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Thursday, October 27, 2016

An Ancient Egyptian Mourning Ritual Took Place in Amarna. - María Rosa Valdesogo


http://www.mariarosavaldesogo.com/an-ancient-egyptian-mourning-ritual-in-amarna/

An Ancient Egyptian Mourning Ritual Took Place in Amarna.

In Ancient Egypt the afterlife and the eternity were concepts very inserted into belief.

The funerary art granted food, drink, furniture, religious cult…The mourning rite depicted was also crucial for the dead’s resurrection.

The Royal Family in the Window of Appearances. Tomb of Meryre. Photo: www.osirisnet.net

During the reign of Akhenaten, iconography coming from tombs of Amarna show mainly scenes of the “living ones”: Sculptors in the workshop, worship of the Aten, the activity in the palace, the royal family in the “Window of Appearance”…

Depictions relating the death are just a few. Here we will mention the tomb of Huya.

The corpse of Huya inside his coffin is standing in front of the funerary offerings. And a very typical funerary scene of the art in Ancient Egypt: the mummy being mourned.

In front of him a group of mourners are lamenting the death of Huya. These could be the common mourners, which cried and raised their arms during the funeral.

Funeral of Huya, Steward of Queen Tye. Tomb of Huya. after Davies Rock Tombs III, Pl. XXII (Egypt Exploration Society).

Behind the mummy of Huya four women are also mourning the dead. They could perfectly be the responsible of the mourning ritual made in Ancient Egypt for reviving the corpse. The main points for thinking so are:

It seems that Huya received in Amarna an ancient Egyptian mourning ritual as all dead did before the reign of Akhenaten.

Detail of the funeral of Huya. Tomb of huya. after Davies Rock Tombs III, Pl. XXII (Egypt Exploration Society).Photo: Amarna Project

Probably as a legacy of the Theban Period, Queen Tye could not accept a death without a ritual of Osirian roots for granting the eternity to her steward.

So, we could think that the Osirian mourning ritual existed, at least occasionally, in Amarna.


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