The ancient Egyptian idea of the afterlife was that an individual would continue to live, but as a spirit, not as a physical body. As a living being, like all living beings, it needed a place to stay. And this is what the tomb was.
It's like a house. The burial chamber below ground is the bedroom. This is where the spirit sleeps. night. In the morning it wakes up, it comes out of the bedroom into the public rooms of the house, which are what we call the chapel.
So, Pereneb was never buried in the building that we have here in the museum. These are the public rooms of his house. His burial chamber is still in Egypt. To the ancient Egyptians, the world was peopled not only by the physical beings that they could see, but also by the spirits of the deceased. The world of what we call the dead was part of the world of living in ancient Egypt.
Egyptian times. So let us imagine the family they came to this tomb after he was dead and buried in his deep down burial chamber and they would have come through this narrow lane into the entry and first through a little vestibule without decoration you just see the marvelous large stones then you come into this courtyard open to the sky you came into the courtyard as you would come into the courtyard of a farmhouse. This was really an intimate space.
Family would have bought food in the way of offerings. They would have bought vegetables, meat, fish, fowl, all nicely prepared. Because the Egyptians realized that food and drink have something to do with life. So what they're presenting in the offerings is the life force. When they enter the tomb chapel of Pernib, they would see what's known as a false door.
It's the focal point of every tomb. It's made out of stone, and it doesn't open, but it represents a real doorway. After waking up, the spirit comes out of the burial chamber and through the false door.
Partakes of the life force in the food and then proceeds through the tomb to the world of the living. You go into the tomb of Per Neb. You will see images of Per Neb facing outward because his spirit is coming out of the false door and you see images of the living going into the tomb towards the false door.
Most of the images are scenes of offering bearers, people bringing in the kind of lavish meal that ideally everyone would want whether in this world or in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians had no word for art. All the reliefs and the sculptures and the paintings that we call Egyptian art, all of it served a purpose.
But its purpose was not to be beautiful. Its purpose was to be functional. The decoration is... fundamentally there to make sure that this bringing of food really takes place. Egyptians believed firmly in that, that what is there as depiction is real.
All those people who... walk towards Pernep with their food offerings. There's so much to observe about how they carry and what is there.
On the wall opposite the false door we have this glimpse into a butcher's shop. And of course they are producing the meat for the offerings, but at the same time we really can see how this shop worked. Some of the inscriptions tell us what these butchers say to each other.
So one said, cut it off. The other one says, I'm doing this to your satisfaction and so on. So we even have a little possibility to hear their voices. Paranap's tomb also has to the side of what we call the offering chamber, the main focal point of the tomb.
There's another room which is not decorated, but it was also a place for offerings. There's a slot in the wall. Behind this slot, in what Egyptologists call the serdab, stood a statue of the deceased.
Looking out into the offering chamber, seeing the people. who came to leave offerings. There's a wall there. You can see the image, but you can't get to it.
It's really a psychological tool for the living. You may believe with all your heart and know even that someone you loved is still alive in spirit form, and yet you just can't touch them. you can't contact them because they're no longer physically in the world.