Representations of Husband and Wife

     A few posts back I talked about dual statues of a husband (Sibe) and wife seated side by side. Representations of a husband and wife together are also common in tomb reliefs. The carving shown here is from the Egyptian Museum in Munich and bears close resemblance to the statue of Sibe shown in a post I did on October 11th.

     This carving is from Dynasty 18 and shows a man and his wife seated side by side. The wife is shown on a smaller scale than her husband, as is normal in Egyptian art. She wears the pleated linen dress common at this time and has a perfume cone on her head. She carries a lotus flower in her right hand and has her left arm wrapped around her spouse's back. All of this is pretty normal for this type of scene.

     The husband also wears a linen garment and wig exactly like those worn by Sibe. In this representation, the tomb owner is shown with his staff of authority rather than the folded handkerchief that Sibe clutches. The couple is shown here seated in front of an offering table piled high with offerings and capped with a lotus flower, which is also quite a common (even cliche) scene in New Kingdom tomb reliefs.