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Lamenters

These two women next to the tomb are shown lamenting. They hold their hands upwards and over their heads in an expression of despair. Lamenting is associated with the goddess Isis, whose cries woke up her dead husband Osiris and enabled him to become immortal and enter the afterlife.See: N. Harrington, ‘Times of Interaction between the Living and the Dead: Funerals, Festivals, and Banquets’, in Living with the Dead. Ancestor Worship and Mortuary Ritual in Ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2013), 109.

The lamenters would represent the chaos of death with, for instance, their ripped clothing, nakedness, cries and flailing arms. See: C. Riggs, ‘Mourning women and decorum in ancient Egyptian art’, in E. Frood and A. McDonald (eds), Decorum and Experience: Essays in Ancient Culture for John Baines (Oxford, 2013), 161; 157-158. There was a certain power in the cry of a woman, the release of her powerful voice and body, showing her strength.