It is rare that we know the names of the artisans who decorated Theban tombs. For most of Egyptian history, these talented craftsmen remained anonymous, their works unsigned, their lives unknown. This is not the case with the tomb of Inherkhau. Not only do we know the names of the two artisans who worked here, but we are able to gain a few glimpses into their lives. The two men were brothers, the older named Nebnefer, the younger Hormin, and they were sons of the Chief Draftsman, Hori. Hori was from a distinguished and important family at Dayr alMadina. His brother was also a man of considerable authority. Their father was permitted to erect a stela for them in the Valley of the Kings, an unusual honor. We know which brother was responsible for decorating certain scenes in TT 359. Hormin, for example, signed the wonderful painting of the solar cat slaying Apophis on the left (west) wall of the second chamber. Next to it we read: “[This was] made by his brother, the draughtsman of Amen in the Horizon of Eternity, Hormin.” On the rear wall of that chamber a scene is accompanied by this text: “For the ka of the Draughtsman in the Place of Truth, Hormin, made by the Draughtsman of Amen in the Place of Truth, Nebnefer.”
Perhaps it was while they were working on this tomb that Hormin wrote a letter to his father, Hori. He asked him to “speak with the leaders [of Dayr al-Madina] so that they will call up that servant of yours so that he will give a hand with me in the drawing. I am alone, for my brother [Nebnefer] is ill...” Hormin’s brother, Nebnefer, did very well during the reign of Rameses III, marrying the daughter of a well-off villager and raising three sons. However, early in the reign of Rameses VI, he ran afoul of a scribe of the vizier.
He was taken to court and foundguilty (but of what we do not know), and sentenced to 100 lashes, ten brandings, and a period of forced labor. One Egyptologist has suggested that such a penalty proves that Nebnefer was a bad man who was punished for more than a single offense. In any case, Nebnefer and his three sons are never heard from again.
A recent comparison of the painting of various scenes in TT 359 concluded that Hormin was a better artist than his brother was. Hormin’s style is easy to spot. The faces he draws have a more curving profile and large eyes that slant slightly downwards; the ears are drawn with large tops and small lobes; the figures are high-waisted, and their navels are triangular; Hormin’s brush strokes are thinner, and he draws more billowing skirts on the women. This is not to say that either man was a brilliant artist. The figures they drew are monotone, flat, and oddly proportioned, while their hieroglyphs are solid masses lacking detail. It does not help that the scenes they drew were of religious subjects, formal and generic, or that tastes of the time called for large heads and squat bodies. The result is somewhat disconcerting for those who have visited tombs such as those of Ramose or Rekhmire. The scenes in Inherkhau’s tomb were done on a light yellow background intended to emulate the color of papyrus, the material on which the Book of the Dead was originally drawn.
Inherkhau’s tomb has two chambers, each 2 by 5 meters (6 by 15 feet). The superstructure is missing. Originally there would have been a courtyard and a small pyramid rising above it. Today, it is fronted by a bookshop and a refreshment stand. Like most tombs at Dayr al-Madina, TT 359 was a family burial site, and Inherkhau was buried here with other members of his family, some of whom were shown on the now-destroyed entrance jambs. FIRST CHAMBER Inside the tomb, the texts and decoration are restricted to religious scenes, especially from the Book of Gates. Scenes of daily life, so common in tombs earlier in the New Kingdom, are absent.Many Egyptologists believe this is due to a strong rise in personal piety during the troubled times of the late New Kingdom.
To the left of the entrance, on the side wall of a large niche, a reclining Anubis jackal is painted on a yellow background. On the rear (west) wall of the niche, a few traces remain of a scene in which Inherkhau and his wife kneel before a goddess. The feet of the two worshippers are unusually large. Nine figures who guard the gates of the netherworld sit in a row at the bottom of the wall.At the left (west) end of the rear (north) wall of the first chamber, Inherkhau and his wife sit and play a board game called senet. To the left, the deceased holds a fan and wears a pectoral collar.
