A. General notes
Tomb No. 25 is important, not for its condition, for
it is unfinished, but for its owner, who was that Ay ( Eye ) who, after serving
Akhenaten in the king's youth, and being a supporter of his religious policy
all through, finally succeeded to the throne after the death of Tutankhamun,
and has his actual burial-place in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, where it
is No. 23, known as ' The Tomb of the Apes ' .
The hall of his Amarna tomb was
meant to have had no fewer than twenty-four papyrus-bud columns ; but only
fifteen have been hewn out, and only four are actually finished . The scenes
are the usual ones of the owner of the tomb receiving rewards from the king and
queen .
This tomb is the most westerly of the inscribed tombs .
Its deep and roomy approach easily fills with driftsand, and though Hay speaks
of it as " the tomb opened by me ", it was not fully cleared till
1893, and till 1883 was filled with later ( New Kingdom ? ) burials and an
enormous mass of broken sherds . Two diverging roads lead from it to the city .
B. Architectural Features
Exterior ( Plates 22, 24 ) :- A broad approach
cut through the rock-slope leads gently down to the door, which is of the usual
character, though of such larger proportions as befits a tomb of the size . The
framing of the door was decorated in the usual way, but the lintel is now so
weather-worn as scarcely to allow us to distinguish the King and Queen offering
to Aten, whose disc occupies the centre . They are followed by three
princesses, and no doubt Benretmut was also included . The jambs ( Plate 24 )
are inscribed with prayers in six columns on either side, but the upper parts
are very weather-worn . A panel at the foot shows Ay and his wife in a kneeling
attitude . ( For Ay's head see Plate 31 ) .
Interior ( Plates 22, 23 ) :- The entrance,
pierced through a thick wall of rock, admits to a hall of which little more
than half has been excavated, but which was planned on an ambitious scale . The
two most striking features of the tomb are the crowding together of the columns
and their brilliant whiteness . Had not the hall suffered sadly in the general
mutilation of 1890, the tomb, in spite of its unfinished state, would have been
by far the most attractive in the necropolis . Indeed, it may still claim the
title on account of its size, its purity, the beauty of the remaining
sculpture, and the freedom from bats which it has so far enjoyed .
The excavation of the hall has been completed roughly
on the east side, and on the west as much has been cleared as sufficed to set
free the columns of the central aisle . In addition, the cross aisle nearest
the door has been run out to about its full length, though at a diminishing
height, and the upper half of one other column has been roughly shaped . The
columns in the eastern half of the tomb number twelve, arranged in three rows
of four . Of these twelve only the two columns nearest the door in the central
aisle have been finished . The rest have only been given a rough contour, which
differs very widely in the ten examples . The ungraceful thickness adopted for
the columns, which contrast very unfavourably with those of Tomb 16, is
combined with so narrow an intercolumniation that the hall is a mere forest of
columns, between whose bases one can scarcely walk with ease . If they have
little claim to beauty, however, there is a not unfitting sense of gloomy
mystery in their dark and mingling shadows . Viewed from the doorway down the
broader aisle of axis, the tomb has a much more light and prepossessing
appearance ( Plate 37 ) .
Neither the door at the east end of the first
cross-aisle nor that in the axis has been pierced beyond the door-cheeks, and
only the latter has been inscribed . Besides this door, the outer portal, and
the two sides of the entrance-passage, a part of the north wall is the only
surface which has received sculpture .
Columns ( Plate 23 ) :- The finished columns
show the usual features of the type most common in the necropolis . As in Tomb
16, three ribs instead of one are marked on the stem, and here deeply,
foreshadowing the later division of each stem into four . The tablets, as
usual, face diagonally towards the entrance in the first pair, at right angles
to the axis in the next . These tablets are adorned with designs showing
standing figures of Ay and his wife adoring cartouches of the god and the royal
pair which are set between them . The tablets are incised and the inscriptions
painted in appropriate colours . Otherwise the columns are pure white, no
colour apparently being proposed . The abaci of the four finished columns were
inscribed on the side facing the aisle, and also on the north side in the case
of the first pair ; but these inscriptions have been ruthlessly hacked away,
and only a few hieroglyphs remain . The two duplicates published by Karl
Richard Lepsius are probably those on the inner sides of the northern pair .
The titles on two more published from the notes of Lepsius are from the north
side of these columns and read similarly : " The bearer of the fan on the
right hand of the King, dwelling in the heart of the King in the entire land,
excellent satisfier of the heart of his lord, the acting scribe of the King
whom he loves, the father of the god, Ay, living anew " . Remains of that
on the west side of the second column on the east show that this formed a third
variant ; but the fragment yields no meaning ( Plate 34 ) .
