Victory's Museum Trip II - The Museo Egizio of Turin XIII

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Today I will continue to share with you the Museo Egizio trip. In this post, we are still in the Old Kingdom period. I would like to share with you some beautiful handcrafts.

The memory and the offering

The ancient Egyptians believed that two main elements were required to guarantee the survival of the dead in the netherworld: the preservation of the name and the perpetuation of the funerary cult. Two specific groups of materials are especially indicative of the importance of these two aspects as part of strategies for survival after death.

Stelae were rectangular gravestones that show an idealized image of the dead accompanied by inscribed texts containing his or her names and titles, and the offering formula. Offering tables, in stone or baked clay, are usually decorated with a relief or separately modeled representation of the food and beverages required for the sustenance of the deceased.

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The below figure shows a stela with Nubian bowmen, it was made around 2118-1980 BC. The deceased is standing on the left with his wife, who has her arm around his shoulder, beside him, and his dog in front of him. The inscription and the sash hanging from his waist identify him as a Nubian, while the bow and the bundle of arrows he holds in his right hand show he is an archer. On the right are a servant offering him a cup and four brothers, all of them are Nubian bowman.

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The below figures show the offering trays, these baked clay offering trays were widespread in this period. They appear to depict a miniature rectangular fenced courtyard with various food offering arranged inside it.

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