Deir el-Medina, Tomb TT1, SENNEDJEM , son of Khabekhnet and Tahennu

Deir el-Medina, Tomb TT1, SENNEDJEM , son of Khabekhnet and Tahennu

The upper register of the west side of the south wall

Deir el-Medina, Tomb TT1, SENNEDJEM , son of Khabekhnet and Tahennu

Above the banquet is a scene of funeral vigil of the mummy, which occupies the whole upper register on this side of the entry. This is a another vignette concluding §17 of the Book of the Dead, which began in the entrance. It probably also makes reference to a ceremony which would have been held in the courtyard of the chapel before the burial.

A light construction, in wood and canvas, protects the mummy of Sennedjem. The beautiful red material, heightened of pendants, appropriate to the Osirian context, is often found.

A lion-styled bed (head, tail and paws) expresses the arrival at the end of the journey, at the horizon of the western sky. The beautiful anthropoid coffin, the main body of which is enclosed prophylactic bands on which text would have been written, lays with the head towards the west, the domain of the deceased. It is protected by two milans (and not falcons as one sometimes reads) representing the two goddess sisters, Isis and Nephthys. They wear on top of their heads the hieroglyph of their name.

Isis is at the feet and behind her is the text, a reminder of her functions; she is "the great divine mother, mistress of the sky, wife of all gods".

Nephthys, "powerful in speech, mistress of the sky, mistress of the two lands", who has the power to transfuse the vital fluid, is at the head, and proclaims : "I come to protect the Osiris, the servant in the Place of Truth, Sennedjem".

Why were these birds of prey chosen as icons for the goddesses ? Could it be because their shrill cry is a reminder of eastern laments, a cutting sharp scream, which usually accompany funeral vigils ?

In accordance with the well known Osirian myth, the sisters watch over the deceased, the new Osiris, as they watched over their brother (husband of one, lover of the other) the dead Osiris.

So the assimilation of Sennedjem with the Great God appears complete. Notice the spatial disposition : this scene is inseparable from that of the mummy's revivification by Anubis, which faces it on the north wall, because the god and the two goddesses act jointly to bring the Osiris back to life.

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