been entitled to have a standard carried before him . Unfortunately the design on the panel cannot any longer be deciphered with certainty ; it appears to present the execution of an enemy by the King . Mahu's men are ranged behind him unarmed . He himself is lifting his hands in excited salutation and says, " Thou makest great by troops and troops ; thou, the ruler of Aten (?), thou shalt live for ever " .

The lower scenes ( Plates 18, 19 ) differ little from the last, except that the temple is substituted for the palace, indicating another occasion and place for the reward of this important public official . The completion of the palace and temple would be great public events in Akhetaten, and Mahu might well receive tokens of court favour on both occasions . Or perhaps the artist in decorating the tomb rather had it in mind to indicate Mahu's responsibilities : the temple and the palace which he had to protect, and the system of defences round the city which he had to maintain . In all this, of course, Mahu did excellently and reaped generous recognition .

The whole of this picture, being also merely sketched out in black ink, not only affords an example of the skill and method of the ancient draughtsman and of the basis which was given to the sculptor for his subsequent work ; but, owing to its provisional character and to the manual dexterity which it betrays, it brings the day of its execution singularly near to us . The man whose brush traced these clever sketches seems to have but left his task for a moment and to be still in our midst . We can see the sculptor, too, who had looked forward to this task, when pressure of work elsewhere called him away from the tomb, deferring his departure for half-an-hour while his deft tool modelled a head of Mahu, which was to remain for all time the only advance on the ink design ( Plate 42 ) Or perhaps Mahu himself, intensely chagrined at the stoppage of the work, would not release the craftsman until he had at least seen his own portrait elaborated .

Mahu, wearing the festal cap, and with his neck laden with collars, kneels in prayer or homage before the great gate of the temple . The whole scene is the familiar one of the reward of the faithful official by the King, and the inscriptions confirm it . The King, however, is not present, unless the scene on the other side of the door ( Plate 22 ) is to be brought into connection with it . Otherwise we must suppose that Mahu, after being honoured as shown in the scene above, presented a thank-offering at the gate of the temple, and this prayer for his royal master, " Health to [ Pharaoh ] ! Life, prosperity and health to him ! O Aten, vouchsafe him for ever, ( namely ) Ua-en-ra, who forms by ( his ) Ka " .

Mahu is followed by fifteen of his men, " the Mazau of Akhetaten ", led by their officer and a standard-bearer, who all praise their God or their King with upraised arms and cry, " The good ruler (?) who makes monuments to the Father ! He does it again and again, for ever and ever . The good master ! " .

In the row above, Mahu is seen again at the head of his force . It is led as before, but is now ranged in six ranks of five . A formal review of the police of Akhetaten may have preceded the honour shown to their Commandant, or it represents the orderly march to the temple . Above them is written, " the police of Akhetaten sing and shout the refrain ( lit. ' so as to say ' ) . ' He promotes [ in masses, in masses . So long as Aten dawn s] he will endure eternally ' " .

Mahu's charioteer and saises outside the crowd join in a similar cry, " He promotes by (?) numberless masses . He shall live eternally like Aten " . Women and children ( of Mahu's harem ? ) join in the general jubilation ( Plate 42 ) .

3 - A Royal Inspection of the Defences . Back Wall - South end ( Plates 12, 20, 21, 22, 40, 41 ) :-

This picture is of great interest, as it does not occur in any other tomb in El-Amarna, and was obviously specially designed for the chief of police, though the chariot and the occupants were reproduced by Ahmose ( Plates 32-a, 32A-a ) . In Plate 20 the royal chariot is seen leaving the temple . This building is represented, as in Plate 18, simply by the front elevation, a mode which is not elsewhere employed .

The Queen and Princess Merytaten are in the King's chariot, instead of each driving her own, as in later representations . Akhenaten's driving must be seriously interfered with by Nefertiti, who is insisting on talking to him ( or perhaps kissing him ), so that his head is turned anywhere but where it ought to be . The Queen, regardless of the situation, seems to pester the King with talk, though his whole thought is given to the management of his steeds . These are not the more easily controlled because little Merytaten takes advantage of the opportunity to poke the fiery horses with a stick ! ( Plate 12. C ) It will be noticed how exceptionally human and unrestrained the pictures are in this tomb, and in consideration of this we may well pardon Mahu and his artist their illiterate texts .

The royal party are on a visit of inspection to the defences, represented by a little block-house . Mahu and his fifteen police-men have to run before the chariot ( Plate 21 ) ; but, even worse, the plump vizier and his second in authority ( his deputy ), no longer so slim as they once were, have also to keep up with the royal horses, which they feel obliged to run before the chariot, therefore they do this work with evident difficulty. The gait of these two is suggestively constrained in comparison with that of the active policemen .

The objective of the excursion is the little block-house shown on Plate 21 above the door . It is merely a windowless tower entered by a door on the ground floor, with provision for defence from the roof by means of crenellated and overhanging ramparts . A protection is afforded against night attack by a quadruple line of posts round it, connected by rails or ropes . Probably they are rather in the nature of entanglements, set a short height from the ground, and may easily have been arranged so as to give an alarm within when displaced .