Ceiling :- This was decorated in the usual way . In the entrance
the patterns are effaced, but the inscriptions are still partly legible ( Plate
25 ) . Both are admirably preserved in the hall ( Plate 33 ) . The
wine-coloured background with the prevailing blue of the bead-pattern gives a
rich appearance to the tomb, which the whiteness of the columns enhances . The
designs and colours employed can be fully learnt from Plate 23 .
Burial-Place :- No second chamber being provided, the
place of sepulture was hewn out as usual in the corner of the hall . A flight
of twenty-nine steps bends round sharply to the west at the twenty-second step
and tails off into a rough hole, now almost entirely filled with a large flint
boulder . There is thus no trace of any use having been made of this poor
provision for burial, and this accords, of course, with Ay's supposed history .
C. Scenes and Inscriptions
East Wall-Thickness ( Plates 25, 26, 31, 42, 43, 44 )
.
This wall offers one more example of the royal family
at worship . It has suffered greatly in the upper portion through exposure and
not less by loss of patching-stones and modern violence . The Queen, it can be
seen, was wearing the Atef-crown . Three daughters are shown, as
well as the princess Benretmut, accompanied by her two dwarfs, " The
vizier of the Queen, Erneheh ( ' To Eternity ' ) " and " The vizier
of his mother, Para ( ' The Sun ' ) " .
The figures of the royal pair show good modelling,
though the sculptor's unhappy trick of sinking the figure less deeply below the
skirt, and so giving a sudden diminution of the leg at that point, mars the
effect in the case of the King ( Plate 40 ) .
Richard Lepsius and Robert Hay have preserved for us
the titulary of the Queen, of which only the final signs now remain :-
" The heiress, great in favour, lady of grace,
sweet of love, mistress of South and North, fair of face, gay with the two
plumes, beloved of the living Aten, the chief wife of the King whom ( he )
loves, lady of the Two Lands, great of love, Nefertiti, living for ever and
ever " .
The lower part of the wall is occupied by a long
prayer accompanied by the kneeling figures of Ay and his wife ( Plates 25, 39 )
. These figures, like those on the opposite wall, are distinguished by
remarkable precision of modelling, and, being perfectly preserved, show the art
of Akhetaten at its very best, retaining its bizarre features without over-exaggeration, and presenting us, we feel
confident, with a near approach to a true portrait of the pair . When fully
coloured the effect must have been much enhanced ; for though the garments of
both husband and wife are pure white, the collars, bracelets, armlets, and, in
the case of Tyi, the cap and fillet, were bright with varied colour, set off,
in addition, by the masses of minutely divided hair . The text is in excellent
preservation, as the scenes show .
West Wall-Thickness ( Hymn to the Aten ) . ( Plates 27,
41 ) .
The inner half of this wall ( which would not be
covered by the open door ) is occupied by a text in thirteen long columns and
by figures of Ay and Tyi similar to those just noticed . This text, the most
poetical and lofty that the cult of Aten called forth, has acquired the name par excellence of The Hymn to the Aten . Only the far worse fate
which has befallen other documents as precious can reconcile us to the form in
which we now possess it . As it was deeply buried in sand, both Hay and Lepsius
shirked the task of excavation and left the whole uncopied . It was not till
1883 that Urbain Bouriant uncovered it, and the copy that he then made and
revised in 1884 was to prove the only complete copy we possess . A few years
later, and apparently before any further copy was taken, a full third of the
inscription was destroyed .
Considerable portions of the hymn, however, are
paralleled in other laudations of Aten, where they are probably as original as
here . For, in all likelihood, neither this nor any other hymn is a set
composition which had currency apart from, or previous to, its use in the tomb .
These texts either borrow from an authoritative composition or are compiled
from the current liturgical phrases and dogmatic statements of the new "
Teaching ", which was evidently zealously imparted in Akhetaten under the
personal guidance of the King . If his extreme youth at accession be accepted,
it becomes difficult to assign the literary or philosophical form of the
religion to him . The poet or prophet of the movement and his works probably
lie and will ever lie hidden from history, nor would mere knowledge of his name
avail us much .
Plate 34 shows the jewellery of Tyi . The colour is
now almost erased, and a little restoration has been necessary . Dark blue is
represented by solid black . Where no colour is assigned, light yellow is to be
assumed . Tyi's flesh colour is a warm yellow, her cap light yellow, with a
lost pattern in red line .
