Relief of Women in a Boat

Saite tomb relief from the north - Memphis and the Delta - exhibits new subject matter starting roughly in the sixth century. This includes idealized rural vignettes of females boating, dancing, or involved in agrarian activities. Such scenes are enlivened by a smooth and lithe figural style especially among non-focal figures.

Although the original location of this block is not known, the scene is a good representative of northern tomb relief as it has been gathered and studied, and the block is testimony of rare subject matter. A group of women travel in a papyrus skiff. In the prow a woman with a long pole punts the craft. Behind her a woman sits low in the bottom of the boat holding a rectangular lyre. A third figure stands with her body facing the viewer, her dress raised to expose herself; she beats one hand against her thigh in time with the music. The figure in the rear of the boat hunches forward, her arm raised behind her; although the figure is broken away, parallels suggest she probably slapped her bare buttocks to the beat. In front of the boat may be seen the stern of another boat. The register above this scene, preserved a bit at the upper left of the block, appears to have depicted offering bearers: traces show a larger figure headed to the left, who who holds an object that looks a bit like a surprise ball or a party favor but that represents a bundle of mats, an accessory often carried by offering bearers; a smaller figure faces the larger, probably the bearer's child, clinging to and impeding the parent.

The boating scene recalls the orgiastic festivals on the Nile at Bubastis described by the Greek author Herodotus when he visited Egypt in the fifth century BC - drunken, libidinous celebrations probably connected with the return of the Faraway Goddess, Bastet, from Nubia. The block fits with the new subject matter noted above for northern Saite tombs, although it represents particularly specific acts. The subject matter of the period in general has a good deal in common with scenes on faience chalices and metal bowls and other small artworks from the Third Intermediate Period and Saite Period, but probably derived most directly from similar scenes in temple contexts of which we have only a few hints left.