Tomb Of Ti Analysis

After the impressive innovation of pyramids through Egypt’s Old Kingdom phase during 2575-2040 BCE, the construction of Tomb of Ti took place in Saqqara, Egypt. Saqqara served as the necropolis, or city of the dead, for Egypt’s capital of Memphis at the time. The tomb belonged to the royal family of the fifth dynasty official Ti and provided an excellent source of evidence for what daily life was like in the Old Kingdom through narrative artwork of painted reliefs. Nevertheless, the tomb serves the same purpose as others in the surrounding area to assist a spirit of the deceased into the afterlife, but the Tomb of Ti has its own unique aesthetic style when dealing with the simplistic images throughout it. The daily life subjects depicted

in its reliefs may seem basic and ordinary even for a royal official, but they carry a great deal of symbolism and deeper meaning in a painstakingly detailed and vivid manner.
Though the architects did not build the tomb as a pyramid, its extravagance remains nonetheless of any of the great superstructures that came before it. In an architectural aspect, unique qualities endure throughout the tomb, regardless of the fact that the builders developed the structure similarly to others of its time. The tomb classifies as a mastaba, “a rectangular superstructure…built of mud brick or, later, stone, with sloping walls, a flat roof, [and] a deep shaft [descending] to the underground burial chamber.” Mastabas in the Old Kingdom were not as commonly built for royal family entombment unlike in the early dynastic periods several hundred years before, due to the innovation of step pyramids around the year 2600 BCE, which later evolved into true pyramids. Mastabas initially housed single burials and later accommodated space for multiple families. Just a few of its contents would include the burial chamber with the sarcophagus, funerary statues of the deceased, and carved reliefs along the walls and pillars. Ti’s mastaba held the basic components of a typical mastaba with a funeral space, a chapel, a set of false doors, a storeroom, and a serdab room to hold the statue of the dead, but Ti’s tomb also contained a pillared courtyard, an unusual feature for mastabas built at this time. Likewise, throughout the entire mastaba, brightly painted reliefs cover the walls, effectively serving as a tool to uncover the eventful life of this man named Ti and others living nearby during the time of the Fifth Dynasty.
This specific mastaba belonged to the royal family, but Ti himself was not initially entitled as royal. Before having a higher rank in Egyptian society, Ti first served as a regal hairdresser. He then married into the royal family, which subsequently granted him control over several mortuary temples, pyramids, royal farms, ponds, and supplies of goods. Ti even helped improve the parts of the estate he managed himself. As a newly rich man, he hired the finest craftsmen of the time to construct the tomb. Ti’s painted reliefs of daily deeds of managing the estate serve as a pictorial celebration of his achievements even into the afterlife. Though activities such as farming, hunting, cooking, or tending to livestock for example seem basic, each relief remains more like a narrative story containing symbolism and a greater significance than solely serving as decoration.
At first glance, the reliefs serve as perhaps the most visually striking component of the tomb. Majority of the carvings show portraits of Ti as the subject, seeing that the deceased commonly became a decorative feature of his or her final resting place. The most collective group of reliefs in this tomb illustrates agricultural and hunting events, though the tomb in its entirety contains a vast amount of different subjects. When taking a closer look at the aesthetics of the tomb however, the artists involved carefully and thoroughly carved their reliefs into the limestone with great detail. Before this could happen, they needed a set of guidelines to follow. Generally in Egyptian tomb art, the artists avoided sketching their subjects from life due to the immense amount of time it takes to duplicate figures. Instead, artists used a set system of proportions when mapping out the subject called a canon and would create a grid to place a variety of parts of the figure on specific points on the grid squares. Measurements such as height or length of a body part for example had a set number of squares on the grid. Because of these fixed numbers for measurements, Egyptian artists could successfully create a uniform design throughout the entire structure. This was beneficial not only for harmony in the piece, but also for the many artists having to work together on the same project. Each artist’s style would inevitably vary, but pieces became efficiently completed with the canon system. After the process of sketching and carving, the artists then painted the reliefs over in bright colors for the finishing touch.
Aside from the decorative qualities and the process of creating these reliefs, the actions demonstrated on the them served the purpose of providing assistance with the deceased’s spirit in the afterlife. Symbolically however, the events shown have a deeper meaning. In the most well-known relief inside the tomb called Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt (Figure 1), hunting in ancient Egypt symbolized “triumph over the forces of evil,” and the evil in this particular piece radiates from the hippos. Hippos tend to destroy agricultural areas, therefore becoming a nuisance to the Egyptians and hunted frequently by farmers. A viewer can observe just how relentlessly the hippos behave as the one in the front seizes a crocodile even while the crocodile fights back. Because Egyptians feared this detestable creature, they felt that they must restrain the hippos in order to restore peace to the region. Another matter arises in the relief as chaos and commotion occur with the foxes intruding on the frightened birds in their nests above Ti and his men sailing through the marsh. On the contrary, Ti, unlike any of the other men in the scene, stands calmly amongst the movement of the hunt. His large size proclaims his high rank, a technique of hierarchy of scale used by other cultures for centuries. Ti also remains motionless as if not even a part of the hunt, with his aloof posture giving an impression of peace amongst the chaos that dominates the scene. Instead of hunting with his men, he simply observes the event taking place, just as a spirit watches the world of the living as it passes from one life to the next. Meanwhile in a more obvious sense, the species of fish, birds, and animals symbolize that the scene takes place along the Nile River since the creatures live in that area.
The elements of design the artwork provide even more symbolism in the relief of Ti Watching a Hippo Hunt. The element of line, for example, appears with the water displayed as a uniform set of repeated wavy lines along the bottom. This may work as an abstract approach, but those basic lines quickly demonstrate that it is in fact a body of water. On top of this, another element, color, works as a symbol to represent water through blue paint, even if the wavy lines were not present. Additionally, more symbolism appears in the orderly vertical lines in the background to represent papyrus. The papyrus plant served as a vital resource seeing that ancient Egyptians used it to make paper, boats, and items in the household, for medicinal purposes, for food, and for many other functions. It even became an emblem of Lower Egypt where Saqqara is located. Since Egyptians commonly used papyrus for boat building, the small vertical lines on the boats that Ti and his men stand on may indicate that they were made from papyrus material seeing as the boats’ designs mimic the pattern of the papyrus in the background. Stylistically, vertical lines bring feelings of importance and order, which this relief effectively does as the long upright lines of the papyrus stalks bring attention to the main figure of Ti.
Just as Ti Watching a Hippo Hunt displays a great deal of symbolism, another relief of Goats Treading Seed and Cattle Fording a Canal (Figure 2) holds a profound metaphor for Egyptian customs as well.