North Wall : East Side ( Plates 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36,
42, 43, 44 ) .
This scene, representing the reward of the King's
favourite, has its sister pictures, as we have seen, in the tombs of Parennefer
and Tutu . No one scene is the original or model, so far as we can see ; all
are modifications of a picture which probably existed only in the imagination
of the chief artist of Akhetaten .
The Palace ( Plates 28, 29, 42 ) .
As always, the balcony occupied by the royal family is
the dominant feature of the scene . Behind it is the palace and in front the
crowd accompanying Ay .
A second and generally similar representation of the
palace was to have occupied the same wall on the other side of the doorway,
forming part, no doubt, as in the tomb of Tutu, of a similar depiction of the
King's bounty . As that wall was still in the rough, the only part of the scene
that could be engraved was that which extended over the doorway, meeting our
scene in the middle and forming a pendant to it ( Plates 28, 36 ) . The two
pictures are separated by a vacant space where the sky is seen to terminate on
a mountain in the usual way . Below it are two trees, in which we are inclined
to see a corner of the palace garden rather than the mythological sycamores
suggested by M. Gaston Maspero .
On both sides of the centre two self-contained
buildings are shown . One contains two rooms entered from outside ; apparently,
from the contents, it comprises a store-house and larder, the more so that
servants sit round it at their ease preparing and eating food . The other and
larger building we can judge to represent the harem or that part of it assigned
to the female servants or slaves ; for only women are seen in it and guards
stand close by all the doors . It is divided into two suites of rooms which do
not communicate, each comprising a small hall with one column and two small
chambers opening out of it . We have already noticed that each great house,
whether royal or private, seemed to possess a band of female musicians . As the
women shown here are all busily engaged in the practice of music and dancing,
and the walls both of the hall and the closets are hung with musical
instruments of all kinds, we must conclude that this was a prominent part of
the duties or recreations of the women of the house . The instruments include
the lyre, the lute, the triangular harp, and the standing harp and lyre .
It will be noticed that the women in the upper room of
both houses have a peculiar mode of wearing the hair, by dividing it into one or
more tresses curling at the ends . Nor is this mere négligé, for the women in the rooms below wear the hair in an ordinary Egyptian
mode . This lock or tress is quite un-Egyptian, but is familiar to us in men of
Hittite race and known also in Syrian women . In addition one woman at least
wears the flounced Syrian skirt . It will be noticed also that the trigon and
great standing lyre are seen only in the upper rooms . The latter is found only
in the hands of foreigners, and the former is probably un-Egyptian too .
Now we know from the Tell el Amarna Letters that
Akhenaten had a second wife, daughter of Dushratta ( or Tushratta ), King of
Mitanni, of whom no sign or hint is given in Egyptian chronicles . That this
eastern wife whom Akhenaten had taken for diplomatic reasons would be
practically a prisoner of the harem is more than likely, and that her women
should have their quarters and live apart from the Egyptian women would be
natural enough . Nor need her women be of her own race necessarily ; the artist
at least would be content to show Syrian slave-girls .
For the first time, therefore, we seem to have
evidence of the presence of Tadukhipa ( the daughter of Dushratta ) in
Akhetaten . In this harem of the foreigners in the left-hand picture, an older
woman seems to be instructing two younger girls to play a duet on the lyre and
lute . In the adjacent room or story an Egyptian woman is similarly teaching a
companion her first steps, while two others, laying their instruments aside,
partake of a meal together . In the other picture, one of the foreign women is
combing out her friend's tresses ; a third eats from a table, and others dance
to the sound of a harp . Their Egyptian sisters are amusing themselves in much
the same way . Two are dancing, one accompanying her own movements on the lute,
while two companions bear their part on the lute and harp . In spite of the
small scale and the defaced condition of the wall, the shuffling gait of the
Oriental dancer is suggested as successfully as the lazy postures of the
eunuchs outside .
The Balcony .
However wearisome the repetition of this scene may
have become, we could ill spare this representation of the Queen and her little
daughters mutually caressing one another . For though such pictures were not
exceptional, few have come down to our time in any completeness . The youngest
of the three can scarcely have been old enough to walk at this time, as indeed
her lack of hair suggests . Meanwhile the parents themselves are treated as
nurslings of the Aten, " the Father ", who supports them by his hands
with even more solicitude than they themselves show for their offspring . The
features of all are well preserved and are likely to be more authentic here, in
the tomb of the Queen's parents, than anywhere else .
