The tomb of Ankhtifi at Mo'alla

 The tomb of Ankhtifi at Mo'alla

In the bottom two registers, cooking scenes are distinguished by their originality and their relatively good conservation (see cm-216).
• The top one of these shows two busy men around a fire of burning coals. The character on the left, sitting on a small wooden cubic seat, holds a long stick at the end of which is staked a set of ribs, held over the embers. Opposite, his assistant is venting the fire to revive the embers and to maintain the heat. Between the two characters is a curious object which seems to finish in duck head or a spatula (see cm-219). The use that could be made of this instrument remains undetermined.
• The scene of the lower register shows a variant of the fashion of cooking: a pot, probably in terracotta, rest on a support, with below it an active fire. Here meat is not roasted, but boiled. On the right of the scene, a man fans the fire to maintain it, whilst moving the other hand, with the help of a stick, to do the culinary preparation. The left character, holding a piece of meat with the right hand, is preparing to plunge it in the pot. With the other hand, he carries to his mouth a piece of meat in order to measure the degree of cooking (see cm-221 and cm-223). It is exceptional to find a scene as natural and realistic in a tomb.


osirisnet,net