ANCIENT
EGYPT
The History, People and Culture of the Nile Valley
The History, People and Culture of the Nile Valley |
| Writing on the Wall at El Kab The
desire to record for eternity was a fundamental concept of Egyptian writing and
imagery; but when is a record an act of vandalism, as opposed to an exciting
archaeological discovery? Is it just a question of time? Tony Judd found
some food for thought when he visited El Kab, the ancient Egyptian city of
Nekheb. Writing on the wall is a very bad practice, and we can very get angry about it. ‘Who are the people who do it? Why do they make such a mess? How dare they force themselves on my attention like this?’ we mutter to ourselves. ‘It wasn’t like this when I was young.’ That is not true, of course. It has been going on for years and nowhere has suffered more from it than Egypt, as you can see at every ancient site. They say tourism tends to destroy what the tourists go to see and there is no more vivid example of this than Belzoni’s scrawl in Khafre’s pyramid at Giza. ‘Dreadful!’ we say to ourselves when we see it. But then we start to become a bit more inquisitive. It is intriguing to know that he entered the chamber in 1818, the first modern visitor to set foot there. Soon we find ourselves wanting to know more – in spite of ourselves – about these untidy records left behind by our touristic forbears. If we are not careful before long we find Belzoni almost as interesting as Khafre!
A view of the walls of Nekheb El Kab is a splendid site,
well worth visiting for its tombs and temples. It has many beautiful reliefs and
inscriptions, and these have their fair share of defacement. It is a good place
to visit for its antiquities, and also to think about the bad and good points of
the writing on the wall. The road south from Luxor
passes the village of El Mahamid which is squeezed between the railway line and
the hills. South of the village it turns east across a level crossing and then
south again beside the tracks. Soon a long mud-brick wall appears on the other
side of the line, stretching for about 2 km, broken by a single gateway. Because
it lies some way back from the road it is not immediately striking. Only at a
second glance do you realise that it is huge, and that you have reached one of
the great sites of Egypt, El Kab, the ancient city of Nekheb. To tell the truth the walls
are the most impressive feature of the city itself. You can walk along the top
of them to get a good view over the site, but there is little to see. In the
middle of a great expanse of rough overgrown ground there are the remains of a
temple built by Ramesses II, but apart from the bases of the columns of the
hypostyle hall and the choked remnants of the sacred lake it is confusion. There
are traces of Graeco-Roman houses, but in the main it is a desolate and lonely
place, home to the desert foxes and, so they say, to snakes and scorpions. The real interest of El Kab
lies across the road. A grove of trees shades the guardians’ hut, beyond which
the desert opens out with a low range of hills on the left. In these hills are
the tombs and temples, which are well-kept and easy of access. The guardians,
who are not overworked at this infrequently-visited site, are cheerful and
welcoming. A range of 18th dynasty
tombs are open to the public, and they have well-pre-served wall paintings.
Ahmose son of Abana was a successful military man in the army of Amenhotep I and
Thutmose I, and in a no-non-sense way his tomb features a large image of himself
alongside a detailed account of his doings in the wars against the Hyksos. This
is one of the classic New Kingdom hieroglyphic texts, beautifully cut, clear and
legible. Ahmose’s grandson Paheri
has the tomb next door but one. He led a quieter life than his grandfather. He
was mayor of Nekheb during the reign of Thutmose III, and his tomb is decorated
with scenes of the good life. On the left wall there are scenes showing wine,
grain, and meat being produced and brought to Paheri and his wife, and on the
right they are being consumed with gusto at a lavish dinner party, with ranges
of guests, entertainers and servants. The text in Paheri’s tomb
refers briefly to his efficiency as an administrator, and at length to his
vision of paradise in the afterlife. It is a world away from his warlike
grandfather. Sir
Bruce's 'arrogance'
'Sir Bruce' and 'Mr Bocherby's' vandalism A kilometre or two down the
rough road which skirts the hill there is a rock-cut Ptolemaic temple, and
beyond is a small free-standing temple begun by Thutmose IV and finished by his
son Amenhotep III. The walls are covered with scenes of the two kings making
offerings to the gods. They are lively and brightly coloured, and on the whole
in very good condition. However this is where the writers on walls have struck.
