Position 69 - Painted Tomb Chamber Of Prince Sennofer, Hewn In The Rock Of The Western Cliffs, Thebes

Could you not believe that these colors were laid on yesterday? Yet it is 3,500 years since the artist who painted this chamber stood where you and I stand now and looked over his work for the last time before turning it over to its owner. We are stationed at one side of a nearly square chamber, the ceiling of which is supported by four massive pillars, two of which are just out of range on the right. The whole is hewn out of the western cliffs, like the tombs which we saw at Benihasan and Assiut. Its purpose and function are the same as we have found before in the mastaba chapels, the pyramid chapels, and the rock-hewn chambers at Assiut or Benihasan.

This is the room where the deceased lives and receives food and drink from his surviving relatives and descendants. Hence the character of these paintings. The owner is everywhere depicted, receiving, from a lady standing before him, such offerings as the Egyptian delighted in. Let us see if we can ascertain who the couple are. On the first pillar at our left you see the noble owner, seated in a wooden chair, the legs of which represent those of a lion.

He is receiving from the lady a necklace which she presents upon a little tray or shallow dish. Now the ancient artist has not left us in doubt regarding the person for whom this gift is intended. He did not do this for our benefit, for his mind was as far from thinking about us as we are from any thought of the distant people who may some day excavate our capital at Washington, and speculate upon the probable height of the fallen Washington monument.

He put that inscription over the man's figure, in order that this scene might be for the benefit of this man alone. The magical charms pronounced over this painting, as well as all the others, have lent it a subtle virtue, by force of which, in the belief of the Egyptian, the deceased was continually, daily and repeatedly, actually receiving the gift here depicted. If his name were not there the virtue and value of the scene might not be enjoyed by him alone.

Hence we are able to read his name and titles over every one of these paintings, and over his figure on this first pillar we read: “

The hereditary prince, enduring in favor, great in love, favorite of the excellent heart of the king, prince in the Southern City (Thebes), overseer of the garden of Amon, Sen-nofer, deceased.”

The lady before him is likewise designated in the inscription above her figure: “His beloved sister, the musician of Amon, Meryt, deceased.” This lady, called his sister, was also his wife, as the Egyptians commonly married their sisters. On the other pillar, where Sen-nofer sits upon a camp-stool under the two sacred eyes, she is presenting him with a bolt of fine linen and a lotus flower, which she holds to his nose for his enjoyment.

On the right side of the same pillar the two are conversing together, and on the side wall which you see between the two pillars they appear again in an arbor, praying to Osiris and Anubis, who are concealed by the intervening pillar on the left. Finally on the wall at the right of the further pillar you observe a priest with a panther skin hanging from his shoulders, pouring out a libation of water from a jar in his right hand, while he extends a censer of burning incense with his left.

Thus our friend Sen-nofer, who had charge of the gardens of the state temple, which we have seen at Karnak, nearly 1,600 years before Christ, in the days of King Amenophis I, was supplied with all possible necessities for his long sojourn in that uncertain country, toward which the Egyptian looked with such dread. Similar scenes depicting all the various activities of life, from the grand vizier receiving the envoys of Syria, to the artisan at work upon the king's buildings, restore to us the life of Egypt and to some extent of Syria, centuries before the Hebrew exodus.

Thus while the cities of the living have perished, the life that surged through their streets and houses and bazaars has been preserved to us in the city of the dead, in this vast Theban cemetery, where the tombs are so numerous that the face of the cliff has been not inaptly compared with a huge sponge. Could we now push up a few feet through this ceiling, we should emerge upon a similar tomb chamber above; if we should pierce a shaft through the floor, we should presently fall through into a chamber below, and we should have the same experience if we should penetrate through either side wall.

All around us as we stand in this silent dwelling of the dead are the houses of other dead. The Egyptians themselves had great difficulty in this respect, for they were often unable to put down the necessary vertical shaft, at the lower end of which they desired to excavate the sepulcher chamber for the mummy; hence it was frequently necessary to push a horizontal passage further into the cliff, to a point where it would be safe to descend without penetrating a chamber below.

There are many larger chambers of finer workmanship than this in the Theban cemetery around us, but there is none so fresh and well preserved, and hence we have visited this one. When we remember that these are all simple water-colors, with which the artist worked, and that all oil colors were unknown in ancient Egypt, we shall appreciate the marvelous possibilities for the preservation of the works of men inherent in the climate and other conditions of the Nile valley. Such conditions are found nowhere else, and hence we can nowhere else study early man as we can here.

You will find our next position marked near the centre of Map 9 by the lines numbered 70. There we are to look north over the ruins of the temple Der el-Bahri. See also Plan 14, an enlarged plan of the temple, where lines marked 70 cut out the portion of the temple that we are to see.