Sensuous Experience, Performance, and Presence in Third Intermediate Period Biography
Sensuous Experience, Performance, and Presence in Third Intermediate Period Biography
Chapter:
(p.153)
9 Sensuous Experience, Performance, and Presence in Third Intermediate Period Biography
Source:
Ancient Egyptian Literature
Author(s):
Elizabeth Frood
Publisher:
British Academy
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197265420.003.0009
This chapter analyses biographical motifs relating to sensory experience found in inscriptions largely belonging to one tenth-century bc priestly family in Thebes. The four statues which are the focus of discussion (CG 42225; CG 42226; CG 42227; CG 42228) were dedicated in the temple precinct of Karnak by Hor IX for himself, his ancestor, and his wife. Inscriptions on a statue of Horakhbit I (CG 42231) from Karnak are also treated. Celebration of the senses is found in these texts through the fusion of biography with themes known from harpists' songs, a genre previously associated with tombs; the use of myrrh, a pleasurable and ritual substance; and through phraseology that mobilises the sensuous geographies of sacred space. Study of how such motifs relate to other features of biography across the statues offers insights into transformations of more than one genre and developments in the function of statues in temples.
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