ABSTRACT
This chapter deals chiefly with the period of ancient Egyptian history known as the Old Kingdom with a few examples taken from later times, although many of the more general points could be said to hold throughout the Egyptian history. One of the most challenging problems in the understanding of the ancient Egyptian mortuary cult is the particular connections between the gathering of times in the tomb and the notions of the creative potential inherent in the immutable and hidden mummy. While the particularities of the individual death are rarely admitted into the tomb's programme of decoration and inscription, the mummified and hidden dead serves as a crucial nexus for the gathering of past, present and future in the ancient Egyptian tomb. The chapter suggests that a step towards a fuller understanding may be found in the conceptual framework of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notions of the visible and the invisible and Gilles Deleuze's 'ontology of becoming'.
