This scene is famous, but the photos and drawings in Davies' publication prove that it has suffered much damage since the tomb was discovered. Userhat, in his robes of office, is seated close to his mother and his wife in a large, gilded ebony chair, his feet on wooden foot-rests. Their hearts are refreshed in the shade of the sacred tree, whose leafy branches trail to the ground. Two soul-birds have just flown down from the upper left corner and alighted on the edge of a T-shaped pond to drink the fresh water (view 56). Like a canal ending at a quay, this pond in another context symbolises the return of the inundation and resurrection itself. The theme of the tree goddess, which goes back to the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, remained a favourite subject for painters and draughtsmen, who could give free rein to their imagination. |