Image Details

THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

FIELD OF REEDS. Based on Spell 110 from the Book of the Dead, this wall painting from the Tomb of Sennedjem and Iineferti offers a picture of the Egyptian afterlife. At the top, Re in the dawn sky (a manifestation of the Egyptian sun god Re) appears in his barque, flanked by baboons. (Because baboons bark at sunrise, Egyptians associated them with appearance of Re at dawn.) Beneath this scene are five registers. In the first, Sennedjem and Iineferti worship five gods: Re in the dawn sky, Osiris, Ptah, and two unidentified deities. Their son Rahotep appears in a boat, and their other son Khonsu performs the opening of the mouth ritual on Sennedjem’s mummy. In the next two registers, Sennedjem and Iineferti plow, plant, and harvest. The bottom two registers show a variety of trees and plants.