An astonishing, and indeed a unique, feature of the
representation is that the whole family is absolutely nude, so far as we can
see . One can hardly believe that the reverence for reality with which the King
is credited led him so far as this, but must suppose that he shared with his
artist his admiration for the human form .
The Queen's sister, Benretmut, though rele gated to
the background, is also present to see her father and mother honoured . She is
to be seen, accompanied by her strange famuli, among the
attendants on the left of the window .
The Courtyard ( Plates 29, 43 ) .
Ay and his wife Tyi, attended by two fat officials,
stand below the window to receive the bounty of the King . Their faces are
worked with special care and give one an impression of belonging to the same
high family, as may well have been the case . The face of Ay does not differ
essentially from those in the entrance, and but little from the ink profile on Plate
31 . From these three examples of careful work we may perhaps form a true
estimate of the capacity of the Egyptian artist for portraiture and of its
limits . The presence of the wife of Ay here, as everywhere else in the tomb,
is very exceptional, but her rank as nurse and tutoress of the Queen and
handmaid (?) of the King fully justify it . Gifts are being showered on the
proud pair, but the manner of their bestowal must, from their nature, be an
artist's license, as little founded on fact as the nudity of the royal family .
Since the gifts of the King are certain in this case
to represent those things which would most delight the heart of a high-born and
wealthy pair, they are worth enumerating :-
-
18 double necklaces of gold beads, two
at least of them fitted with pectorals .
-
2 plain necklaces .
-
5 collars, no doubt of threaded faience
trinkets .
-
6 fillets, probably of the same sort .
-
4 golden (?) cups, two with a foot, two
without .
-
2 metal (?) vases .
-
5 signet rings .
-
1 pair of gloves .
-
12 pairs of plain armlets .
We have here, surely, the earliest representation of
gloves . Nor do they, reappear in Egyptian pictures . One would suspect an
Eastern origin for them, since the most urgent need for them by a man of
position would be in the management of horses, and this was exactly Ay's duty .
At any rate the picture would lead us to think that Ay was intensely proud of
this rare possession . As soon as he is outside the gates of the palace he puts
them on and exhibits them to his friends ( Plate 31 ) . Nor has he any reason
to be dissatisfied at the impression which they make ; for the bystanders press
round to see and stroke them, lift up their arms in wild astonishment, and are
ready to fall down and do homage to him and them indiscriminately .
The crowd within the courtyard seems ranked in order
of precedence . At the back the two royal chariots wait . The most grudging admission
apparently is given to the representative foreigners ( Negro, Libyan, North and
South Syrian ), accompanied by their Egyptian interpreters . Scribes follow and
then squads of police and mercenaries, who seem to form an escort to a group of
officials ( officers of the Treasury ? ) in charge of two small chests . Then
come bands of soldiery, including four standard-bearers, Negro bowmen, and
spearmen from Libya and Syria . The Egyptians (?) are armed with what look like
sand-bags, but may be officers' batons . An advanced position is necessarily
occupied by the acting scribes, who look strangely like gentlemen of the press,
so eager do they appear in the pursuit of their profession . Then comes a group
of high officials, including fan-bearers, and lastly, as the highest of all,
the high-priest of Aten (?) and the vizier . A place in the front, however, is
also reserved for a band of mimes, who seem to perform the part of the jester
in a Western court, manifesting the public opinion on the day's proceedings in
comic gesture and perhaps even in merry gibe or exaggerated encomium .
Outside the Courtyard ( Plates 30, 43 ) .
It was a pretty fancy to make the Aten shed his rays
also upon the gate, as if blessing those who enter even into the outer courts
of the King . Nevertheless two warders as well keep guard with whips . Ay is
seen emerging from the gates ; he is loaded with jewellery and is wearing the
presentation gloves . Servants follow him carrying the royal presents on trays,
and at the sight his friends and the men of the patrol greet him with cheers
and prostrations . Three chariots are in waiting to convey Ay and his friends .
Still further in the background are the
military posts, where six standards are planted on three platforms, two on each
. They belong apparently to two regiments, the square standards being borne by
troops dressed in a simple loin-cloth, while those whose emblem is the
sun-shade add to this a long but girt-up tunic . By each platform a sentry sits
on a cushioned fauld-stool . The courtyard wall has shut out from their eyes the
spectacle within, but they keep in touch with what is going on by help of the
street boys, who run to and fro and bring the news .
The sentry nearest
the gate hears the din and asks eagerly : " For whom is this rejoicing
being made, my boy ? " . The reply is given : " The rejoicing is
being made for Ay, the father of the god, along with Tyi . They have been made
people of gold ! " . To which the very unsoldierly-looking sentry
ejaculates : " You will see . These are the beauties of the age (?) !
