Search results for ""Author Tamás Mekis""

The hypocephalus is an element of Late Period and Ptolemaic funerary equipment – an amuletic disc placed under the head of mummies. Its shape emulates the sun’s disc, and its form is planar, although it occasionally has a concave shape (in such cases, it protects the head as a funerary cap). The earliest known example can be dated to the 4th century BC and the latest to the 2nd/1st century BC. The Hypocephalus: an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Amulet analyses both the written records and iconography of these objects. So far, 158 examples are known; several, unfortunately, from old descriptions only. The relatively low number shows that the object was not a widespread item of funerary equipment. Only priest and priestly families used them, those of Amon in Thebes, of Min in Akhmim, and the ones of Ptah in Memphis. Among the examples, no two are identical. In some details, every piece is an individualized creation. Ancient Egyptian theologians certainly interpreted hypocephali as the iris of the wedjat-eye, amidst which travels the sun-god in his hidden, mysterious and tremendous form(s). The hypocephalus can be considered as the sun-disk itself. It radiates light and energy towards the head of the deceased, who again becomes a living being, feeling him/herself as ‘one with the Earth’ through this energy. The texts and the iconography derive principally from the supplementary chapters of the Book of the Dead. Some discs directly cite the text of spell 162 which furnishes the mythological background of the invention of the disc by the Great Cow, who protected her son Re by creating the disc at his death.

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The Family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy from Thebes (TT 414) revisited provides fresh material about the identity of one of the key figures of the family that reused the Saite tomb of Ankh-Hor (TT 414) in the Asasif from the 4th century BCE onwards. It is the woman Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu, who was previously listed in the genealogical register of TT 414 as Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy’s daughter and wife of one of his sons, Hor. By examining objects found by the agents of the consuls in the 19th century CE and those found by the Austrian mission in the 1970s in TT 414 and in wider Theban contexts, the authors are able to identify Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu, wife of Hor, as another, until now overlooked individual, separate from his sister with the same name. The examination of the funerary assemblage of Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu and of objects belonging to her husband, daughter and sons reveals not only details of Late Dynastic and Ptolemaic burial customs in Thebes but also additional information on the priesthood of Khonsu and of the sacred baboons in this era. This new identification of a previously overlooked person, the mistress of the house and daughter of the first prophet of Amun, Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu (G108 + G137), demonstrates that the finds from TT 414 are still far from being processed in their totality. This material has the potential to provide answers to some of the open questions regarding Late Dynastic/Ptolemaic Thebes and to contextualise funerary assemblages.

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