The Ancient Egypt: The southern tombs of El Amarna .. The Tomb of Apy ( No. 10 ) – The Tomb Of Ramose ( No. 11 ) .. Part ( 22 )

The Tomb of Apy ( No. 10 )

A. Architectural Features ( Plate 30 )

Tomb No. 10 belongs to Apy ( or Ipy ), who was ' Royal Scribe and Steward ', not quite so big a man as some of his fellows . This tomb as it stands is small, simple, and rude . Only the door and entrance-way are completed and decorated . The passage to it through the rock slope has not yet been cut down to the floor-level, so that one descends by rough steps into the tomb .

The framing of the doorway had the customary form and decoration, but only the inscription in coloured hieroglyphs on the right jamb is now worth reproduction ( Plate 39 ) . That on the left-hand had similar cartouches and apparently the same text, but the personal name had not been cut . The lintel showed the familiar design of the King, Queen and three princesses worshipping the sun, but it is almost erased . The tomb was probably sanded-up when the religious reaction took place, and did not suffer outrage . Hence the two sides of the entrance provide us on the one hand with the best-preserved portraits of the King and Queen, and on the other with the best-preserved text of the shorter hymn to the Aten .

The interior is very rough . The narrow cross-corridor was destined to be enlarged into a hall, with a row of four columns and two pilasters down the centre line . These features, however, are only roughly blocked out and indicated, a slanting fissure in the rock which traverses the chamber having discouraged the quarriers .

B. The Scenes and Inscriptions

The panel which represents the royal family at worship is executed in the best style of the period and is still excellently preserved ( Plates 31, 44 ) . The scene was painted, and the blue of the sky, the hieroglyphs and the helmets is still of startling brightness . The zeal with which the artists of Akhetaten sought anatomical correctness, generally with the most unhappy results, is seen in the modelling of the collarbone and the neck-muscles . The figures are but little exaggerated . The King's profile, which is perfectly preserved, shows a considerable variation from that in the tomb of Mahu ( Plate 15 ), the lips being more sharply cut and the angle of the nose different . This of Apy strikes one as more conventional, but the impossible angle given to the skull, and especially to the occiput, in the heads of the period throws out the whole face .

The only other feature of interest in the conventional scene is the offering made by the King and Queen, votive pieces, namely, of happy device, wherein in the one case the Queen, in the other two of her daughters, support the cartouches of the Aten . The King offers for his family, the Queen for herself ; and it seems to be a visible pledge that the members of the Royal family are one in loyalty to Aten and deserve the royal epithet " upholding the name of Aten " .

As elsewhere, the name of the Queen is caressed with pretty phrases ; she is " the hereditary princess, great in favour, lady of grace, dowered with gladness ; the Aten rises to shed favour on her and sets to multiply her love ; the great and beloved wife of the King, Mistress of South and North, Lady of the Two Lands, Nefertiti, who lives always and for ever " . She is followed by her three daughters with sistra .

The space below this was filled with a figure (?) of Apy and his prayer, but only in ink . The figure has completely disappeared and the text nearly so . The latter was only another and abbreviated copy of the hymn on the opposite wall . It added, however, at the end the personal note, which is wanting in the other, " for the Ka of the Royal Scribe and Steward, Apy, who lives again " .

The text on the right hand side of the entrance will be found on Plates 32, 33, in collation with others . The text, like those in a corresponding situation in the tombs of Mahu, Ramose, Tutu and Ay, does not occupy the whole of the wall-space . A kneeling figure would have been added below, and the space to the right, here and elsewhere, is left blank, in order that the text might be read when the door was thrown back against this wall . Perhaps the space was sometimes coloured in horizontal bands to represent this plank-door, as in the tomb of Ahmose .

The ceiling of the entrance-way was marked off into two panels for colouring by three columns of hieroglyphs . Of the latter only that on the left ( East ) side is cut ( Plate 32 ) . Traces of ink show that the right column also began with the same formula . Apy is given no other titles than those of Royal Scribe and Steward . We are not informed what household it was which he controlled, so that he may have been past active service .

