Skip to main content

Lower Asasif, Thebes


In the second half of the Middle Kingdom (about 1900–1800 B.C.), a large tomb with a pillared portico and courtyard was carved into the bedrock at the eastern end of the Asasif valley in western Thebes. Eventually, the original burials were looted and the tomb itself was adapted for reuse as a cemetery that was active for several generations around the beginning of the New Kingdom (ca. 1550 B.C.). This cemetery was covered over early in the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (ca. 1470 B.C.), when the courtyard was filled and a causeway leading to Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri was constructed.




In the early twentieth century, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon discovered and excavated the northern half of the courtyard. A few years later, in the 1915–16 season, Ambrose Lansing, who oversaw the Metropolitan Museum's excavations during World War I, cleared the southern half of the courtyard. Lansing's efforts were rewarded with the discovery of numerous intact burials dating from late Dynasty 17 to early Dynasty 18.

 This important transitional period encompasses the time when a family of Theban rulers (Dynasty 17) succeeded in reunifying Egypt under a single king, Ahmose, who ushered in the New Kingdom. Objects from these excavations that came to the Museum in the division of finds may be seen in Egyptian galleries 114 and 117.

In January 1935, while excavating near the eastern end of Hatshepsut's causeway, Museum excavators Ambrose Lansing and William C. Hayes discovered the family tomb of Neferkhawt, a scribe who served Hatshesput when she was a princess during the reign of her father, Thutmose I (ca. 1490 B.C.). The tomb had been used over several generations before it was covered by a causeway built by Hatshesput's nephew, Thutmose III, in about 1435 B.C.

 
The occupants included Neferkhawt and his wife, Rennefer, both elderly when they died; their daughter Ruyu and son Amenemhat, who also lived long lives; and a man named Bakamun, perhaps Ruyu's husband. An adult woman and four children, presumably also Neferkhawt's relatives, had been placed in the tomb some years later.

Neferkhawt's tomb was cut into crumbling bedrock at the edge of the desert near cultivated land. Over the centuries, groundwater and insects had largely destroyed the coffins and other wooden tomb furnishings, but careful recording and removal of the remains allowed excavators to reconstruct, at least on paper, almost all the contents of this otherwise intact tomb. These objects reflect a gradual change in the style of funerary furnishings, personal ornaments, and possessions over a period of about half a century in the early New Kingdom.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The bindweeds of Egypt and their symbolic role for the deceased

http://www.egyptraveluxe.com/cairo_half_day_tour_to_cairo_egyptian_museum.php From the Middle Kingdom until the 18th Dynasty, representations are found of a parasitic bindweed associated with the stems of papyrus, . Its representations increase and refine themselves during the Amarnian period because of the naturalistic leaning to nature; but it is in Ramesside times, and more particularly that of Ramesses II, that the images become more beautiful and most detailed. The plant is frequently attached to the stem of the papyrus, or to bouquets, but being also able to, more rarely, exist separately. After the 20th Dynasty, if the theme persists, the quality of the representations decrease (as do all more representations of nature). This success under the Ramesseses is probably linked with the specific beliefs of that time, and notably the eminent place that the solar cults occupy. The nature of the plant has been under debate a long time ...
Post a Comment
Read more

what exactly happened to the Sphinx's nose?

The Sphinx's Nose The nose of the Great Sphinx at Giza is made conspicuous by its absence. What happened to it? The popular story is that the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte used the nose for target practice in 1798. Drawings done for La Description de L'Egypte depict a noseless Sphinx. The Sphinx, 1743. In 1737, British traveler Richard Pococke visited Egypt and made a sketch of the Sphinx that was published six years later. The nose is shown intact, but Pococke likely exercised his poetic license by adding it when it was not there (earlier, in 1579, Johannes Helferich had further taken an artist's liberties by depicting the Sphinx with a nose -- and with decidedly female features). Frederick Lewis Norden, an artist and marine architect, also sketched the Sphinx in 1737. His detailed drawings, published in 1755, were more realistic and showed the Sphinx with no nose. It is very unlikely that Norden would omit the nose if it was present. We can conclude that the...
Post a Comment
Read more

US authorities return eight stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts

US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artifacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country. Today, upon his arrival from the United States, Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country. The objects are to arrive next month. The pieces include the upper part of a painted anthropoid wooden sarcophagus from the Third Intermediate period depicting a face of a woman wea ring a wig decorated with coloured flowers. Two linen mummy wrappings covered with plaster and bearing paintings showing winged amulets pushing the sun disc are also among the artefacts. Hieroglyphic text showing the name and titles of the deceased are also found on the plaster cover. The third piece is a cartonage painted mummy mask from the Third Intermediate period while the fourth and fifth items are Middle Kingdom wooden boats. The other three items are lim...
Post a Comment
Read more