Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
HEDVIG GYŐRY: On the Collars of the Gamhud Coffins
CATEGORISATION OF COLLAR DECORATION Since many of the patterns applied to the collars and the neck-bands are identical on both the bulked and the rhomboid type Gamhud coffins, they may be the products of a common workshop, fashioned simultaneously, at least for a certain period. Hence, it would be rather unwise to establish their relative chronology on the basis of their forms and types. The overall view of decoration, the unity of colours, the restricted set of designs, and the homogeneous pattern of decoration: all these point to the existence of a separate, regional tradition. The workshop(s) cannot be localised at this stage; however, judged by the dimensions and especially the weight of the bulked coffins, they must have been made in a nearby Central Egyptian settlement. Unfortunately, only a small number of coffins are comparable with those from Gamhud, as most of the published coffins come from a different region. Conjecture might point to the town of el-Hibeh on the other bank of the Nile, almost exactly opposite to Gamhud, where numerous coffins are known to have been made. Nevertheless, the remarkable difference in the repertory of motifs, their manner of application, and in their place within the overall design seem to contradict this theory. Even the common patterns of collar decoration, such as the chessboard pattern, the rosette, the disk or the wedge-shaped lotus are found on the coffins from el-Hibeh in a different number, context and arrangement. Furthermore, no bulked coffins have so far been attested from el-Hibeh. 83 Thousands of coffins have been fashioned in Akhmim, 84 and in spite of the great distance, the river could accelerate their transport to Gamhud. It is known that both bulked and rhomboid coffins have been made there in great number, and their repertory of motifs stands indeed closer to the Gamhud coffins than that of the el-Hibeh ones; the dissimilarities in the overall pattern of decoration and the style of execution, however, do not allow a direct link between the Akhmim workshops and the Gamhud onc(s) which favoured the simpler motifs. The similarities between the Akhmim and Gamhud coffins suggest that people living in the vicinity of Gamhud used the canals as the main means of transport, and generally stayed on this bank of the Nile. Nevertheless, due to the restricted range of activity, the workshops in Akhmim could only have indirect effect on the smaller-scale coffin manufacture at Gamhud, which was governed by local needs. Unfortunately, nothing is known of the coffins made at this time in the Nome capital Oxyrhynchos, 85 83 Botti 1958 (n. 44), pis. 3-11, 17, 19-20, 24-34, 36-38, 40-48. 84 E.g., The Exhibition 1988-89 (n. 33), no. 123; Andrews 1984 (n. 41), 59, Dd-hr: Akhmim, 250 BC. Cartonnage set see Taylor 2001 (n. 38), no. 51. Collar on Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statuette see Perdu and Mahéo 1994 (n. 41), 101, no. 175. Cf. K. P. Kuhlmann, "Materialien zur Archäologie und Geschichte des Raumes von Achmim," Sonderschrift des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 11 (1983); F. von Känel, "Akhmim et le nome IXe de Flaute Egypte (de la XXVe dynastie à l'époque copte)," in Colloques internationaux du CNRS, no. 59, L'Egyptologie en 1979, Axes prioritaire de Recherche I, Paris 1982, 235-39. 85 The paper read by J. Padro at the IX. ICE Congress at Grenoble, 2004 on the Spanish excavations on the site demonstrates that bulked stone sarcophagi were in use here during the Saite Period.
