Les deux tombes de Perséphone dans la nécropole de Kom el-Chougafa à Alexandrie

Abstract

This paper forms the publication of the painted dacoration of two tombs in the Kom el- Chougafa necropolis at Alexandria. The two tombs, hollowed out of the walls of a chamber in the second hypogeum of Kom el-Chougafa, have been known since the early 1900s, but their painted dacoration, for the most part effaced, has only recently be made visible thanks to the use of light in the ultraviolet spectrum. Each tomb comprises a niche formed by a sarcophagus surmounted by three walls and a ceiling. The three walls were invested with a painted layer. The surface of the walls is divided into two zones, the upper one containing Egyptian style paintings and the lower one with paintings in Greek style. The Egyptian scenes represent, from left to right, the offering of a falcon (promise of immortality), the embalming of Osiris and the god's resurrection. The Greek paintings, from left to right, depict Persephone gathering flowers with her companions, Persephone's abduction and her return from the underworld to the world of the living. The correspondence of thèse two séries of paintings is évident, like that of the heads of Médusa and Bes on the upper part of the pilasters. This iconographie combination, which is distinct from the "mixed style" — Greek style persons induded in an Egyptian scène — that characterises certain funerary représentations in impérial Alexandria and Fayum, is unique.

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