Earl of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert Carnarvon

“ Three men, wearing curious high and open-work head-dresses, come forward to meet the funeral procession and dance before it (Pl. VIII) . Above these dancers the following hieroglyphs can be read:—
Scene B (Pl. VIII) . Beneath the funerary canopy the mummy is placed upright. The priest throws a few grains of incense into a censer which he presents to the mummy. The mummy is perhaps of the Rîshi or feather type; that is to say, of the kind of decoration used for the mummy cases of the Antefs, and of the people of Thebes who died before the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty. ”

“ THE discovery of Model Sarcophagi containing Funerary Statuettes in small holes on the four sides of the entrance to the mummy shaft (see Pl. II and p. 13) of Teta-ky’s tomb is of considerable interest; it is, I believe, the first recorded instance of shawabti figures having been found in such positions. They were placed in the four holes in pairs; each model coffin and figure bears a different name, but curiously enough, that of Teta-ky, whose body was buried in the sarcophagus chamber at the bottom of the shaft, does not occur. Each model coffin consists of a rectangular box and lid of wood ”

“ The coffin is far more elaborate than the former one, and generally finer both in workmanship and painting. The scenes painted upon it are of the deceased witnessing the weighing of her heart against the feather of truth in the presence of two apes representing Thoth, the devouring monster Lord of Duat, the goddess of truth Maat, Horus, Osiris, Nephthys, and two children of Horus. ”

“ The part ascending the valley side was barren and only exposed a plundered XIth Dynasty tomb (No. 30) , re-used as an habitation, and afterwards as the place of a later burial consisting of a wooden dug-out coffin. But, on turning round the corner of the temple enclosure, he discovered a most interesting historical cache, a foundation deposit of the Dêr el Bahari dromos (for the exact position of this deposit see Pl. XXIV) . For this deposit a circular hole, three metres deep and 140 cms. ”

“ The pieces of coffin were eaten by white ants, a pest certainly foreign to this part of the Theban necropolis, and for that reason I believe these wooden fragments came from some other portion of the Theban necropolis. There is reason to suppose that the courtyard was never finished; there were many huge stones protruding out of the rock and jutting into the yard. In this yard more pottery was found, with among them two small pieces of linen tied up and containing pellets, like masticated corn mixed with grains of wheat. ”

“ In the tombs of the XVIIIth Dynasty and later periods representations of people offering to trees are often found; while even at the present day a general feature of the Mohammedan cemetery is its tree (generally a gemmêz, ‘sycomore-fig’ [8] ) , under which water and other offerings are often placed by mourners, while rags are attached to its branches or twigs. In the tomb of Thothmes III the deceased king himself is depicted [9] as receiving nourishment from the tree through a breast that protrudes from one of its boughs. ”

“ Often he will get no further in his excavations than the well-sorted-over dust of former explorers; and if he is fortunate enough to make a ‘find’, it is often only after clearing away a vast amount of rock débris and rubbish to the bed-rock below.
With a view to making systematic excavations in this famous necropolis, I began tentative digging among the Kurneh hills and desert margin in the spring of 1907. My workmen were all from the neighbouring villages and their number has varied from seventy-five to two hundred and seventy-five men and boys. ”

“ This coffin, No. 47 (p. 79) , with the mummy of a woman, had a scarab of the Hyksos Period, a cowroid in glass, and a glazed scaraboid bead of the Second Theban Empire (see Pl. LXXII. 47) . The two latter objects plainly show that the burial cannot be anterior to the Early XVIIIth Dynasty.
Semi-decorated anthropoid coffins, Nos. 6 and 68 (Pl. LXI. 6) . These two specimens form a small group of their own. They are of very coarse workmanship, in design resembling those of the New Kingdom, but in the face they have a likeness to the Rîshi type. ”

“ In the shaft, which was filled with earth, were more cylindrical beads, some gilt, a black amber head, an obsidian eye-pupil from a coffin, a fragment of a crystal bead, the head and fractured pedestal of the limestone torso found in the court (Pl. XVIII. 1 and 2) ; also many burnt pieces of wood from coffins and figures including a rough table of offerings in limestone. The fractured pedestal had upon it the following partially erased inscription:—
The sarcophagus chamber was plundered and three parts full of rubbish. ”

