Ancient Egyptian art is just so amazing. It looks so formulaic. And yet, last Saturday, (actually, seven days ago now cause no wifi), eight people in our small group, including Craig, were brought actually to tears by getting to spend just 15 minutes with art that was a husband's way of honoring a beautiful young woman, his queen, 3,300 years ago.
The name of the Queen is Nefertari, the beautiful one, and I'm sure our experience of it was augmented by two things. One was that we had descended way down underground into a vast pillared room and many hallways also of beautiful painted images, with perfect lighting and perfect silence in this ancient space. The other was what we'd learned before we went: about how in Egyptian thinking a dead soul could be greeted lovingly and defended faithfully by many animal headed gods that we would not naturally know were benevolent. But now that we know that a cobra is a protective being, the heads of crocodiles and Jaguars mean good things, we were well prepared to get so much out of it.
We could not take photos inside Nefertari's tomb, nor be in there for more than fifteen minutes and that be special permission, but we do have a book by Kent Weeks that shows some beautiful photos of these tombs,
Here is Ma'at, the goddess of balance and Justice (pono, Hawaiians might say), who balances your heart against a feather,
Nefertari herself is so beautiful:
And here is the soul of Nefertari, clad in sheer linen, being taken sweetly g by the hand of the welcoming divine beings.
We saw so many beautiful images in this tomb and then, today, in the Valley of the Kings, about five others that we loved: the tombs of another queen, tausert, who ruled as Pharoah, and the tombs of Seti I, Thutmose III, and Ramses VI.
The most beautiful images again
The sun every night is swallowed by Nut the goddess of the night and it travels through her long snakelike body overnight
Here's a closeup of Nut swallowing the sun
Meanwhile constellations of stars appear in Seti's tomb. Don't have picture of all, just this:
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