Figures of the deceased couple at the far right show Inherkhau wearing a linen dress with a panther skin draped over his shoulders, holding out offerings of blue-painted ducks to now-destroyed figures of Osiris and Isis. Inherkhau’s panther skin is especially detailed and the head of the animal, which actually was a metal clasp for fastening the panther skin, has finely drawn eyes and whiskers. The standing figure of his wife is destroyed. Other scenes in this register have also been destroyed. In the lower register, two female relatives stand before seated figures of Inherkhau and his wife. Behind them, three priests, the first wearing the panther skin of a sempriest, walk toward another scene of the couple.On the left (east) side of the front (south) wall, Inherkhau, in a sempriest’s costume, and his wife offer incense to two registers of seated royalty.
There are three kings and seven queens in the upper row, and seven kings, one prince, and one queen in the lower. Most are destroyed. All were similarly posed and dressed but bear different cartouches. In the upper row, those that can still be read are Amenhetep I and Ahmes I, the first two kings of Dynasty 18. In the lower row, the kings are Rameses I (Dynasty 19) and Nebhepetre Mentuhetep (of Dynasty 11). The queen with black skin and an elaborate vulture headdress is probably Ahmes-Nefertari, the wife of Ahmes I and mother of Amenhetep I, widely regarded in ancient times as the founder and patron of Dayr al-Madina. Her black skin symbolizes the fertility of the Nile Valley and has nothing to do with her race. The last figure in the lower row, now gone, was an artist named Huy, shown holding a palette.
Parts of this wall were the work of Nebnefer.The ceiling of the first chamber is elaborately painted with spiral designs and bulls’ heads (called “bucrania”) painted in red and black and drawn in the Minoan style of ancient Crete. There are also eight lovely panels of different geometric patterns, perhaps taken from woven reed matting. SECOND CHAMBER Thirty-one scenes from the Book of the Dead are shown in the three registers on the walls of this chamber, fourteen on the right (east), and seventeen on the left (west). Originally, figures of Amenhetep I and AhmesNefertari were painted on either side of the entrance to this chamber, but the figures were removed to Berlin early in the nineteenth century.At the top left of the left wall, Inherkhau stands facing the entrance and the now-missing figures of Amenhetep I and AhmesNefertari. He holds a staff and an “Isis knot” and stands before a kiosk above which is a sun disk.
The scene and accompanying text are from Book of the Dead chapters 44 and 64. At left, the deceased and his wife sit in a boat steered by their son. Most of this wall was the work of Hormin.Nebnefer was responsible only for the right end of the lower register.
The well-drawn scarab beetle attached to a necklace accompanies Book of the Dead chapter 76, intended to “transform you into any shape you desire.” Thoth (standing) and Osiris (seated) are being praised in the next scene by Inherkhau and to the right is a copy of Book of the Dead chapter 125, the “Negative Confession”. Inherkhau is led toward a fiery lake by an ape-headed god in the next scene, and beyond it two barks sail upon the hieroglyph for “heaven.” Four of the ten divisions of the netherworld are represented by cryptic drawings at the end of the wall.In the middle register on the left wall, at the front of the chamber, Inherkhau kneels before a lotus flower, then again before the jackal-headed Souls of Hierakonpolis.
It is unclear exactly what these souls represent, but they seem to have originated in predynastic Egyptian religious practices. One of the most famous scenes in the tomb shows Inherkhau standing in adoration before a beautifully drawn benu-bird, a heron wearing a crown.
The bird is nicely proportioned, its feathers finely drawn. To the right, the jackal-headed god Anubis is “returning the heart of the honorary Osiris” to the mummy of Inherkhau in order that he will be able to live again in the netherworld. The device behind the god is a symbol of Osiris and the site of Abydos. In another well-known scene, the deceased kneels before a highly stylized figure of a falcon. This is one of several scenes in which Inherkhau is shown with traces of stubble on his face, usually a sign of mourning in ancient Egypt. Like the heron’s, the falcon’s feathers are also drawn with particular care.
At right, in yet another famous scene, a “solar cat” or “cat of Heliopolis,” slays the snake Apophis, the mortal enemy of the sun god. Both animals, and the persea tree behind them, are fanciful but wellexecuted figures. In the cat’s left paw is a knife; its rightpaw holds down the head of the snake. The hairs on its back are raised in menace and it hisses as it delivers a fatal, bloody blow to the serpent. Note that even the snake hieroglyph in the second column of text above the figure has knives thrust into its twisted coils so that it is rendered harmless.
