TAA i.3.23.44
Page 3 of Carter's typescript notes on shrines.
The whole text or part of the text is fully struck through on this page but is not indicated in the transcription. On this page, strikethrough formatting is reserved for the author’s edits and deletions within the main body of the text, which would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.
© Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford
3
of their sides, which gives them an air of both strength
and repose. /
The incised and bas-relief work upon the panels has
considerable architectural value, and to decorate them
with any completeness there must be subject material.
Those ancient Egyptians / were at no loss in this respect.
With a thoroughness which has hardly been excelled, they
engraved upon the gold overlay excerpt<t>s from the intricate
systems connected with the dead: The “Book of what is in
the netherworld”, describing the various regions traversed
by the sun-god during his nocturnal journey underground from
west to east; the “Book of Gates,” dealing with the topography o
the netherworld; the “Litany of the Sun”; and a magical
text recounting the “Destruction of Mankind,” and the estab-
lishment in the heavens of the celestial cow-goddess. The
friezes and styles are filled with designations of the king;
the dadoes are enhanced by an arrangement of engraved shallow
panels (see fig. ..); while a rectangular ornament travels
round and frames the doors.
The joinery of these shrines shows much skill, an inti-
mate knowledge of construction as well as of the structure
and nature of woods. Cedar wood seems to have been empl<o>yed
throughout for the planks and boards, while harder and tougher woods,
like oak and Christ’s t/<T>horn wood, were used for the
cross-tongues that strengthened the joints and held to-gether
the various members and sections. <(A) This system of employing the
<adapting the> different structure and properties of the woods is xxx[?]/<conforms> with themost modern rules of <in the work[?] of> joinery>
The more or less standard sizes of the wood/<timber> employed in
making these shrines, suggests that the ancient Egyptian
joiner, very much like the joiner of our day, had sawn/<prepared> balks,
planks, deals, batterns, and strips, from which he shaped his
work. In Fact, so much were the methods employed by those