Egyptian life and death: Nebamun

Birds rise around Nebamun as he hunts in the marshes, with his family beside him and a cat among the reeds. The painted wall fragment gives you many small movements to follow within a carefully composed scene. Nebamun lived in Egypt around 1350 BC. The paintings came from his tomb-chapel, where images could sustain an ideal version of life after death. Hunting, banqueting and abundance described the world he wished to continue enjoying. The gallery brings these conserved wall fragments together with other objects of the period. Their broken edges belong to the history of a painted space that survives in pieces. Let the detail of a bird, a hand or a fold of clothing draw you in, then step back enough to see how the figures and landscape fit across the wall surface.