Mourners

Mourners Relief from a tomb in Memphis 14th cent. BC - The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts


 The relief shows sixteen men mourning the deceased. This ritual roots in the myth about the
dying and resurrecting god Osiris and the mourning of his wife Isis and sister Nephthys. Since
the ancient times the ritual had been a part of the burial procession. Male mourners always had to
be present at the ceremony along with women. In the relief they are wearing triangular aprons,
which might indicate that the tomb belonged to an unknown military man