Lower Scenes ( Plates 12, 21, 22, 41 ) :- The round of inspection seems still to be the subject . The King is on the point of setting out again, and is turning in his chariot to take leave of the deputy-mayor ( Plate 41 ) . The artist represents Mahu's activity and ubiquity in a striking way. He is there behind the vizier of Akhetaten to raise a loyal cry in farewell — " O Ua-en-ra, thou livest for ever ; thou who hast built Akhetaten, acting as Ra himself (?) " . He is seen again at the head of the police that remain behind, yet kneels in front of the detachment that prepares to run behind the chariot ; none the less, when the chariot approaches its destination, he is foremost in greeting it .

The chariot, as it passes from the guard-house to the city (?), takes a road flanked with sentry-houses to right and left . These, too, like the block-house, are linked together by post and rail, for better defence against surprise ( Plate 40 ) . Each sentry has his prescribed beat, and as the royal chariot passes each inclines in respectful salute, or lifts his hands in acclaim, according as he perceives his master act . The unarmed escort of police seems to witness still more powerfully to the popularity of the King and the law-abiding character of the city .

4 - Policing the Capital . Front Wall – South end ( Plates 24, 25, 26, 41 ) :-

Upper Scenes :- No written clue being given, the scenes upon this wall are a dumb show which might admit of more than one interpretation . The picture has been thought to represent the taking of octroi dues at the outposts from caravans or peasants coming into the city with produce . It must be remembered, however, that almost the whole of the supplies of Akhetaten would be likely to reach it by river, cultivable land on the east bank being scanty and the roads to North and to South mountainous . We have already seen the imposts which were laid upon the surrounding country for the support of the temple arriving in this way . Probably, too, the scribe who is ever to the fore on such occasions, would be more noticeable .

The scenes show Mahu superintending the periodical revictualling of the guard-houses . Above the door in Plate 25 Mahu, with a detachment of ten men, is seen coming, as we assume, to take what is requisite from the Government stores in the city, where wine, furniture, vessels, cloth, sacks, &c., are to be had . An employe there seems to be forbidding him to take anything without a signed warrant . On the right therefore ( Plate 24 ) we see Mahu having a colloquy with the vizier of Akhetaten and a lesser official, " ...... of the Lord of the Two Lands, praised by him, Heqanefer " .

They are gathered round a brazier of burning coal or logs, which is always welcome early in the day during the Egyptian winter . The result is satisfactory, and when Mahu returns to the store with his authorization he meets with a very different reception from the authority in charge . Everything and everybody is now at his disposal .

Mahu draws his supply of weapons, etc., from the stores, but the daily tale of fresh provisions is brought by the villagers to the guard-house. This scene is shown in the lower division of Plate 24 . There, women and children are seen bringing fish, bread, water-jars, and even flowers, on asses, or on their shoulders . They are received at the guard-house, and when the quota is complete the scribe reports to Mahu, who, attended by his dog, inspects the array of food ( Plate 25 ) . The block-house is similar to that already seen, but here the inner arrangement is shown . It is apparently three-storied, the ground-floor being used for storage of food ; the room above as a guard-room, for here a fully armed sentry keeps his watch ; while the topmost storey forms an armoury ( Plate 24 ) .

Lower Scenes :- The meaning of the picture below is somewhat more obvious . In the early morning Mahu is called out of his house to hear a report of his subordinates . A brazier of burning embers is brought outside and blown or stirred into a bright blaze by a house-servant ( Plates 12, 26 ) . There Mahu, leaning on his staff, listens to the news . The whereabouts of some malefactors has been discovered . At once every one is alert and brisk . The chariot already awaits its master, and a posse of six men is running at the summons, armed with batons, curious forked sticks, and a javelin (?) . Mahu, escorted by four of his men, drives off, and the capture is effected . It is his duty to bring offenders before the vizier for judgment, and this final episode is also represented . The vizier stands outside the porch of a gateway, attended by " the chief princes of Pharaoh ( Life, Prosperity and Health to him ! ) and the commanders of soldiery who stand in the presence of His Majesty " ( Plate 41 ) . Mahu dismounts and brings forward his prisoners with the words, " Examine ye, O princes, ( these ) men whom the foreigners have instigated " (?) . The three hand-cuffed wretches, who seem to be spies or assassins, are of different nationalities ; one may be an Egyptian, the others perhaps Bedawin . The exclamation of the vizier, " As the Aten endureth ! As the ruler endureth ! " probably evinces his admiration at the importance of the capture .

It is a scene which, in reference to a smaller matter, might be enacted in any Egyptian village to-day . As to the jars, etc., which appear above the chariots, it is hard to say whether they connect this scene with that above, merely fill up space, or represent stolen property recovered by the activity of the Mazau .

Altogether the scenes in Mahu's tomb are worth notice, and are an oasis in the desert of representations of the royal family in all conceivable acts of worship and official duty .