In the centre of a picture of a sacred barque appears ‘Sir Bruce and Lady
Chichestcr Dec XXXI 1811’, scratched crudely but deeply in the plaster. What arrogance! Who did this
Sir Bruce think he was?! What was in his mind when he committed this crass
act‘? Did he think he was as important as Amenhotep III, or that in the future
we would care a fig for him? At least Belzoni had the sense to write his name on
a blank wall, but this is as bad as drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. The
worst of it is that other people followed his execrable example, although at
least ‘B Botcherby’, whoever he was, was neater and wrote smaller. This is all very deplorable
and as you look at it you can work up a very satisfactory head of righteous
indignation, but when you step outside the temple again you may have to calm
down a little. For then you notice that the front limestone wall is also covered
with graffiti, although these were not done by some 19th century oaf who
imagined he ruled the world but by people of a much earlier age. There is a
jumble of what look like prehistoric pictures of boats, all mixed up with
animals and inscriptions, and because they are ancient they have quite a
different aura. Thy are archaeology, not vandalism. Thy have historic interest.
You want to know who cut them and when, and what they mean. El Kab has a lot more to
teach about people who write on walls. Near Amenhotep’s temple is the Rock of
the Vultures, an isolated sandstone outcrop in the desert. On the eastern side
of it many people have left their marks in various forms. There are a few
prehistoric pictures of boats and animals, all rather crude and hurried compared
with the more sophisticated examples at Kanais and farther east. There are also
a lot of hieroglyphic inscriptions, beautifully executed, cut with precision on
panels of the rock which have been carefully smoothed in preparation. Among them
are cartouches of Teti and Pepi I of the 6th dynasty. There is what looks like the
beginning of a stela, with a carefully executed picture of two figures sitting
back to back, hut with no text. To the north is another rock face with more
similar inscriptions, and another couple of kilometrcs away across the desert
there is an isolated pillar called the ‘Pigeon Rock’ which has more
predynastic inscriptions. Belgian ExcavationA Belgian team from the
Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels has been digging at El Kab for some
years. They have been investigating various Old Kingdom tombs and there are
brief progress reports in Egyptian Archaeology, nos 15 and 17. Dirk Huyge, one of the
leaders of the work, has put forward interesting ideas about the significance;
of the petroglyphs. Their report is due to bc published shortly, and it will be
interesting to have translations of the inscriptions. One of the difficult points
to be resolved has to do with the boats. The petroglyph boats at El Kab and the
many others deeper in the dcsert have been assumed to be predynastic, at least
5000 years old. If that is the case the similar boats inscribed on the temple of
Amenhotep III, which is less than 3500 years old, must be imitations of the
older ones. Who drew them‘? Why‘? Could we be barking up the wrong tree in
saying that all the petroglyph boats are predynastic.” Could some, or all, of
them really he as late as the New Kingdom‘? Ptolemaic tourist
So here we are, back with Mr
Botcherby and Sir Bruce. If the apparently idle inscriptions on the Rock of the
Vultures and on the outside of the temple are legitimate windows into the past,
presumably the 19th-century scratchings inside the temple should be viewed in
the same way. Perhaps some Ptolemaic
tourist was as angry about the former as we are about the latter. Perhaps it is
only our feeling that we already know the type of man Sir Bruce was and don’t
particularly want to get to know him better that makes us reject his
contribution to the archaeological scene at El Kab, and if we knew as much about
the scratchers of the boats we would find them even more objectionable! Perhaps
in another thousand years’ time historians will be writing as many mono-graphs
about Sir Bruce and his lady as about Amenhotep III! El Kab is a pleasant, uncrowded site with beautiful things to sec, and it has the added attraction at giving the visitor plenty to think about on the drive back to Luxor. Back to Ancient Egypt Magazine - Volume Two Issue Five contents
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