Interculturalidad Nacional

The images of Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari can be explained by the cult of the pair at Thebes and it is likely that the images depict statues of the pair, as already discussed.

Additionally the depiction of Ahmose-Inhapy and Ahmose-Henut-Tamehu may also be copies of cult images, although the possibility that these scenes were inspired by depictions in other tombs cannot be discounted.163 At Saqqara there is no evidence of a memorial cult of

Menkauhor in the Eighteenth Dynasty but it is probable that there was a pyramid attributed to

161

D00M13, D00M14. 162

D05T01, D05T02, D09T04, D09T05, D09T06, D10T07, D14T10, D14T11. The inclusion of D09T04 accepts the conclusion that the tomb was created in the reign of Amenhotep II and, thus, defines this scene as depicting a royal ancestor without the inclusion of the living king; as noted above (see ch. 3.3.3.1), there is some debate about this.

163

See above, ch. 3.2.5, for discussion of the practice of copying from earlier tombs. The possibility that the tomb of Ahmose-Inhapy was at Thebes has also been discussed.

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him in this region, and so in the absence of a funerary cult this may have served to keep alive his memory. The possibility that there was a cult dedicated to royal ancestors collectively, as opposed to individuals, must also not be discounted, although one would expect a wider range of royal ancestors to be included in tomb depictions if this were the case.164

At Thebes, where the higher amount of surviving evidence allows for analysis of the individuals depicted, the focus is on two figures, Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari. It is, therefore, unlikely that the main aim of these tomb depictions was a historical interest in royal ancestors or a focus on the creation of a genealogy; if this were the case one would expect to see a wider range of royal ancestors depicted,165 or scenes of rows of seated royals as found in the later New Kingdom.166 Instead, the figures are shown singularly or in pairs with no real allusion to their genealogy apart from a small number of scenes which mirror the living king with one royal ancestor. Although this does not preclude there having been a historical interest in deceased royal figures, it does suggest that it was the not the primary aim of the scenes.

One must, therefore, look for an explanation of the decision to depict specific individuals. The most likely reason is that they were based on the cultic images that appeared in festivals. McDowell (1992: 97) writes that the kings depicted in Theban tombs of the later New Kingdom all had (or had had) temples on the West Bank at Thebes and their statues were included in the procession at the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, which may be used to account for the existence of the tomb depictions. Based on the existence of royal memorial

164

Although even at Thebes it is likely that evidence has been lost due to the deterioration of tombs; further scenes of other royal ancestors may, therefore, have been created that have not survived.

165

It is difficult to draw a definitive conclusion based on the evidence at Saqqara due to a lack of surviving images, but the evidence from Thebes suggests that this may have been the case.

166

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estates in the Eighteenth Dynasty and the numbers of personal titles relating to these cults,167 it seems likely that a similar situation can be attributed to the earlier part of the New

Kingdom. However, neither Ahmose-Inhapy or Ahmose-Henut-Tamehu are known to have had temples on the West Bank at Thebes in the New Kingdom;168 this suggests that the existence of a cult temple was not the sole reason for the inclusion of an image in tomb depictions. Of course, it is possible that statues of the two women were still used in festivals and processions and this may account for their inclusion in the tomb scene.169

Looking again at the depictions of Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari, the possible link between festivals and tomb depictions can be examined in more detail. McDowell (1992: 101- 102) notes that there were at least nine festivals of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina in the New Kingdom although whether they correspond to specific events within his reign is uncertain.170 It is, however, possible that royal festivals may have been connected with political events; Barta (1980: 51-52) links the festivals of kings to one of four events, namely death, succession, burial and coronation. Perhaps, then, the appearances of these statues and, by association, the depictions of them within private tombs, may be seen as helping to retain the memory not only of ancestors of the living king but of key events in their reigns. This emphasises their importance as historical devices as well as cultic ones. Of course, it has

167

Royal memorial cults are discussed in detail in the next chapter (ch. 4). Thus far, forty-five individuals have been identified as holding titles relating to royal memorial cults, primarily located in the Theban area (see apps. 11, 12).

168

It is unlikely that they had individual temples dedicated to them, but it is possible that there were dedications to them in temples of other individuals. It should also be noted that the memorial temple of Ahmose, the first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, was located at Abydos and so it is possible that any memorials relating to these two women were also located there, although there is no surviving evidence of them (see Harvey (1998) for details of memorial structures and cults at the site).

169

As already noted, the possibility that scenes from other tombs provided inspiration should also not be discounted.

170 _{McDowell notes the use of the term xa-festival (‘appearance’ festival) for many of the festivals at Deir el-} Medina; she states that a xa-festival of Ramesses III in the later New Kingdom can be shown to correlate with the date of his accession and/or his coronation, and goes on to suggest the possibility that other xa-festivals may also have been linked with key events in the kings’ reigns although this has not been proven (McDowell 1992: 101). See also Helck (1966: 234).

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already been noted that there were at least nine festivals of Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina in the New Kingdom; this is surely too many for each festival to have represented a specific event (especially if Barta’s four categories are used for analysis) and so it must be accepted that not every festival and, ergo, not every depiction, can have retained a memory of a political moment in history. But this does not mean that some of them did not.

Instead of depicting royal ancestors who had not played a part in living memory, therefore, the scenes may show cult statues which the tomb owners had seen in festivals. Perhaps, then, the scenes of deceased royals should be seen as semi-autobiographical rather than purely historic or cultural.171 Should these scenes, then, be included in a discussion about the social memory of Egyptian communities, or should be understood simply as recreations of the life of the tomb owner?

Wang and Brockmeier argue that autobiographical memory172 is not necessarily entirely distinct from the development of social memory; they suggest (2002: 46) that ‘a culture’s practices of autobiographical remembering as well as its prevailing ideas about selfhood play a central role not only in defining the mnemonic registers of the entire sociocultural system, but also in transmitting them from one generation to the next’. They, therefore, see

autobiographical remembering as a highly important part of social memory. They claim, further, that

171

The difficulty of defining scenes as ‘autobiographical’ has been discussed above and only those scenes which show a living king playing a role in the life of the tomb owner have been classified as such, while those scenes which include statues of royal ancestors out of the context in which they were seen in life, are referred to in this study as ‘semi-autobiographical’.

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autobiographical memory and self are two dynamic aspects of the same overarching cultural system. Cultural genres of remembering one’s past and cultural conceptions of selfhood are both raw materials and end products of such interconnected

constructions. In this way, they contribute - in turn - to a culture’s continuity and transformation (Wang and Brockmeier 2002: 50).

This, admittedly lengthy, quotation sums up the important interconnection between personal memory and self, and social identity; one’s own sense of self is deeply intertwined with the wider social and cultural context. Similarly, Mark Freeman (2002: 193) explores how cultural texts and ‘textures’ become woven into the fabric of memory, arguing that in telling one’s autobiography, there is a need to ‘move beyond personal life ... into the shared life of culture’ (Freeman 2002: 194). Arguments such as these support the idea that autobiography, far from being in opposition to social memory, is actually a key aspect both of its creation and of the understanding of it by future generations. Therefore, these ‘semi-autobiographical’ depictions can be seen as an important part of the development of cultural memory within communities, as well as evidence of the place of these memories in the everyday cultic life of the people.