Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
HEDVIG GYŐRY: On the Collars of the Gamhud Coffins
masks 69 and on cartonnage usekh collars. 70 Despite its otherwise wide-spread usage, the pattern was only of minor significance at Gamhud. Vertical zigzag pattern The vertical zigzag pattern is typical for a group of coffin-collars in Budapest, and occurs, though rarely, on neck-bands, too; 71 moreover, on a bulked coffin in Cairo, the pattern adorns the semicircular central element of the collar. 72 Red and blue as well as red and green motifs follow each other at regular intervals. The feature appears on both bulked and rhomboid coffins, and the columns on the leg-panels of Gamhud coffins are often found decorated either with this zigzag pattern, in this case arranged horizontally, or with the disk pattern. This particular pattern is a popular one on the collars and neck-bands of Gamhud coffins in Cairo, Vienna or Werl. 73 Quite surprisingly, the pattern has been attested outside of Gamhud only on a coffin from Abusir el-Meleq. 74 Wedge-shaped lotus pattern One of the most common patterns on Gamhud collars is the stylised lotus, 75 which used to recur on the same collar so often that it constitutes every second row. 1. The pattern is governed by the wedge-shaped lotus design positioned upsidedown, which is drawn usually with a double, rarely with a simple black line. The upward-looking wedges further split into three horizontal units in the middle, and two vertical ones in their lower section. Generally, more variants of the pattern are known from the same collar. la. The triangles between the wedge-shaped motifs are drawn with a double line, their interiors are painted green. The middle unit of the standing wedge-shaped motifs is red, whereas the neighbouring ones were left undecorated. From the vertical ones, the two side units were coloured red, e.g., on coffin inv. no. 51.2001 or were adorned 69 Ägyptisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, ed. K-H. Priese, Mainz 1991, 214-15, no. 131 : Hawara, 100 BC; Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim. Die Ägyptische Sammlung, ed. A. Eggebrecht, Mainz 1993, 104, fig. 99; D. C. Patch, Reflections of Greatness. Ancient Egypt at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburg 1990, 101, no. 82. 70 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. 94-196-201, see Das Vermähtnis der Pharaonen - 3500 Jahre ägyptische Kultur. Meisterwerke aus der ägyptisch-orientalischen Sammlung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien, ed. W. Seipel, exh. cat., Museum Rietber, Zurich 1994, nos. 196-201. 71 Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. nos. 51.1988, 51.1989, 51.1993, 51.1998, 51.2005, 51.2008, 51.2013, and 51.2016; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. nos. ÄS 6689 and ÄS 6691; on the neckbands: Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. nos. 51.1989, 51.1993, and 51.2005. 72 The Cairo Museum, inv. no. TR23-15-16-10. 73 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. nos. ÄS 6689, ÄS 6691, and ÄS 6692; Germer 1995 (n. 49). 74 V. Schmidt, Sarcophager, Mumiekister og mumiehylstre i det garnie Aegypten. Typologisk Atlas med indledning, Copenhagen 1919, 240, no. 1392. 75 An inscription in Dendera reports (IV, 233-34) that the usekh-zoW.&x was composed of 9 rows of lotus petals, see Fr. Daumas, "Sur trois représentations de Nout a Dendara," Annales du service des antiquités de l'Egypte 51 (1951), 381-82.
