Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
HEDVIG GYŐRY: On the Collars of the Gamhud Coffins
Chessboard pattern Relatively many coffins in our collection have their collars decorated with a chessboard pattern in the central part and the same motif is regularly applied on the collar-bands, 16 but more often on both units at the same time. The grid was drawn in black and the squares were then filled with red, green and blue colours, or were simply left white. The unicoloured squares form several transversal bands by touching each other at their corners. This procedure is, however, uncommon in the central part (only on coffin inv. no. 51.2018/1), where red squares alternate with white ones conforming exactly to the chessboard model. 17 Similar arrangement of squares can be detected on the bulked coffins in Cracow and Cairo. 18 On the cartonnage collars, which have been retrieved from the Gamhud coffins in Budapest, the grid displays a greater variety of colours. 19 The chessboard pattern on coffin inv. no. 51.1998 is indeed unique. Small rectangles replace the squares, and within the grid each row is drawn aside with a half rectangle in relation to the next row below. Judged from the traces of paint, the rectangles have been filled with the usual colours. This chessboard pattern emerged on coffin-collars as early as in the New Kingdom 20 and remained in use later on; it appears even on the collars of minor bronze figurines. 21 Its application on Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuettes well demonstrates how popular this pattern could have been. 22 16 Inv. nos. 51.1992, 51.1993. 51.1997, 51.1998, 51.1999, 51.2000, 51.2012, 51.2014, and 51.2018/1; on the collarbands: inv. nos. 51.1988, 51.1999, 51.1993, 51.1997, 51.1999, 51.2000, 51.2001, 51.2013. 51.2014, and 51.2016. 17 Inv. nos. 51.1992, 51.1997, 51.2012. 18 See K. Babraj and H. Szymanska, The gods of Egypt, Archeological Museum in Crakow, Crakow 2000, 104-5, no. 57; 114 15, no. 61 ; Kamal 1908 (n. 1 ), 223-24, pl. 1. and other, yet unpublished coffins in the magazine of the Cairo Museum. (I would like to take this opportunity to thank Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of SCA and Wafaa Abd-el Saddik, General Director of the Cairo Museum, for allowing me to carry out a short research in the Cairo Museum Register Books and magazine in summer 2004. Special thanks must go to May Trad for her support in finding some of the Gamhud coffins in the magazine, and Ibrahim Abdel Gawad for his help in the documentation of the two Gamhud coffins in the Cairo Museum exhibition.) 19 Inv. nos. 51.2116, 51.2125, 51.2531, and 52.638. 20 B. V. Bothmer, Brief Guide to the Department of Egyptian and Classical Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn 1974, 48; W. V. Davies, Colour and Painting in Ancient Egypt, London 2001, pis. 53,3^1; About the Late period see G. Kueny, Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Collection égyptienne, Paris 1979, 104-5, no. 124: Thébes?; P. Lacovara and B. T. Trope, The Realm of Osiris. Mummies, Coffins, and Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Atlanta 2001, 56; E. Feucht, Vom Nil zum Neckar. Kunstschätze Ägyptens aus pharaonischer und koptischer Zeit an der Universität Heidelberg, Berlin 1986, 125-27, no. 279. 21 E.g. for Karomama, see G. Andreu, M-H. Rutschowscaya, and Ch. Ziegler, L' Egypte ancienne au Louvre, Paris 1997, 176, no. 86. 22 E.g. Sotheby's Antiquities and Islamic Art, June 12, 2001, New York, 142, no. 216.
