Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/391

 The Tomb under the New Empire. 301 just because no trees could flourish in the Theban rocks, at least in the higher part of the necropolis. In those districts which border closely upon the irrigation channels, the tombs seem to have had their gardens and fountains. Palms and sycamores appear to have been planted about them, and here and there, perhaps, the care of survivors succeeded in rearing flowers which would shed their perfumes for the consolation of the dead.^ Were there statues in the courtyards by which many of these tombs were surrounded ? There is no doubt that such statues were placed in the rock-cut sepulchres ; all the museums of Europe have specimens which come from the Theban tombs. The latter were opened and despoiled, however, at such an early period that very few of these figures have been found in place by those who have visited the ruins of Egypt for legitimate motives. We have, however, the evidence of explorers who have penetrated into tombs which were practically intact. They tell us that the statue of the deceased, accompanied often by that of his wife and children, was placed against the further wall of the innermost chamber.'^ In some tombs, a niche is cut in the wall for this purpose,^ in others a dais is raised three or four steps above the floor of the chamber.^ Here, too, is found the sar- cophagus, in basalt when the defunct was able to afford such a luxury, and the canopic vases, which were sometimes of stone, especially alabaster, sometimes of terra cotta, and now and then of wood, and were used to hold the viscera of the deceased. These vases were four in number, protected respectively by the goddesses Isis, Nephtys, Neith, and Selk (Fig. 196). During the period of which we have just been treating, the taste for these huee rock-cut tombs was not confined to Thebes and ' Masveko, Rcaiei! de Travaiix, o.. Y>- 105. The formula which is generally found upon the funerary steles of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties hints at this : " That I may walk daily upon the border of my fountain ; that my soul may rest upon the branches of the funerary garden which has been made for me, that each day I may be out under my sycamore ! " These desires may be taken literally, as is proved by two steles in the museums of Turin and Boulak, which bear representa- tions of tombs upon their lower portions. The latter, which we reproduce, comes from the Theban necropolis. ^ Most of these statues were of calcareous stone, but in the Descriptiofi de r Egypte {Af2tiquites, vol. iii. p. 34) two granite ones are mentioned. ^ In the tomb of Amenemheb, for instance, discovered by Professor Ebers. See also Description de l' Egypte, vol. iii. p. 41.
 * Description de r Egvpte {Antiquites, vol. iii. p. 34).