" . The news does not reach the second sentry so quickly . " Hasten !
" he cries ; " go see the loud rejoicing ; I mean, who it is ; and
come back at a run " . The errand is thoroughly to the urchin's taste .
" I will do it . Behold me ! " . The boys of the city have already
brought a highly-coloured tale to the third sentry ; for when a friend sits down
to chat and asks " For whom are they rejoicing ? " he is able to
reply : " Rise up and you will see : this is the good thing which Pharaoh
( life, prosperity, and health ! ) has done for Ay, the father of the god, and
Tyi ! Pharaoh ( life, prosperity, and health ! ) has given to them millions of
loads of gold and all manner of riches ! " . The boys are more fortunate
than the sentries in leaving their duties . We see one handing over a bag and
stool to a comrade with the words : " Look to the stool and the sack, that
we may see what is being done for Ay, the father of the god " . The reply
is more boy-like than accommodating : " Don't be long, (or) I'll be off
and keep them, my master ! " .
Southern Doorway ( Plates
31, 32 ) .
The lintel of this
door-framing is almost totally destroyed, nothing now remaining but the figures
of Ay ( headless ) and his wife, with her titles . The jambs are in even a
worse state, only a few hieroglyphs and the kneeling figures at the foot
surviving ( Plate 31 ) . The lintel showed the figures and prayers of Ay and
Tyi on either side of a design formed of cartouches and titularies under the
radiant disc .
D. Ay and Tyi
The intrinsic
interest of this tomb is supplemented by our knowledge of Ay's later career ;
for it is generally acknowledged that he is identical with that King Ay who
ascended the throne of Egypt after the death of one or more of Akhenaten's
successors . This identification with the King, on the ground of similarity of
name, wife's name, and the title " father of the divinity ", has
gained new force and interest by the arguments which Professor Ludwig Borchardt
has brought forward for giving to that title the sense ot " father-in-law
of the King " .
If the right to the
throne lay with Nefertiti, as her titles may indicate, they must then have
passed to her through her mother Tyi, the wife of Ay, and it is possible that
Tyi, Queen of Amenhotep III, assumed the name of the real heiress to conceal
her non-royal birth . Ay, to whom Tyi was given in marriage, was probably also
of high birth, though his titles are not extremely imposing . Tyi's titles show
that the pair cannot have been very young at this time and must have been
advancing in years when Ay came to the throne by right of his wife . If
Benretmut, as it appears, is their second daughter, whom her sister, the Queen,
had taken into her train, her separation from her parents in the picture must
be due to etiquette at El Amarna, which did not permit the children of the
deceased to be shown on the walls, nor even their wives, unless these had
special relations to the Queen . Since Ay owed his special position near the
King to his wife, Tyi appears with her husband on every occasion, and even when
he receives honours from the King .
The portrait of Ay in
this tomb seems not to be in disaccord with his features when he appears as
King on the walls of his sepulchre in the Western valley at Thebes, if we make
allowance for the conventional style adopted there ; and the head of Queen Tyi
II at Ekhmim is in striking harmony with that shown in Plate 39, both
exhibiting a face somewhat plain and sharp-featured .
It is unpleasant to
turn from this pleasing picture of the King's happy relations with his wife's
family as well as his own, the winning thoughts of Ay's hymn, his exuberant
expressions of loyalty, and the charming examples of the new art which adorn
his tomb, to the impressions gained from the burial-chamber of the same man as
King . For he had proved so false to his former faith that his few monuments
show him in adoration of the whole Egyptian Pantheon, and his burial-place
exhibits the stiffest and worst features of the Theban style . One genial
touch, however, distinguishes both the first and last tombs . That love of
nature, of bird and plant life, which the religion of the Aten exhibited, and
on which Ay seems especially to have fastened, is reflected again in his last
tomb, where the old King, remembering past days and the private pleasures of
the former Master of the Horse, had himself depicted, against the custom of
kings, as engaged in a day's sport in the marshes in a thoroughly human way .
The titles accorded
to Ay in his tomb are :-
1. Father
of the divinity ( God's Father )
2. Bearer
of the fan on the right hand of the King
3. Acting
Scribe of the King, beloved by him
4. Overseer
of all the horses of His Majesty
besides many
complimentary epithets, including that of, " Companion " ( Plate 32 ),
and " Head of the Companions of the King " ( Plates 32, col. 4 ; xxv,
col. 12 ) .
E. Plates
Part ( 26 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....
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