More Than a Harpist’s Song: A Musical Scene in The Tomb of Tatia at Saqqara. Online Zoom Lecture
Date: Saturday 11th January 2025 at 2.00 pm
By
Vincent Oeters
Cost: Free for Members and £4 Visitors
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Abstract
During the 2009 excavation season, a modest tomb was unearthed at Saqqara by a joint expedition of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and Leiden University. The tomb belonged to a man named Tatia, who worked as a priest of the front of Ptah and chief of goldsmiths. The south wall of his decorated tomb-chapel shows a musical scene of a harpist, a flute player and three seated figures. The scene is accompanied by a hieroglyphic inscription in seventeen framed columns above their heads. It was assumed that this inscription represented the text of a harpist's song. Recent research by the speaker, however, has led to the discovery that the scene in question is more than just a harpist's song...
Biography
Vincent Oeters studied Egyptology, Archaeology and Arabic at Leiden University. He is acquisitions editor for archaeology and material cultures of ancient civilizations at De Gruyter Brill. In addition, he is working on his PhD dissertation at KU Leuven and Ghent University on the history of Belgian Egyptology, particularly its interrelationship to other disciplines during the first half of the twentieth century. He has extensive fieldwork experience in Egypt at several sites, including Saqqara, Gebelein, and Abydos. Since 2017, he is chairman of the Friends of Saqqara foundation.
