Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
HEDVIG GYŐRY: On the Collars of the Gamhud Coffins
disk ornaments. 28 The pattern occurs on the Gamhud coffins in Cairo, Cracow (on the bulked coffin of Iri-khet-es), or on the Gamhud cartonnage collars in Budapest. 29 Nevertheless, the use of the pattern seems to be rather restricted and is attested only exclusively on coffins from other regions. 30 Grid pattern The collars and neck-bands of most of the Gamhud coffins in Budapest, and these in Vienna and Cairo, too have been applied with the grid pattern. It consists of three horizontal lines and many vertical ones at regular intervals. In the Budapest group, only once, on coffin inv. no. 51.2007 was the central element decorated with the same pattern. Not infrequently, only the red line running in the middle is visible, since the rest of the pattern was originally painted light blue, which has been faded away. Two coffins, on the other hand, differ in respect that the long middle line is light blue and the two bordering ones are red, 31 while on the collar of a rhomboid coffin inv. no. 51.2018/2, the upper section of the vertical lines have been distorted into a wedge shaped design, and below a short red stroke has been inserted in between. The pattern could be found on other Gamhud coffins in Vienna, Cairo and also on the Werl coffin. 32 In general, this grid pattern seems to have been sparsely used on collars; I could only find it in the published material from Akhmim, 33 although here it was painted in one colour only. Another lid, exhibited in the Cairo Museum, upstairs coffin hall, displays the same monochrome pattern, the provenience of which, however, is unknown. A special variant of the grid pattern occurs on the lid of the rhomboid coffin inv. no. 51.2018/2: the middle red horizontal line is interrupted sporadically by a ring, and a blue vertical line is placed between two successive rings. Such an arrangement engendered a square-like pattern, flanked symmetrically by two red and one blue marks. The unit recurs many times on the same collar. A similar feature has been detected on another rhomboid coffin in Cracow. 34 It reminds me of a pattern seen on stone sarcophagi, which has been identified tentatively as a stylised Potamogeton lucens. 35 28 E.g. FI. Pétrie, Lahun II, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, London 33 (1923), pl. LXII, no. 58; Akoris, Report of the Excavation at Akoris in Middle Egypt 1981-1992, Kyoto 1995, 229-30, fig, 157, nos. 17-18. 29 See Kamal 1908 (n. 1), 25; Babraj and Szymanska 2000 (n. 18), 104-5, no. 57; Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. nos. 51.2117/2, 51.2131/1, 52.638, and 56.99-E. 30 I could trace it only on the stone sarcophagus of Hpr-r* from Gisa, see Buhl 1959 (n. 27), no. B 1 a: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 30.834. Cf. Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 30 (1932), 89; Egyptian Sculpture from the Gubelkian Collection, Washington 1949, 66, and on a mummiform wooden coffin in Saqqara, see Ashton, Raven, and Taylor 1991 (n. 15), pi. 29, coffin no. 59. 31 Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. nos. 51.1997 and 51.2016. 32 Vienna, Kunsthistorisehes Museum, inv. nos. ÄS 6688, 6691, and 6692; Die Mumie im Forum der Volke?-, ed. R. Germer, Werl 1995. 33 See The Exhibition of Art Treasures of Ancient Egypt, Tokyo National Museum, Japan 1988-89 (henceforth abbreviated The Exhibition), no. 123. 34 On a bulked coffin in Cairo, or on a rhomboid coffin in Krakow, see Babraj and Szymanska 2000 [n. 18], 78, no. 56: which is reported, however, to have originated from el-Hibeh. 35 See Buhl 1959 (n. 27), 157.
