Winlock H.E. Models of daily life in ancient Egypt: from the tomb of Meket-Rēʻ at Thebes

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955. — 214 p. — (Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition 18).Among the many discoveries made by Herbert Winlock during the years when he was conducting the excavations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the necropolis of ancient Thebes, perhaps the simplest and yet to him the most intriguing was the find which forms the subject of this volume. No difficulties of dating were involved, for to an Egyptologist so well acquainted with the necropolis its location alone would have been enough not only to indicate the dynasty during which the deposit was made, but even to identify the ruler whom its owner served. There were no problems of reconstruction such as confront the excavator who uncovers the scanty remains of a temple which for many generations has been used as a stone quarry. Here a few dabs of glue and bits of thread were all that was necessary to mend broken joints and torn rigging and to restore the models to their pristine state. The only inscriptions on any of the models were two examples of a text written in the clearest of hieroglyphs and repeating the commonest of offering formulas. Thus no questions could arise either in decipherment or in translation. But in archaeology, generally, and not alone in epigraphy, there is a stage which follows decipherment and translation, and that is interpretation. The study of the models of Meket-Re' involved neither of the first two stages, but the last Winlock attacked with all his vigor. Our acquaintance with the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians is derived for the most part from their tombs. Their chief desire as they contemplated the life after death was to insure a repetition of life on earth, and they painted on the walls of their tombs pictures of their daily activities as well as of the provision and preparation of food, so that their souls in their visits to the offering chambers might enjoy and benefit from these representations. A device which supplemented such tomb pictures arose in the late Old Kingdom and became popular in the Eleventh Dynasty. This was the provision of miniature models depicting activities like those represented on the tomb walls. It is in this category that the models of Meket-Re' belong.