THE RELIGIOUS MEANING OF SLEDGES IN ANCIENT EGYPT

The wheel entered in the history of Egypt after the Middle Kingdom with the invasion of the Nile Valley by foreign peoples. At the beginning of the New Kingdom the war chariot became a regular part of the Egyptian army. “But why is the use of wheels so unusual outside the military field?” asks Nacho Ares.

- Nacho Ares.

A few months ago, visiting the replica of the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62 in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor), built behind the house of Howard Carter, at the beginning of the road that leads to the Valley, I was enjoying some of the accurate details of the paintings. On the eastern wall of the Burial Chamber, a group of the dead king’s officials are seen pulling a huge catafalquechapel on a sledge (see above). It is an important part of the typical scene of the funerary procession painted or sculpted in many tombs of the West Bank of ancient Thebes, the area where the tomb of Tutankhamun was excavated.

In contrast, the Antechamber of the replica is decorated with some of the photographs of this room taken by Harry Burton in the last days of November 1922, when the tomb was opened offering “wonderful things”. In the pictures of the southern part of the Antechamber we can see the remains of six complete but dismantled chariots (see left), cut into pieces in antiquity because they were bigger than the narrow passage of the tomb’s entrance. As a result, there was a chaotic jumble of axles, chariot bodies and wheels.