Food was provided for the deceased and should the expected regular offerings of the descendants cease, food depicted on the walls of the tomb would be magically transformed to supply the needs of the dead. Images on tombs might include a triangular shaped piece of bread (part of the food offerings from a tomb). Other images might represent food items that the tomb owner would have eaten in his lifetime and hoped to eat in the after-life.
This is about ancient Egyptian. Please explain the boldface part for me. Thanks!
This is about ancient Egyptian. Please explain the boldface part for me. Thanks!
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Comments
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afterlife
Function: noun
Etymology: 4after + life
1 : an existence after death<it is doubtful whether the Egyptian conception of the afterlife really enters into the background of Hebrew religion -- S.H.Hooke>
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Say: someone likes hotdogs, he has them painted on their tomb, in the hope that in afterlife (next life, life after death) they might enjoy them again
Say: someone likes hotdogs, he has them painted on their tomb, in the hope that in afterlife (next life, life after death) they might enjoy them again
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Other images might represent food items that the tomb owner would have eaten in his lifetime and hoped to eat in the after-life.
Other pictures might represent (be of, symbolize) the kind of food that the person in the tomb would have eaten in his or her lifetime. As Marius said, that is the same kind of food that the person would like to eat in the afterlife, if possible.
The tomb ower must be dead then.
tomb
–noun
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Yes, the tomb owner (the person in the tomb) is dead. "deceased" = "dead"
Other images might represent food items that the tomb owner would have eaten
in his lifetime and hoped to eat in the after-life.
You shouldn't change "in his lifetime" to "in his next lifetime" here. This is about the past,
the lifetime the person had before he (or she) died. But the 'after-life' is what is next for
the person.
"in his lifetime" vs "in the after-life" is similiar to "when he was alive" vs "after he died".
The sentence is in subjunctive (simplified after and), indicating a hypothesis to the matters happened in the past.
why not "the tomb owner have eaten in his lifetime"?
The "might" shows some uncertainty. It's like saying "It is possible that..."
"Would have eaten" handles the uncertainty very well.
Study your conditionals:
http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/conditionalintro.html