Featured Art
The art on this web site is from Tomb TT255 (except for the piece on the left side of the banner) in the Valley of the Nobles across the Nile from Luxor, Egypt. Tomb TT255 is the Tomb of Roy, Royal Scribe and Steward of the House of Horemheb and Amun. Roy served in this capacity some time between (1320-1290 B.C.). The central image located on the homepage is from the wall on the left-hand side of the tomb’s entrance. It is part of the middle register and depicts Roy and his wife, Nebtawy, seated in front of a priest. The preist stands before an offering of a bundle of onions tied with red and white ribbon.
The image featured at the left-hand column of these web pages is from the ceiling of Roy's tomb. The crosses represent stars in the night sky and the Goddess Nut--Goddess of the Sky and granddaughter of the God Ra. Her celestial husband is Geb, the snake God of the Earth. Nut is often portrayed in Royal tombs as a very long, overarching naked woman stretching across the sky. She swallows the sun in the evening. It passes through her during the various stages of the night, and then she gives birth to the sun in the day. She was originally the Goddess of the night sky, but over time simply became the Goddess of the Sky.
The flower illustration on the header, at the top left corner of these pages, depicts three lotuses in various stages of bloom (these are actually the Nile Lily, which are incorrectly named the Egyptian Lotus). The lotus is the symbol of Upper Egypt, along with the cobra. The papyrus reed and the vulture are symbols of Lower Egypt. The lotus blossom opens in the morning to receive the sun and closes as the sun sets. This served as a symbol of the sun, and as a result the lotus was associated with the God Ra.
When I went to Takht-e Jamshid (Persepolis) in 2002, I noticed the image of this lotus on nearly every structure. Since I knew that workers came from every part of the Persian Empire to assist in building the capitol, I blurted out, "Egyptians!" Our guide concurred and said that they were the chief architects, and so they put their stamp on nearly everything.
Below is a close-up of the priest and the onion bundle offering.
The piece on the left side of the banner is from the ceiling
of KV9, the tomb of Ramses V and Ramses VI, in the Valley of
the Kings. The piece contains epithets of Ramses VI and is of
latter half of the Goddess Nut rebirthing the sun in the cycle
of life and rebirth from the Book of Nut.