Egyptians typically buried their dead west of the Nile because of the underworld that allegedly existed there. In a literal sense in this particular relief, the upper register of this piece portrays goats plodding through seeds while cattle cross through the Nile River in the bottom register. Figuratively, the crossing of the Nile functioned as a representation of the deceased’s passageway from one life to the next. After death, the deceased underwent judgement and had to proclaim that they did not taint the Nile during life. Living Egyptians relied on the Nile too but in practical ways such as for transportation and for agricultural purposes. The artist left Ti out of these scenes, unlike in the hippopotamus hunt relief. Instead, the sculptors carved the men and animals as the main subjects. Still, both reliefs similarly have hierarchy of scale and the canon of proportions between the men. In this livestock relief, the men dominate the picture plane compared to the goats and cows even though in reality, the cattle stand much larger. Though the once vibrant paint has worn off and faded, the bottom register vaguely shows a young boy with a calf on his back. The calf turns its head around with its eyes fixed on its mother who stares back with her held tilted up high. This subtle exchange between the two animals demonstrates that the artists took great care when depicting daily life. Although they created the subjects in such simple forms, the gestures given to the figures cause them to have some personality rather than a lack of interest or

unresponsiveness.
Throughout the Old Kingdom, Egyptians set collective goals of experiencing the cycles of death and rebirth. As mentioned before, the reliefs within the tomb portray Ti’s existence in the afterlife with activities that reflect on what he accomplished while alive. The aesthetic qualities of the reliefs theoretically affected the dead more than the living. After all, the living would not get to enjoy the beauty the mastaba had to offer after tomb builders sealed it up. The dead mostly acquired the privilege of experiencing the tomb’s exquisiteness when the spirit transitioned to the next life. The pictures shown in the reliefs worked as reassurance that everything the deceased had worked for while living would continue on, even after Ti’s death. He wanted to take the aspects of the good life he lived and preserve his great fortune for all eternity, as did other Egyptians. The bright colors enhanced the carvings on the walls and served as a form of entertainment and comfort for the dead as well. Once again, the colors themselves served a symbolic purpose of contributing to the meaning behind the subjects, even if the carvings alone sufficiently demonstrated the context of the illustration. For example, the color yellow relates to the sun just as white means purity or black ties in with death. The scenes also worked as a record of time for the dead to keep up with the seasons. The purposes for each scene and the true meanings behind them a still remain numerous and very complex.
Despite the fact that carvings of daily life may seem a commonplace in many Egyptian tombs, the individual components of the reliefs in the Tomb of Ti serve as an allegory for something more significant than just decor. Though these illustrations arguably have been created in a vivid and detailed manner for ornamental purposes, they not only inform viewers of the lifestyles during the Fifth Dynasty in Egypt, but they also give the living a way to pass from this world to the next in a thought provoking visual way.