Macquarie Theban Tombs Project

Preliminary Report on the Season of Jan. / Feb. 2004

(The footnotes can be read clicking them.)

 

Work for the season began on Thursday, January 1^st, 2004 and concluded on Thursday, February 12^th, 2004.[1]

 

In this season, work was concentrated in a group of three tombs at Dra abu el-Naga':

• TT 148 of the 20^th Dynasty belonging to the Third Prophet of Amun, Amenemope;
• TT 147 of the 18^th Dynasty (identity of the owners not known);
• TT 233 of the 19^th Dynasty belonging to the Royal Scribe Saroy and his assistant Amenhotep called Huy.

 

TT 148 Amenemope

The work in the tomb of Amenemope concentrated on conservation and to this end two measures were undertaken:

1. The door to the tomb was replaced and refitted. The old door had been installed before the courtyard of the tomb had been excavated and its threshold was at the level of the debris that filled the courtyard, which was ca. 90 cm higher than the level of the floor of the tomb. The new threshold is lower (30 cm) but still high enough to prevent any floodwater from entering the tomb. The new door is also sealed with metal panels, which will reduce the amount of dust that enters the tomb and also prevent the entry of vermin.
2. In the Broad Hall, the wall above the surviving decoration at the north end of the south half of the east wall was rebuilt.

A display stand was also made for the large decorated limestone temple blocks that were reused in the foundations of the tomb's pylon and courtyard walls. These blocks had been taken from a structure of Hatshepsut and bear decoration in fine raised relief.

 

TT 233 Saroy and Amenhotep / Huy

Conservation measures were also undertaken in TT 233; in particular, the fissures on the northern and southern end of the façade were closed to prevent the entry of debris.

In the Broad Hall, the epigraphic records made in previous seasons of the following were collated: 

i.         i.         The text of the Opening of the Mouth on the northern side of the west wall;

ii.       ii.       The painted scene to the north of the Opening of the Mouth on the northern side of the west wall depicting offerings being made to two bulls;

iii.      iii.      The text of Book of the Dead chapter 125 on the southern half of the east wall;

iv.      iv.     The texts from Book of the Dead chapters 17 and 18 on the ceiling of the southern end of the Broad Hall.

 

TT 147

This season was the second to be conducted by the mission in TT 147. The following activities were conducted:

1. Excavation of the Courtyard

A start was made on the excavation of the courtyard. It was filled with rubble to a depth of over two meters except for the area in front of the door, which had been cleared (probably in the early 20^th century) to provide access to the tomb when the chapel had originally been emptied and a metal door installed.[2] (Pl. 1) Dry stone retaining walls[3] had been built to hold back the rubble to the north and south of the cleared passageway; mixed in with the rubble on the north side of the passage a dump containing human remains and fragments of funerary equipment was found close to the surface. This is probably material that was removed from the chapel during the clearing of the tomb chapel in the early 20^th century.

The excavations revealed a complex stratigraphy. Two layers of later occupation and several flood levels interspersed with layers of rough rubble from the mountain were identified above the New Kingdom floor level.

The north side of the courtyard revealed some interesting details about the construction of the tomb chapel. In the middle of the northern half of the façade an abandoned doorway was uncovered, which had been cut through to the inside of the tomb but then later blocked and plastered over.[4] The nature of the gebel on the north side of the courtyard provides an explanation for this situation; it is composed of extremely hard limestone, which the ancient tomb builders no doubt found too difficult to cut through and excavate and they therefore abandoned work in this area and cut the existing doorway further south. A wall running east-west built of mud brick and stone was then built to serve as the northern wall of the courtyard and the area to the north of this was left in a rough state. Remains of the east wall of the courtyard, built of mud brick, were also uncovered. (Pl. 2) The south wall was formed partly by the gebel (particularly at the western end) and partly built up of large boulders and stone. Traces of plaster indicate that it had originally also been plastered.

On the south side of the courtyard, against the east wall, the remains of a mud brick structure was found that probably served as a cult emplacement. (Pl. 2) This conclusion was underpinned by the discovery of the opening of a shaft situated directly in front of it. The location of the shaft was revealed only at the end of the season, which meant that it could not be excavated, a task that will have to be left over for the coming season.

Very little in the way of finds was found. Apart from fragmentary pottery, the only other objects recovered that can safely be dated to the 18^th Dynasty are funerary cones (Pl. 3), a small fragment of a stele and a very small fragment of the top of a blue glass kohl jar, decorated with vertical yellow lines. One of the most interesting discoveries dating to this period was a deposit of pottery jars, (Pl. 4) several containing blue and red pigment, which was discovered under the large slab of limestone[5] that had formed part of the northern wall of the courtyard. This must have formed part of the equipment abandoned by the artisans who had originally painted the scenes of the tomb. The abandonment of this material may be connected with the unfinished state of the decoration of the tomb; that the decoration was not completed can be seen in the empty text registers accompanying the figures on the walls at the southern end of the Broad Hall and on the back wall of the Long Hall, as well as the incomplete state of the ceiling decoration of the southern part of the Broad Hall.

In the dump on the northern side of the courtyard the remains of post-18th Dynasty intrusive burials were found. One of these belonged to a wab-priest of Amun named Khonsmose, identified by inscriptions on shabtis that can be dated to the 21^st Dynasty. (Pl. 5) The other belonged to a God's Father of Amun named Nespautytawy, whose identity could also be identified by inscribed shabtis of blue faience (Pl. 6) and a fragment of a painted cartonnage (Pl. 7) that can also be dated to the 21^st Dynasty. The small secondary chamber cut into the north wall of the Long Hall may have been the original location of these burials.  

