es, the abundance of funerary offerings, the statues, therelief carvings, the inscriptions and, of course, the paintings.The relief painting "Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt" was paintedin the year 2400 BCE. This was during the time of the OldKingdom ( Dynasty V), when Egyptians were constructing theirmastabas (or tombs) out of limestone (Lesko). The Egyptiansbuilt their mastabas as comfortable homes for the dead to live induring the afterlife. These tombs were filled with manytreasures, paintings and messages. The painting "Ti Watching aHippopotamus Hunt" is from one such tomb at Saqqara; The Mastabaof Ti. Ti was the royal hairdresser during the early V Dynasty,as well as the controller of the farms and stock that belonged tothe royal family. In the tomb paintings, the important peopleportrayed were given a large, out of scale size. The overlappingof outlines was avoided and all parts of the body wererepresented as flatly as possible. By portraying the Egyptiansin this way [Profile of the face, frontal view of the eye,frontal view of the upper body, arms - one in front, one at theside, and a profile of the legs] all the body parts needed in theafterlife would be properly expressed and thus, available to thedeceased (Lesko). The consistency of ancient Egyptian funerarytraditions as well as the consistency within the tomb paintingsclearly define the artistic canon found in ancient Egyptianculture. Egyptian writers created many stories that featuredimaginary characters, settings, or events. The Tale of Sinuhe(1875 BC), has been acclaimed as the masterpiece of AncientEgyptian poetry and a passionate probing of its culture's ideals. Written by an anonymous author in the form of an autobiographythe tale tells how the courtier Sinuhe flees Egypt at the deathof his king. Sinuhe was an official of the harem maintained forAmenemhet I by his queen. While on an expedition to Libya helearned of the king's assassination (1908 BC) and fled,...
