Day 5 - Sacrificial victims

January 9, 2018 

Gallery 104 mostly has fragments of reliefs from the Early Middle Kingdom -- ca. 2125-1981 B.C. (1981, really so precise?) There are some charming images of different species of waterfowl, with beaks of various shapes, perched on papyrus blossoms.

But what arrests me is a small area of a relief from the tomb of Queen Neferu, maybe 6 inches by 9 inches. It shows an offering table (or so the caption says) that appears to be made of wicker (but which, more realistically, I think must be incised stone) upon which are the bodies of two animals -- deer, perhaps? -- lying on their backs and thus upside down, one appearing behind the other. I take them to be dead: their heads hang down at an odd angle that strikes me as physiologically impossible (unless perhaps their throats were slashed), their forelegs are neatly crossed over their chests.

I have seen images of animals being led to slaughter and of butchers at work, but I can't recall seeing an image of sacrificial victims before, They look very dead. I guess if the deceased pharaoh's wife is  to have meat, this is necessary. Come to think of it, if we are to have meat, it's necessary, too. But we don't usually have to confront images of dead animals to remind us of this. Maybe that's why this scene feels shocking.

Above them is another offering, this one far more benign: a tray on which therre appear to be four thick loaves of bread standing on end, along with seven much thinner loaves -- the first grissini?And above these is another image. whose identity I can't really make out. It's a long tube ending in a bell-shaped form, so a trumpet, maybe?