«c\ 



\\ 



ancient eminent domain. The superstructures of these 

 tombs were demolished and their blocks incorporated 

 in the masonry of the causeway. In 1975, a joint Ger- 

 man-Egyptian expedition was excavating and con- 

 solidating Unis's causeway. There they found the 

 reused blocks from Ny-ankh-Khnum and Khnum- 

 hotep's tomb chapel. These have since been recon- 

 structed into a complete chapel. In 1977, Ahmed 

 Moussa and Hartwig Altenmiiller published a formal 

 description of the tomb.' 



This complex array of accidents resulted in a 

 remarkable state of preservation in Ny-ankh-Khnum's 

 and Khnum-hotep's tomb chapel. The rooms are com- 

 plete and retain much of the color applied originally to 



Above: Relief of Armanti 



hounds and trained monkey 



from maslaba of Mereruka, 



Dynasty VI (ca. 2350 b c ), at 



Saqqara. 



Kathenne Rosich 



its sculpted low relief; indeed, this well preserved color 

 helped the Museum's effort to reproduce the color 

 scheme in Unis-ankh's tomb. Among these won- 

 derfully preserved reliefs is the marketplace scene. This 

 represents a complete market, with a personal touch — 

 the barbers and cosmeticians business set up nearby. 

 From later literary texts and tomb paintings and reliefs, 

 it is known that barbers and cosmeticians in business 

 for themselves set up their practice beside markets. 

 Markets were held on specific days of the ten-day- 

 ancient Egyptian week in different towns and villages, 

 and that's where the barbers and cosmeticians set 

 themselves up, attending to all who came to them. Ny- 

 ankh-Khnum and Khnum-hotep had become phar- 

 aoh's barbers and cosmeticians, but in their tomb they 

 represented in the reliefs an earlier stage in their ca- 

 reers, when they operated a private practice at the local 

 marketplace. 



In the topmost register of the four registers form- 

 ing the marketplace relief, the two tomb-owners 

 showed their private practice. They perform their ser- 

 vices for people from all levels of society, from the 

 marsh workers and fishermen to the overseer of an 

 estate seated imperiously on a mat and attended by his 

 own retainer and scribe. The barbering and cosmetics 

 procedures are described in short captions in hiero- 

 glyphs above each scene. The marsh worker at the far 

 left is having his legs massaged (p. 15, top). The next 

 man to the right gets a hair cut. The next is having his 

 pubic hair shaven off; he is a marsh worker so this pro- 

 cedure may have helped him keep clean. The next man 

 gets a shave; behind the operating barber an apprentice 

 barber prepares to hand over a fresh razor, while a 

 standing man described as "teacher" instructs him. The 

 teacher clearly is the master, perhaps either Ny-ankh- 



14 



Right: Relief showing hunting 



on the desert with Armanti 



hounds from mastaba of 



t\/lereruka, Dynasty VI 



Katherine Rosich 



