Plate LXXXVII

Of the three pictures reproduced in this work from the tomb of Userhet, 'High-priest of the spirit (ka) of Tuthmosis I' ,the present one is far the finest. Unfortunately it loses much by the reduction it has had to undergo. As seen extending across the entire breadth of the wall, it impresses by the boldness of the design, the brilliancy of the colouring, and the very individual treatment of a theme popular at the time it was painted. For very different versions of the same theme see Plates LXIX and XCIV. Fact and fancy are here interwoven in the most charming way. Every Egyptian noble desired to have attached to his tomb-per­ haps on the edge of the cultivation a few hundred yards below­ a shady garden where he could find refreshment during the summer heat. Whether Userhet actually possessed such a garden we can never know, but in imagination he certainly did, and here he is shown partaking of the luxuries which it offered. The artist's caprice has depicted in twofold form the essential features of his conception. Thus the sycamore-fig appears both as a real tree and also as a goddess standing outside it; elsewhere an indwelling tree­goddess is depicted arising out of the trunk (Plate LXIX). In similar fashion the human beings are not only shown as such, but also as the bird-like souls which the more fanciful among the Egyptians could see hovering about the tomb or haunting its orchard in the valley. Here they both flutter in the branches of the fig-tree and lap up water with human hands beside the T-shaped garden pool. Contrast the far more prosaic treatment of the same subject in Plate LXIX. The Eighteenth Dynasty is much more reticent than the Nineteenth, which seeks to compensate for the decline of sheer artistic ability by a superabundance of imaginative detail. The tree-goddess stands at the margin of a small pond. She wears the archaic dose-fitting dress sown with beads that we shall find again in Plate XCI. Her nature is indicated by a conventionalized tree growing out of her head. In one hand she proffers for Userhet’s acceptance a dish of green foliage shaped like the hieroglyph for 'peace-offering' , and on this are piled grapes and figs, a honeycomb, a pomegranate, two white cakes decorated with seeds, and a bouquet of flowers crowning all. In the other hand she holds forth a hes-vase on which Userhet is drawn in the act of adoring Osiris. Cooling draughts of water are cleverly poured from this vase into the goblets to be quaffed by the high­ priest and his female companions. These three are seated on inlaid ebony chairs placed under a leafy fig-tree full of fruit; their feet rest upon plain footstools of a lighter wood of which the graining is carefully rendered. The ladies, as we learn from inscriptions written upon their arms, are respectively Userhet's wife Hatshepsut and his mother Tawosret. All three personages are elaborately clothed and bejewelled, and carry the usual cones of ointment upon their heads. The high-priest wears a pectoral consisting of the auspicious signs for 'stability' and 'life' which we found being carved by craftsmen for decorative purposes in Plate LXII. The slight shading on cheeks and chins is a rare trait that appears for the first time in the second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty (p. 135). The dark line to indicate the dimple at the comer of the mouth was an innovation of the same date. The fruit of the fig-tree is grouped in clusters as in reality, and the bluish tinge on the trunks is also true to nature. Three little birds that may be sparrows hop about among the leaves and peck at the fruit. The larger birds with human faces are, as previously indicated, the souls (bai) of the persons depicted. The two above the ladies undoubtedly be­ long to them. More difficult to explain are the two standing at the brink of the pool and drinking out of their hands, some of the water falling back into the pool. One of them must be the soul of Userhet; not improbably the other is that of his wife. A basket of cakes and vegetables stands before them. It goes without saying that the whole scene is funerary in intent, embodying Userhet's hopes for the thousands of years to be spent in the beyond