They were
all members of the king's harim, and they bore the title of "King's
Favourite." As told in a previous chapter, all were buried at one
time, before the final completion of the temple, and it is by no means
impossible that they were strangled at the king's death and buried round
him in order that their ghosts might accompany him in the next world,
just as the slaves were buried around the graves (or secondary graves)
of the 1st Dynasty kings at Aby-dos. They themselves, as also already
related, took with them to the next world little waxen figures which
when called upon could by magic be turned into ghostly slaves. These
images were _ushabtiu,_ "answerers," the predecessors of the little
figures of wood, stone, and pottery which are found buried with the
dead in later times. The priestesses themselves were, so to speak, human
_ushabtiu,_ for royal use only, and accompanied the kings to their final
resting-place.
With the priestesses was buried the usual funerary furniture
characteristic of the period. This consisted of little models of
granaries with the peasants bringing in the corn, models of bakers and
brewers at work, boats with their crews, etc., just as we find them
in the XIth and XIIth Dynasty tombs at el-Bersha and Beni Hasan. These
models, too, were supposed to be transformed by magic into actual
workmen who would work for the deceased, heap up grain for her, brew
beer for her, ferry her over the ghostly Nile into the tomb-world, or
perform any other services required.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353