The banqueting scenes are generally found in the first room of the chapel, close to the scenes of offerings and far from the scenes of the funeral proper.

which unfortunately survives only in the British Museum and in the form of fragments torn from the walls. In tomb TT52 of Nakht we also find female characters who have a lot of elegance and beauty.
Apart from a few married couples, the sexes are mostly separated, spread over several registers. More rarely, men and women rub shoulders, as in tomb TT93 of Kenamun.

The guests sit according to their social rank on chairs, stools, or on the floor, on mats. The company consists of people belonging, like the owner, to the elite. It is likely that from time to time subordinates, neighbours ... are invited, but the texts are clear: there is no question of drinking alone.

The artist can take a few liberties in these scenes that offer a good reflection of fashion, which changes from one reign to another. However, we do not escape stereotypical attitudes, the variety of traditional gestures being reduced. Most often, the characters have the arm and forearm extended and the palm of the hand turned down: it is the gesture of reception (or possession) "shesep". The other hand rests against the chest, grasps a lotus stalk or - more rarely - a folded piece of cloth, or - even more rarely - the guest's shoulder in front.

We note the absence of elderly people and children: the participants are all young and attractive, in full possession of their sexual power (and thanks to the performative action of the image, they will remain so forever). From the middle of the XVIIIth dynasty, we can find representations of naked and pubescent teenagers included, clearly intended to stimulate sexual desire. They are dancers, or maidservants, who help other older women. Servants and maids bustle around the guests, arranging a lock of the wig, tying a floral necklace, rubbing ointment or perfume on a forehead ()… and above all they offer drink!

Lotus in flower or as a bud, mandrakes, necklaces and garlands of flowers, jars of ointments, oils or perfumes, scented cones ... are all at the disposal of the guests, who often also have the pleasure of being accompanied by musicians and dancers.

The various edible provisions appear on tables and on mats near the deceased. On the ground, piled up or arranged on trays, are jugs and amphoras full of wine and beer, sometimes surrounded by a lotus stem, as in the tomb of Imiseba TT65 (), or sometimes by a vine, as with Djeserkareseneb TT38 ().

This is essentially the blue lotus (), or less often the white lotus; the pink lotus does not appear until the Persian period. These Nymphaeaceae are sometimes poorly differentiated by the Egyptians who group them under the word "seshen".
The lotus, praised for its beauty and fragrance is also a powerful symbol of rebirth, of eternally renewed life. The Hermopolitan cosmogony was influenced by the behavior of the blue lotus, which in the morning opens, revealing a ball of golden yellow stamens: theologians saw in this the image of the solar disk leaving the Nun (the primordial ocean) every morning, as it did on the first day of the world.
The plant can be seen held by the stem, with its flower open or in bud in front of the nose, stitched into the wig of the ladies, around the necks of the guests in the form of floral necklaces "wah" or in floral garlands.
Wine and lotus are also intimately linked, and when wine jars are represented, they are often surrounded by stems of lotus buds or flowers (, Benia TT343).

This perennial herb was cultivated in Egypt since the New Kingdom; it was imported from the Middle East where it was already known as aphrodisiac and able to make women fertile. Contrary to what will happen in the West where only the strange humanoid shaped rhizome roots gave rise to a negative interpretation, this is never evoked by the Egyptians who are interested only in the fruit (an example of ). It is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the fruit of Persea on parietal representations. Its color is ochre or orange and its spherical shape evokes the solar disk, which explains why the fruit is often used together with the lotus in bouquets sometimes mounted in a complex manner, as in the .
Its beautiful color and sweet smell quickly made it a symbol of love, desire and sexual power. Thus, in the tomb of Sennefer TT96, we see the deceased hold against his chest a mounted bouquet associating the "berry that creates love" (Keimer) and the lotus flower: the yellow ball seems to come out of the petals as the sun rises out of the horizon on the first day. We thus recall the hermopolitan myth of the birth of the world ().
In banquets, like the lotus flower but less often, the fruit is presented in front of the nose of a guest, almost always a woman, as in a famous scene of the tomb of Nakht (TT52) where we see young girls passing these fruits from one to another.