“ These heaps are certainly of great interest, and should one day be carefully worked through, for in them there are numbers of broken votive offerings, brought by the populace to invoke the aid and assistance of the local divinity. They consist of bronze, earthenware, blue glaze, Hathor heads, cows, menats, model bunches of grapes, rings, balls, sistrums, sphinxes, scarabs, scarab-shaped and cowroid beads (one bearing the name of Aahmes I) , amulets, such as ears, eyes, and Ankhs, dishes, bowls and vases, some of which are of very large dimensions. ”

“ This second necklace is of quite a different type, very small, and of all kinds of beads and amulets. The order [32] seems to have been alternate groups of barrel garnet beads, divided by minute gold beads, and between them amulets in gold, cornelian, glazed steatite, and faience. There are also tiny cornelian and glaze beads among them. The amulets that occur are the eye, hand, rope-knot, crouching lions, crocodiles, flies, and other strange forms difficult to recognize. The position of these amulets, strung on the necklace, can only be a matter of conjecture. ”

“ Little more was found here than further examples of pots, a child’s coffin too decayed for preservation, and a reed burial of a poorer and much later man (for example see Pl. XLII. 3) . The tomb consisted of a court formed by low stone and mortar walls, with a cutting in the centre leading to the entrance: this entrance or doorway gave access to a passage, cut in the rock, some six metres in length, which led to a rectangular chamber that apparently formed one of the sepulchral repositories. ”

“ Howard Carter’s photographs, are the only remaining records of this tomb.
The funerary chamber is rectangular. The shorter walls lie east and west, whilst the longer sides face north and south. The roof is vaulted, barrel in form, and fairly regular. The ceiling is painted with a many-coloured chequer pattern; this decoration can be well seen in Plate IV. 1 and 2.
The decorations of the north and south walls consist of a long row of Kheker-ornaments. Beneath this row there is a line of detailed hieroglyphs, and beneath these again are scenes which run from left to right. ”

“ Besides these cones, a very rough sandstone table of offerings without inscription, two Coptic pots, one with a wooden lid, some fragments of leather sandals, and a granite colour-grinder, were found dispersed in the drifted sand.
Site 4. A large tomb, facing west, high up on the mountain slope, with a causeway some twenty-five metres broad, walled on either side with rough stones, and leading down the face of the hill.
Like the tomb itself the façade is hewn in the rock; its right and left wings and overhead retaining wall, now mostly destroyed, were built of mud-brick. ”

“ Of the bricked-up chambers here, one bore seal impressions of Thothmes I, and among objects scattered over the floors of other chambers were scarabs of Amenhetep I, Thothmes I, Thothmes II, Hatshepsût, Neferu-ra, and Thothmes III, as well as several scarabs contemporary with the XIIIth Dynasty and the Hyksos period: the contents of this tomb thus cover the whole of the Intermediate period to the beginning of the reign of Thothmes III.
Fig. ”

“ The statuette found on the left side was in wood, of a boy named Hu-uben-ef, and it was dedicated by his father Tahuti ‘who makes to live his name’. This figure stands 31 cms. in height, and is very cleanly cut, the work good, but of a different and perhaps not so high a standard as the metal figure of his brother. Nevertheless it is exquisitely rendered and shows a strong likeness to the other, particularly in the shape of the head. The pedestal is inscribed with the dedication, and mentions also a prayer for per-kheru offerings for the ka. ”

“ A man with arms hanging by his sides follows behind the sledge. He wears a wig, necklace, and a long tunic, and is following the funeral procession. The sledge itself is pulled by three men and two beasts. Between these men and animals and the sledge a man is shown pouring water upon the ground to facilitate the traction of the sledge. ”

“ For knuckle-bones see group No. 25, tomb No. 37. Cp. Quibell, Excavations Saqqara, p. 114, Pl. LXIII. Dice: I have found three specimens among objects from the rubbish heaps of the temple of Dêr el Bahari, and as there were no antiquities here that could be later than the XVIIIth Dynasty, one is led to suppose that the dice are of the same date. Two of the dice were of clay and one was made of limestone.
[31] For the numerical order of the holes see Fig. 14. Only one piece aside can be played at a time, as if more they might win the same hole and hence clash; and only one die used. ”