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The Tomb of Ramose ( No. 11 )

A. Historical Notes

Tomb No. 11 belongs to Ramose, who may possibly, but not probably, have been the same as the famous vizier, Ramose . It seems unlikely that a man so great as the Theban Ramose would have been content with a tomb so small as this ; besides which the titles of the Amarna Ramose, ' Royal Scribe, Commandant of the Soldiery of the Lord of the Two Lands ', by no means correspond with those of his Theban namesake, who must have been the most powerful civil official of Akhenaten . The scenes are unimportant and, save for the portrait of Ramose, badly preserved .

B. Architectural Features ( Plate 34 )

This tomb is a small one, and of the simplest cross-corridor type. There was indeed little encouragement to anything ambitious, for a broad vein of gravel intersects the chamber . The hope of enlarging or fully decorating the chamber was abandoned, and the walls were not even smoothed .

A door, however, was fashioned in the back wall, and its entrance formed into a niche, where seated statues of the deceased and of his wife (?) were hewn . These figures were finished off in plaster, as the coarse nature of the rock demanded, and hence they have suffered considerably . They were evidently thoroughly pleasing and carefully worked, the wigs receiving elaborate treatment . The woman sits on the right side of the man and embraces him with her arm . Her name, which does not occur elsewhere, has been written on her lap . Apparently it is Nebt-ant, a known name of the period . The inscriptions on the door-framing are in faded ink, and are practically illegible . On the lintel there was a single set of the five cartouches, with a figure (?) and a short prayer at each end . The jambs appear to have contained texts of the usual form, and a repetition of the titles given to Ramose elsewhere .

The inscriptions on the framing of the outer door are in much the same state . The lintel showed figures of Ramose adoring cartouches . The columns on the jambs began with a dy-hetep-seten formula ; proceeded with requests for such favours as " the loaves which are set out in the Presence, bread, beer, birds ", &c. ; and ended, " for the Ka of the Royal Scribe, Commandant of the soldiery of the Lord of the Two Lands, Ramose, maakheru " .

There is a pit in the East corner of the chamber ; but I did not re-excavate it . The chamber now contains part of a stone door-jamb (?) of Ramose, which is said to have been found near the tomb by Alessandro Barsanti ; but which, as a matter of fact, was found in the town-ruins by Professor Flinders Petrie and conveyed there . The identity of name is, however, small proof of identity of person in the case of so common a name . While there is no place in a tomb for such a stone, its inscription would well suit the door-jamb of a house ; for it reads, " provisions ( zefa.u ) within the house of entertainment every day, ( his ) belly having joy ...... may his name (?) not be lost, the scribe Ramose, born of the house-mistress, Huy " . It thus appears that the inscriptions on the doors of the tomb may be such as were also written on the doorposts of the living, mutatis mutandis . It need hardly be said that there is still less ground to identify this Ramose with that namesake whose great tomb at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna shows the transformation of Amenhotep IV into Akhenaten . He would hardly have narrowed his ambitions to so poor a burial-place as this, and his offices as well as the name of his wife ( " sister " ) are different . The title, " Steward of the House of Neb-maat-ra " given to Ramose on Plate 35 seems indeed to show that Ramose had held that important office under the late king, but it might possibly refer to some present appointment .

C. Scenes and Inscriptions – Entrance ( Plates 11, 35, 40 )

The scene on the left hand in the entrance presents a very different aspect from that in the tomb of Apy . It is much more simple in design, and the plaster in which it is moulded is rapidly crumbling away . The King offers incense, the Queen a cruse of ointment (?) . As in the tomb of Mahu, Merytaten alone of the daughters is present . The cartouches of Aten are illegible, and their form therefore is not known ; one would expect them to be the same as in the neighbouring tomb of Apy . The figure and face of Ramose on the opposite wall are well preserved and pleasing .