2. Conservation

a. Repair and reconstruction of the collapsed sections of the walls. After cleaning and consolidating with primer, work continued on the reconstruction of the mud plaster walls of the chapel that had been damaged by water penetration as well as human agents. The lower portion of the walls have particularly suffered from water damage, to the extent that the thick layer of mud plaster has dissolved away completely right down to the rock surface. The same methods and materials were used to reconstruct the lost sections of the walls as that employed by the original tomb builders, namely mud plaster and chips of limestone as well as ﻪﭙﭘﺣ (hiba) mixed with chaff ﻦﭘﺗ  (tibn). Once the building up of the lost portions of the walls has been completed, which will take at least another season of work, they will be covered by a final fine layer of plaster.

b. Cleaning of the wall paintings and ceiling. Work on the cleaning of the walls and their paintings was continued. In this season the walls of the northern end of the Broad Hall (Pls. 8 & 9) were cleaned as well as the ceiling of both Broad and Long Hall. (Pl 10) The soot and tar layers covering them, as well as the many mud wasp nests, were removed. The walls were first dusted; next the wasp nests were softened by the targeted application of distilled water, which enabled them to be removed without damaging the plaster under them. The method that had proved most effective in removing the soot and tar in the last season was again used, namely the application of a solution of distilled water with a small amount of ethanol and ammonia through tissue paper; the solution dissolves the tar and soot, which was absorbed into the paper. Only small amounts of the solution were needed so avoiding subjecting the plaster to excessive amounts of moisture.[6]

3. Epigraphic study.

After the cleaning of the walls, hand copies of all the inscriptions in the tomb were made. Preliminary study of the inscriptions undertaken in the last season to try and identify the owner of the tomb had revealed that it was in fact decorated for at least two different people, a Hry smsw hAy.t [n Imn.w] m Ip.t-s.wt  "Head elder of the portal [of Amun] in Karnak", and a sS Hsb iH.w n.w [Imn.w] m Smaw mHw "Scribe and counter of the cattle of Amun in the south and the north"; the names of these men has systematically been erased, as were the names of their wives. Two lots of erasure could also be identified; in the first, the names of the tomb owners and their wives were targeted, the names, painted in blue or black, were rubbed out or smudged without actually damaging the plaster. The second series of erasures was more dramatic and can be dated to the Amarna Period; words that were theologically unacceptable were systematically targeted, in particular the name of Amun and the word "gods". The determinative of psD.t "Ennead", , which is also the logograph for "gods", was similarly erased, as was the akh-bird, , in the word akh "spirit-state". The erasures were effected this time by actually cutting out the plaster on which the words appear; although damage was thereby inflicted on the wall structure itself, the erasures were generally done carefully and neatly, often with straight edges.

In the previous season, preliminary study of the inscriptions, before the cleaning of the walls had been completed, had given the impression that the northern half of the tomb was systematically decorated for the "Head elder of the portal" and the southern half for the "Scribe and counter of the cattle of Amun". After the cleaning of the northern end of the Broad Hall the picture is clearer and it has been revealed that the " Scribe and counter of the cattle of Amun" also appears prominently in the northern half of the Broad Hall, in particular to the north of the doorway on the east wall where, as in the parallel position on the wall to the south of the door, he appears, along with his wife, as a large-scale figure presenting offerings to Amun at the Beautiful Festival of the Valley. He is thus the senior and dominant of the two tomb owners.

In the report on our activities in the previous season (November – December 2002) the hope was expressed that future excavations would produce inscribed finds that may provide information on the tomb's owners. In this season, in the course of the excavation of the courtyard, one type of artefact was recovered that does enable us to plausibly identify the main tomb-owner, namely the person who held the title "Scribe and counter of the cattle of Amun". As mentioned above, a number of 18^th Dynasty funerary cones were found, the majority of which belong to an individual called Neferrenpet. [7]

There were two types of cone; one is inscribed  "Wab-priest of Amun and Counter of the Cattle of Amun, Neferrenpet".[8] (Pl. 3 a.) The other bears the inscription  "Keeper of the Storeroom(s) of Amun and Wab-priest of Khons Neferrenpet".[9] (Pl. 3 b.)

As evidence, funerary cones that are no longer still in their original position, namely embedded in the façade of a tomb, need to be considered with caution since they are often found in locations far removed from the tomb to which they originally belonged.[10] However, the cones in question were found in various archaeological contexts in the courtyard, including in levels very close to the original floor level and near the tomb's facade, which makes it unlikely that they are stray finds and makes it almost certain that they belong to the tomb. The one factor that might make one hesitate identifying the Neferrenpet of the cones with the "Scribe and Counter of the cattle of Amun" of the tomb is that the title "Scribe" does not appear on the cones and that the titles "Wab-priest of Amun", "Keeper of the Storeroom(s) of Amun" and "Wab-priest of Khons" do not appear in the tomb. The lack of the title "scribe" on the cones is not too great a problem since there is often a discrepancy between the titles on a tomb's cones and the titles in the tomb's wall decoration. The lack of the titles "Wab-priest of Amun", "Keeper of the Storeroom(s) of Amun" and "Wab-priest of Khons" in the tomb may be fortuitous; the decoration of the tomb was not completed, as the abandoned paint pots in the courtyard and the empty register lines, prepared to take inscriptions, clearly indicate. We can therefore conclude with a fair degree of certainty that the primary owner of TT 147 was a man called Neferrenpet. Hopefully future work on the tomb, in particular the excavation of the funerary apartments, will confirm the above conclusion and also provide evidence for the identity of the "Head elder of the portal".

Boyo G. Ockinga