Looking A‘head’ to the Egyptian Afterlife

In 1915, when a team of archaeologists from Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts cracked open a tomb in Deir-el-Bersha, Egypt, they found intricate coffins embedded within each other, 55 wooden boats—each distinctly crafted and painted—and beer. Lots of beer. Scattered in disarray throughout the grave were tiny beer jars representative of their larger, real counterparts, miniature models of breweries, and wooden slave figures with the drink balanced on their heads. Apparently, eternal thirst was not an attractive option for the Ancient Egyptians.

It certainly wasn’t for Djehutynakt (pronounced ‘Je-hooty-knocked’), the governor of Middle Kingdom Egypt whose luggage for the spiritual world is the focus of “The Secrets of Tomb 10a: Egypt 2000 BC,” on display at the MFA until May 16. With the contents of one particular grave, the show puts the viewer face-to-face (quite literally) with the Egyptians and their dead.

A full fleet of funerary boats, the symbolic transportation to the afterlife, appears in the exhibition. Each small vessel is about two feet long and carries something different: transport boats have portable cabins in which Djehutynakt could sit; on a fowling boat, one slave steers, while another throws out a net to catch marsh birds.

Nearby, painted wooden slaves work at routine tasks. There are also bakeries, granaries, and tables laden with food—Djehutynakt apparently spared no daily comforts when planning for the afterlife. The statues are rudimentary. The slaves walk with stiff, jointless limbs, and their figures seem to lurch rather than to move. Despite their rigidity, the figures exude a captivating energy. Several models show slaves feeding oxen, the prostrate beasts reaching their heads forward to the hands of the kneeling slaves. This is an aspect of Egyptian life not captured in the impersonal statues of kings.

Informative labels, peppered throughout the show, describe the particulars of Egyptian rituals and religion. Large, colorful boards explain the process of discovering, restoring, and understanding the objects that are displayed. They give the exhibition a scholarly tone and direct the viewer through the process of archaeology, rather than simply expose its results.

Mimicking the discovery, the exhibition moves from within the tomb to inside the coffin. The panels of the coffin are intricately painted with images for the afterlife. In a presentation scene, Djehutynakt sits before a crowd of gifts, including jars, birds with interlocking heads, gazelle-like creatures, and even an eviscerated ox. The painting is sophisticated—the governors’ legs are colored in two different shades of red to create foreground and background—and the detail is impressive.

Prayers and guides to the underworld cover the wood. One panel features Djehutynakt’s conversation with Ra during his passage through the underworld. Fragments of the hieroglyphs, translated for the viewer, suggest a vision of the afterlife that could rival Dante’s. “Dog-face, whose shape is big. This is a spell for passing by him,” one segment reads.

Finally, nestled in the center of the exhibition, is the ultimate encounter: the mummy itself. Only the head remains, a brown, distorted thing, its features drooping after chemical alterations and years underground. The process of mummification altered the face so much, a panel informs, that the priest in charge of preparing the body would recreate the face before burial. Today, the head looks more alien than human.

In their rush to loot the tomb, robbers severed the head from its body, and it is unknown today whether the head belonged to the governor or to his wife. But here again, the exhibition highlights archaeological advancement in relation to the object itself. A video explains how DNA testing is currently answering this century-old question.

The focus on archaeological process over product, and artifact over art, distinguishes “The Secrets of Tomb 10a” from many Egyptian exhibitions, where typically a hodgepodge of statues and jewelry leave the viewer awestruck, but distanced from the culture itself. Nothing from Tomb 10a is monumental; no one artwork stands out as particularly impressive. Tomb robbers, a panel informs early on, got to the grave before the archaeologists did, seizing everything perceived to have value: jewelry, ornaments, and large statues. But an inspection of what remains brings the viewer closer to the past and those who unearthed it.

—Staff writer Madeleine M. Schwartz can be reached at mschwart@fas.harvard.edu.