TAA i.3.23.19.recto
Page 7 of first draft on shrines, handwritten.
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
were at no loss in this respect. With a thoroughness which has
hardly been excelled, they engraved upon the gold overlay
excerpts 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 of the Netherworld; The “Litany of
the Sun”; and a magical text recounting the “Destruction
of Mankind,” and the establishment in the heavens of the
celestial Cow-goddess. The friezes and <posts> 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; and intimate know-
ledge of construction as well as of the structure and nature of woods.
Cedar wood seems to have been employed throughout for the
planks and boards, while harder and tougher woods, like
oak and Christ’s thorn wood, were used for the cross tongues
that strengthened the joints and held together the various
members and sections. (1)
The more or less standard sizes of the timber employed in
making these shrines, suggests that the ancient Egyptian
joiner, very much like the joiner of our day, had prepared
balks, planks, deals, <x> batterns, and strips, from which he
?