Five Years' Explorations at Thebes: A Record of Work Done 1907-1911 by The Earl of Carnarvon and Howard CarterCarnarvon, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Earl of
History
Five Years' Explorations at Thebes: A Record of Work Done 1907-1911 by The Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter
Carnarvon, George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Earl of
Lastly, at the end of the court, a large chamber containing burials of
seven adults and one child was found to be untouched. The sealing of the
entrance was in perfect condition and was constructed like the other
with similar stones and bricks (Pl. XIV. 1 and 2). The chamber was about
two-thirds full of rubble, upon which the coffins were deposited, the
first two having a slight excavation made for them. The first two
coffins were placed side by side with their heads towards the east: they
were covered by a pink shawl and chain garlands of leaves; with, beside
the first one, a bouquet of cornflowers. This was evidently the last
tribute paid to the dead placed in this sepulchre (see Pl. XVII. 3). The
rest of the coffins, seven in all, belonging to a previous interment,
and of a different type, were lying north and south with their heads to
south. They were crowded together as if to make room for the latter
burials. Some of these latter coffins had pieces of mummy-cloth upon
them; the last of all some fragments of a decayed garland.
The east side-chamber was quite clean, and the coffin in it was placed
exactly east and west with its head to the west.
After the removal of the coffins the large chamber was carefully
explored. At the far end the commencement of an uncompleted pit was
found, and at the entrance the remains of the early brick wall that
originally closed the doorway were uncovered.
From the style of this tomb, the brickwork that closed the doorway,
together with the pottery and some cones found in the rubbish, it
clearly belongs to the earlier epoch of this district, the roughness of
form being mostly owing to the inferior rock in which it is hewn (a
conglomerate of lime and flints striated with _Tafle_). The beginning of
a chamber on the west side of the court had been abandoned on account of
some large flint-boulders embedded in the conglomerate which had
prevented further progress, and the chamber on the east side was made in
its stead. Neither of these cuttings seem to belong to the original
design; they were most probably made by the usurpers found within the
tomb: the fact that the floor-level of the completed side-chamber was
the same as that of the rubbish drifted into the courtyard and tomb
before its usurpation, I think, corroborates the above conjecture.
The burials in detail are as follows:--
1. _A_. (Pl. XVI. 3). A coffin containing inner case and mummy of a man
named [Illustration: hieroglyph] Pa-de-Amen, [Illustration: hieroglyph]
son of Pa-de-khonsu by the lady [Illustration: hieroglyph] Maartu.
_Outer Case._ Of wood, top of lid flat, with the face, head-dress,
ornamental collar, and vertical line of hieroglyphs down the centre,
painted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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