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In
the Old Kingdom, small chapels built in temple areas housed statues of the
king, where the royal ka-spirit could receive offerings. In the New
Kingdom, huge ka-statues of the king stood at the entrances to many major
temples. Although most people could not enter the temples, they could come
to the entrances, and these statues became places for people to
communicate with the gods by addressing the king's ka-spirit.
During
the Old Kingdom, statues of the elite were placed in many tomb chapels in
a special room, which today is called a serdab (modern Arabic for
"cellar"). The room was then made inaccessible so that it
connected to the tomb chapel only through a small slot in the wall. Family
members or special funerary priests performed rituals in front of the slot
for the spirit of the deceased. Not all statues were hidden. In rock-cut
tomb chapels, statues were carved out of the walls of the chapel and were
visible to anyone entering to perform the rituals. By the Middle Kingdom,
statues of the deceased, both male and female, had become the ritual focal
point in chapels. And from the Middle Kingdom onward, statues of the
elite, mainly male, were also placed in the outlying areas of the temple
complex. Their purpose was to receive offerings, but they also enabled the
statue owner (through his ka-spirit) to take part in the temple rituals
and the great festivals that were celebrated on behalf of the deity of the
temple.
Beginning
in the late 4th Dynasty statues of servants and peasants were placed in
tombs of the elite to serve them in the afterlife. These servants and
peasants appear in a wide variety of poses, performing tasks such as
grinding grain, baking bread, and brewing beer. What was important in
these sculptures was not the person depicted but the action, which was
meant to benefit the tomb owner in the afterlife. |
