In a dark corner, up high on a wall in the tomb of Ramses III, there is a fairly gruesome depiction. I would never have understood it without an Egyptologist to point it out and explain. As he began to lead me and my group to the area where the carvings are located, a guard scooted in front of us, arriving first to tighten the rope on the barrier.
His message was clear. Don’t go past the rope to get a closer look. Unless you give the guard a little bribe. We didn’t. We could see it just fine.
The carvings show military victory, with captive prisoners strung together in a line.
The awfulness depicted here is that the victorious soldiers chopped off the hands of the prisoners.
Reading from left to right on the top line of prisoners. The last person on the right is bent at the waist, arm extended around a circular pile of objects. It is a pile of amputated hands. The man behind him, standing erect, is writing on a tablet, accounting, for a tally. The same story is depicted in the parallel line below; and there is a third one, too, out of the frame of the photo.
At the top of this blog entry is a view which includes the Pharaoh on the right, seated, watching the proceedings.
It would be hard to deny that brutality took place when history is literally carved in stone.
Reading from left to right on the top line of prisoners. The last person on the right is bent at the waist, arm extended around a circular pile of objects. It is a pile of amputated hands. The man behind him, standing erect, is writing on a tablet, accounting, for a tally. The same story is depicted in the parallel line below; and there is a third one, too, out of the frame of the photo.
At the top of this blog entry is a view which includes the Pharaoh on the right, seated, watching the proceedings.
It would be hard to deny that brutality took place when history is literally carved in stone.