martes, 3 de febrero de 2015

TT6, the tomb of Neferhotep and his son, Nebnefer .

A couple sit in front of a table, playing the board-game senet.
 This is connection with Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead: "Formulae for transfigurations and glorifications, for going out of the empire of the dead and return to him; to be a blessed in the good West; going out by the day, taking any form desired to be taken, to play the board-game senet sitting in the pavilion; to leave in the living ba, the Osiris, Neferhotep, after his death." (Barguet). In the Ramesside period, the game of senet had only one player, the deceased, without a visible opponent in front of him. But the opponent exists, it is death, forgetfulness, failure in the course in the hereafter, and finally it is a summary of the path which the deceased follows in the underworld, he must emerge victorious. This is illustrated, for example, in the commentary accompanying the identical scene in the tomb of Inerkhau, TT359: "(...) May I move the pieces by placing them where I want (...) May I fight like a god against the opponent and see Neith (...) let my heart be insightful without being negligent, may my heart be clever to guess the game (the opponent) against me and his pawns turn around (against him), can his fingers become disturbed, and his heart leave the place so that he doesn't know (how) to respond." (Cherpion). This idea to play his destiny against death will be taken by Ingmar Bergman in the movie "The Seventh Seal" (see screen capture): here also death is invisible for all the characters, except for the knight who seems to play alone.
As often in this type of representation, two ba-birds are found: they are perched in front of the right-hand part of the roof of the structure, in front of the small bowl containing bread; a Wedjat eye was added to fill the space (see tb-1730-02).


 TT6, the tomb of Neferhotep and his son, Nebnefer .

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