The Composite Views governs one figure. Registers govern a whole wall.
Key idea
Scenes run in horizontal bands called registers, each with its own ground line. Read them band by band, like lines of text. Figures, like hieroglyphs, face the way the text begins.
Why it works
Because Egyptian art did not use one-point perspective, it needed another way to show many activities at once. Registers solved it: each band is a strip of the world, with its own ground. A harvest wall can show plowing in one band, reaping in the next and storing grain in the next, in order. The top band is not farther away; it is the next row.
Rules for reading a wall
- Each register stands on its own ground line.
- Read the bands one after another, usually from top to bottom.
- A large figure of the tomb owner often stands at the side, spanning several bands, watching over all of them.
- Figures and hieroglyphs face toward the start of the text. If they face right, read from right to left.
The same rule of direction joins the pictures and the writing. In a scene, the captions and the figures they describe face the same way, so a reader can tell which words belong to whom.
Worked example: Which way to read?
In a line of hieroglyphs, the owl and the seated man face left. Where does the line start?
- Signs face the start of the line.
- They face left.
- So the line starts at the left.
Answer: At the left; read left to right.
Worked example: Rows or depth?
A wall has three bands: plowing at the top, reaping in the middle, threshing at the bottom. Is the plowing farther away?
- Each band has its own ground line.
- Bands are rows, read like lines of text.
- They show steps of the work in order.
Answer: No: each band is its own row.
Common mistake
Reading registers as a single scene in depth. Each band is its own row, read like lines of text. Quick check: find the ground line under each band.