A ubiquitous element, a so-called festival cone (or Theban cone) is often depicted upon the hair or wig of banquet participants, including the owner of the tomb, his wife and the musicians; it also appears on the heads of statues carved in the rock, as in the tomb of Nefersekheru TT296 ().

Its physical reality has been questioned, since the scented fat that supposedly formed it would have permeated a dress and wig by melting; however the wig is a precious object, intended to last and difficult to clean.
We often see a servant anointing a guest () by drawing material from a white substance that a helper carries in a dish. Does this really create a cone, or is it just anointing? We do not know.

Nadine Cherpion and Richard Parkinson propose to see the cone as a purely symbolic representation of the perfumes, oils and ointments used in anointing a person. Indeed, the Egyptians need a concrete realisation to represent intangible entities. It would be shown so to represent good odours, particularly important for them, because such odours evoked sexuality, eroticism and therefore rebirth.

For Joan Padgham, the cone symbolizes the ability of the deceased owner of a funeral cult to move - in the form of a Ba - between the world of the afterlife and the world of the living. This interpretation has not met much acceptance up to the present day.

The two-tone garments appear in the time of Thutmose IV (at the same time as the ointment cones) and are found during the Ramesside period. The white linen clothes take on a yellow-orange hue in the upper part of the body. The yellow colour is a way for the artist to show that large amounts of perfume have been applied, reflecting the wealth and opulence of the banquet organizer. But we do not know why the clothes of the owner of the tomb are less frequently two tones than those of his guests…

The musicians are not always represented, but are supposed to be present for the party to be complete. The orchestra can be female and include a harpist, as in the tomb of Rekhmire. It is necessary to distinguish this harpist who plays in an orchestra from the "blind" harpist who is very often solitary, declaims his song which sometimes surprises by the doubts and the questions which it expresses.

But the sexual symbolism in the banquet scenes must not make us forget that they also fulfil other functions (Nicola Harrington): to create a strong social network at the moment of death and to encourage the participants to meet regularly so that the funerary cult continues.
The owner of a tomb is part of the ruling elite and wants to let it be known. The very organization of these banquets represents a considerable investment for the owner: preparing food, beer, ointments and oils, floral garlands, reed mats and linen clothing within a short period of time, presupposes a large, organized and skilled workforce.
All of this sustains the prime position of the one giving the orders and increases his prestige. The hierarchy of places at the banquet, the contact with the ancestors during the drunkenness, the repetition of the festivals evoke a temporal continuity validating the social order established by making it the natural order. This is an opportunity to create alliances, a clientele…

Pascal Vernus wrote: "Let us renounce, once and for all, the naiveties of the Egyptomaniac doxa

Contrary to appearances, nothing spontaneous, nothing realistic, nothing natural in the decoration of the funerary chapels of the members of the elite. On the contrary, a sophisticated manipulation prevails, entirely devoted to presenting a gratifying image of the patrician. A gratifying image for his destiny in the afterlife, for the deities, and also for his destiny here below, for the benefit of his contemporaries and his posterity. The ranking of places at the banquet, the contact with the ancestors during drunkenness, the repetition of the fetes evoke this".

The banquet provides an appropriate environment for the boundaries between the worlds to become permeable and for the living to interact with dead ancestors. This requires the combination of ritual, music, dance and alcohol that create an erotic context for regeneration. The banquet also allows the formation of a relational network and a clientele, while it also delivers a political message: the existing social order, which has lasted since the time of the ancestors, is the natural order of things.

A tomb is the showcase of the prestige, knowledge and resources enjoyed by a prominent member of the XVIIIth Dynasty, reflecting both his wealth and influence, which enabled him to have the best craftsmen of his time. If the decor is particularly beautiful or original, the owner of the tomb can hope to attract many visitors to his chapel and thus increase his chances of receiving a material or vocal offering.
The great concern of the tomb owner is over the abandonment of his cult one day or another. He knows that it is inevitable, and the "song of the harpist" (see below) takes care to remind him of it: forgetfulness, estrangement, economic necessities which make the needs of the living prevail... It is then falls to representations in the tomb to take over and, by sympathetic magic, to replace the forgetful descendants.