Nekhen News 11 - Hierakonpolis Online

Masked figure on Two Dog palette
(Ashmolean Museum)
Time did not permit complete excavation of this tomb and
with regret it was reburied to protect it until next season. It is
hoped that further excavation will elucidate the contents of
Tomb 16 and provide hard evidence that the masks were connected
with it. Even in their plundered state, the wealth of the
burials discovered at Locality HK6 is
evident. Aside from the intrinsic value
and beauty of some of the artifacts
found to date, finds like the elephant
burial and pottery masks are providing
new information on the nature of
wealth, ritual and iconography among
the elite residents of early
Hierakonpolis and fresh insights into
Jar R83B from HK6
Ostrich Palette detail
(Manchester Museum)
some of Egypt’s most enduring features.
MASKS were made to serve a religious purpose in the Dynastic
period; the mask was a medium by which the wearer
became a divinity or a conduit for its powers. The funerary
masks placed on the mummified bodies of the dead served to
transform them into spirits born again in the afterlife. The use
of human-faced masks in this context is well documented and
dates back to the Fourth Dynasty. Only future excavation at
HK6 will confirm whether this inception date should be revised
back to the Predynastic.
On the other hand, the question of the extent to which
masks were used by the living in Egyptian religious or funerary
rituals has not yet been satisfactorily answered. Masks in animal
form for ceremonial usage, although suggested in some
depictions, have only rarely been recovered. The highly stylized
nature of artistic representation in the Predynastic and
Early Dynastic period makes it difficult to determine whether
masks are actually being depicted and how and why they may
have been used.
Two plausible examples appear to be worn by hunters on
carved palettes of the late Predynastic period; the “Two-Dog
Seated figures on
ebony label
from Tomb of Hemaka
Palette,” also from Hierakonpolis and the “Ostrich Palette.”
This usage of masks suggests a connection with hunting rituals.
However, other intriguing depictions may be relevant, such
as the seated figures on an ebony label from the Tomb of
Hemaka (Tomb 3035) at Saqqara, dated to the reign of Djer of
the First Dynasty. These have been interpreted as female images
because they lack beards and have plaits rising from the
front of their heads, but they could be wearing feline masks or
represent the repyt or sacred image. A green glazed faience figure
of a man or an ape from the temple of Nekhen at
Hierakonpolis also may be wearing a mask with a wig attached,
as indicated by incised lines that terminate in a rectangle on
the back (below).
At present, we do not know if the Hierakonpolis masks
were worn by the mourners as part of an elaborate funeral ceremony
and then cast aside, or were made for the deceased and
then thrown out of the grave by robbers. Could they be connected
with the attention to the head suggested by the funerary
practices uncovered at HK43? Further excavation may yet tell,
so watch this space.
Faience figure from Nekhen with possible mask, (UC.15012, H: 8.0 cm.)
Vol. 11
1999
5