At the end of the wall, a net is attached to a was-scepter. A colleague of Inherkhau, the foreman, Nakhtemut, stands below.The deceased are seated at the far left end of the lower register, receiving incense and water from two of their sons. At right, the couple, wearing rather ludicrous smiles, sits at a table on which stand four lit torches. Here again, Inherkhau is unshaven. He wraps his arm around his wife and lovingly holds her hand. The artist used the wrong skin color for Inherkhau’s left arm, making it the same as his wife’s, not the same as Inherkhau’s right arm and face. Six priests stand before them; the first wears the costume of a sem-priest and holds a censer; the others, more plainly dressed, hold metal vessels. They are members of Inherkhau’s family: the first are his sons Qenena (a priest), Hormin (a craftsmen), Amenemhab, and Hormes. The others are brothers.The last scene at the right of this register is a traditional one, but it has some unusual details. The harpist plays a harp with twenty-two strings (although the artist drew thirty-six pegs for thestrings).
Usually, harpists are shown with their eyes closed to indicate blindness or deep concentration. But this harpist’s eyes appear to be open. He sits on a mat, his fingers languidly plucking at the strings. His feet are drawn in an awkward position and, unusually, his mouth is open. Perhaps he is singing. The harpist is corpulent, with rolls of fat on his abdomen and the back of his neck, but his arms are thin. Inherkhau and his wife are smiling, clearly enjoying the music. In spite of their elaborate wigs and costumes, they seem a rather frumpy couple.
On the rear wall, Inherkhau and his son Hormin stand with the god Ptah (on the left); he and another of his sons Qenena, face a well-painted figure of Osiris (on the right). The left (west) half of the wall was the work of Hormin; the right (east) half was done by Nebnefer. At the beginning of the upper register on the right wall, Inherkhau stands in adoration before a pylon with a human-headed babird on top. The bird’s feathers are highly stylized, as are the feathers of the other birds in this tomb, and its face and hands look very similar to those of Inherkhau himself. At left, a second scene shows the deceased before Ptah, the god of craftsmen and therefore one greatly praised in Dayr al-Madina. The text that follows at left is a copy of Book of the Dead chapter 42, a list of body parts and the deities associated with them. “My hair is Nun,” one of the rectangles proclaims, “My face is Ra; my eyes are Hathor; my ears are Wepwawet; my nose is She who presides over her lotusleaf.” The list moves down the body until, “My toes are living uraei; there is no member of mine devoid of a god, and Thoth is the protection of all my flesh.” The figure of a swallow standing atop a red granite mound of creation is a vignette from Book of the Dead chapter 86, a chapter for “being transformed into a swallow,” a bird that to the Egyptians stood for the idea of “wandering.”
Inherkhau kneels before the two back-to-back lions of the “horizon.” The hieroglyph for that word stands between them, with the sun above it and an ankh-sign hanging from the center.At the right end of the middle register, Hathor strides toward the doorway and the now-missing figure of Ahmes-Nefertari. At left, Inherkhau worships a snake. This vignette is usually accompanied by chapter 87 of the Book of the Dead: “I am a long-lived snake; I pass the night and am reborn every day...” But the text written here has nothing to do with this chapter. Farther left, two jackals stand proudly before a kneeling Inherkhau.These finely drawn animals, with a single piece of cloth encircling their necks, are charged with pulling the solar bark through the night. Next, a priest wearing the mask of a falcon stands before the mummy of Inherkhau holding an adze and performing the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. The hieroglyph for the west stands behind a seated figure of Inherkhau who faces a huge ka-symbol.
In the lowest register at right, Inherkhau and his wife sit at a table piled high with offerings. At left, he sits before a low table receiving five couples and a sem-priest, but twenty-one names are given in the accompanying text.One of the most appealing scenes in Inherkhau’s tomb is at the left end of this wall. He and his wife sit on a delicatelymade chair, surrounded by four grandchildren, all naked, three girls and one boy. (The defacing of the young boy’s head occurred only recently, awful proof that better security is needed in Theban tombs.) Each child holds a young bird as an evocation of life. A platter of figs sits on a table before the proud and happy grandparents. Offering bearers approach the group with funerary goods that include a box of shabtis and a libation vasel.
From" The Illustrated Guide to Luxor" by kent R.Weeks ,published by the American University in Cairo Press. Copyright © 2005 White Star S.p.a