“ This was demonstrated by the presence of stone chippings bearing fragments of the temple paintings that had been chipped off in refacing.
[5] The earliest inscribed specimens known bear the cartouches of Aahmes I.
[6] In Spiegelberg and Newberry’s Theban Necropolis (p. 8) there is upon a stela a prayer which reads: ‘May every one love him if he is spreading water upon the leaves before my stela.’
[7] Naville, Archaeological Report, 1894-5, p. 37.
[8] In India the Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa) is venerated by the natives, who will not allow the tree to suffer mutilation or destruction. ”

“ This wall ran east and west, having a base measurement of 2·60 metres broad with its outer faces sloping—their ‘batter’ being 4 cms. in every rise of 25 cms. Its construction consists of two outer skins of small well-made limestone blocks built upon sandstone foundation slabs, with, in the middle, a core of stone and mortar rubble mixed with sand. In it was a doorway, about half-way along the length cleared, which opened out to the north—its door-jambs being on that side. The eastern extremity of the excavation then made, showed that in that direction it descended. ”

“ Cut in the floor of this chamber, on the west side, was a shaft nearly three metres deep, giving ingress to two other chambers, one above the other.{35}
It hardly seems credible that such a mass of pottery as was found in the rubbish outside could have all come from so small a tomb, and one is inclined to think that the greater part must have come from some neighbouring and perhaps larger tomb. ”

“ Among the thirty-three demotic ostraca, i.e. demotic inscriptions upon potsherds and limestone flakes, found among the Ptolemaic remains in the upper stratum of Site 14, and all of the Ptolemaic period, only one has a definite date.
It is of ‘the year 21 of the kings Ptolemaios son of Ptolemaios and of Ptolemaios, his son,’ i. e. of Ptolemaios II, Philadelphos, and his son Euergetes I (about 265-264 B.C.) . The texts contain tax receipts, contracts, accounts, and lists of workmen.
One ostracon is of a quite unusual type (Pl. XXXVII. 3) . ”

“ Across the belly, longitudinally, is the combined tail-piece and bridge to which the lower fixed ends of the strings are attached: the tapering end of this combined tail-piece and bridge was inserted into a socket at the juncture where the belly and neck join, and its lower and broader end was bound to a protuberance, made for the purpose, at the extreme end of the belly. Near the top end of the neck, and into the back of it, the four key-pegs for receiving the strings are inserted. ”

“ The vaulted roof, one brick in thickness, has its rings leaning against the end wall, starting at the{44} foot with first one brick on either side, then two, three, and so on, until the feet of these incomplete rings are far enough out to allow a complete leaning ring to be formed with its crown actually touching the end wall at the top. ”

“ Rectangular open-grid bottomed coffin. A plain wood rectangular coffin, with wooden bars at intervals in place of the boarded bottom (Pl. LX. 52) .
Contents:—Mummy of a woman, bent, as it was too large for the coffin. On the third finger of the left hand, attached by string, were two jasper scarabs (Pl. LXXII. 52) . One of the scarabs had a fish and lotus-flower engraved upon its bezel. ”

“ As evidence of the earlier plundering we may mention the fact that fragments of one stela were found in two separate tombs (Nos. 27 and 31) , on opposite sides of the great wall. After this first plundering, the rock débris must have collected to a considerable depth above the tombs before the second spoliation took place, for rough retaining walls, built of stones and bricks found in the mounds, were made to support the sides of the shafts pierced through the earth by the later robbers.{6}
Fig. ”

“ It is interesting to note that in the prayer inscribed upon the top of the lid, the god invoked is Sebek, Lord of [H.] ent, a locality in the Fayûm where the later XIIth Dynasty kings appear to have been very active. Among the objects found in this tomb and belonging to the same early date, were the board for a game, which Mr. Carter has succeeded in elucidating (p. 56) , a coffin bearing the name of Ren-senb, and containing, besides the mummified body, a fine bronze mirror with ebony handle mounted in gold, and a beautiful necklace of gold-capped obsidian beads. In tomb No. ”

“ This Rîshi [37] decoration is on a light yellow ground, the feathers themselves being of deep bluish green, picked out here and there with red and white, and detailed in black. The face was flesh colour, with eyebrows and side-beard straps green, the eye sockets of copper with aragonite eyeballs and obsidian pupils. Down the centre of the front of the coffin was a vertical line of hieroglyphs reading: [blank space] . Below the feet are the two kneeling figures of ‘Isis’ and ‘Nephthys’ facing one another, and between them a vertical legend reading: .
Pit Tomb No. 33. ”