A short summary of the 2022 season

Posted on November 9, 2022 by ankhhorproject

Winter has finally arrived in Germany and being back on the desk and in the classrooms at LMU, it is especially nice to reflect a bit on our 2022 season of the Ankh-Hor project in sunny Luxor. It was an extremely pleasant and productive season, and I am grateful to all team members!

The major goal of the 2022 season was to continue the cleaning, consolidation, and documentation of the large number of objects excavated from TT 414, the monumental tomb of Ankh-Hor, High Steward of the Divine Adoratrice Nitocris (26^th Dynasty), by the Austrian mission directed by Manfred Bietak. The focus was on wooden coffins and cartonnage elements from TT 414 and included both Late Period pieces and Ptolemaic ones. Work was conducted from September 27 to October 27, 2021 (with our amazing SCA Inspector, Saad Kenawy Mohamed).

The detailed documentation of objects from TT 414 resulted, thanks to the great efforts of Hassan, Saad and Patrizia, in a total of 147 drawings during the 2022 season, comprising wooden objects, stamped mud bricks (deriving not from TT 414), shabtis and pottery.

Fig. 1: Saad, Patrizia and Hassan were a great and very effective drawing team (photo: J. Budka).

Much progress was also made in assigning previously not identified pieces of painted wooden coffins to specific coffins documented by the Austrian mission in the 1970s. One important example is Reg. 680 for which four new matching pieces were found. However, for this important coffin of the founder of the 30^th Dynasty reuse of TT 414, Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy I, there are still two missing pieces from the left side of the coffin and its foot part which were documented in the 1970s. Fig. 2 shows the comparison between the status of the right side of the upper part of the coffin in 1972 and in 2022 with three matching fragments. This coffin is thus a good example for the challenges in our work – there are still missing pieces for important coffins and the identification of all fragments is not yet fully accomplished.

Fig. 2: Comparison of part of coffin Reg. No. 680 between status in 1972 and 2022 – note three new matching pieces to the right side of the lid.

Many painted wooden coffin fragments were cleaned and consolidated in the 2022 season by our conservators Antje Zygalski and Noura Mustafa El-Taher. Noura did an amazing job in reconstructing free standing elements of coffins in the shape of djed-pillars and Isis-symbols.

Fig. 3: Noura working on the fragments of djed-pillars and Isis-symbols. She managed to reconstruct several pieces out of broken fragments (photo: J. Budka).

Fig. 4: Some examples of the newly reconstructed Isis-symbols (photo: J. Budka).

The best example that we were able to identify new owners of coffins during the 2022 is Reg. No. 689, found in the debris in the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor. The lady Takerheb is now confirmed as the owner of this piece.

During the 2022 season, also some new names of persons buried in TT 414 were identified. For the 26^th Dynasty, a possible new female relative of Ankh-Hor was recorded. The fragment of a new anthropoid coffin, K07/243, gives the name Ta-dj-Iset (a common name in the 25^th and 26^th Dynasties), previously unknown from TT 414. Since there are several Pa-di-Iset attested in Ankh-Hor family, this new female might extend the family tree – for more information, I will need to identify matching pieces to this newly recorded coffin fragment.

In addition to the stylistic assessment of the cartonnages from TT 414, much progress was done this season in identifying the owners of these trappings. Thanks to infrared photography, some names and titles became readable and allow to attribute cartonnage elements to Ptolemaic individuals already known from other objects, for example a new cartonnage element is attested for G 148, Ta-sherit-Khonsw, with K08/85.

One particular important identification of a new cartonnage element is the one for Twt, an individual otherwise only attested by his outer anthropoid coffin in yellow-red on black-style (Reg. No. 510). This also offers us the possibility to compare the motifs and styles on coffins and cartonnages.

New coffins were also assigned to known persons buried in TT 414. As one example, the inner anthropoid coffin fragment of Imhotep (G 16) was identified with Reg. No. 19/04 and is now a new addition to his set of coffins with an outer coffin in black-yellow style, Reg. No. 759.

Fig. 5: Foot part of the inner coffin of Imhotep, already documented in 2019, but now newly assigned to its owner (photo: C. Geiger, ©Ankh-Hor Project).

To conclude, several new observations on the material from TT 414 are possible as direct results of the 2022 season, in particular in three main thematic fields, first of all because of the extended application of infrared photography: 1) genealogical information and new coffin owners, 2) additions to existing tomb groups as well as 3) a better understanding of the coffin design and the main motifs, also in relation to cartonnage elements.

Despite of all this progress, large amounts of fragments of coffins and cartonnage from the Late Period to Ptolemaic and also Roman times remain to be cleaned, are partly in need of reconstruction and of full documentation. Our work therefore needs to be continued in the next season. Our 2022 results hopefully show that these efforts are immensely worthwhile.

Ptolemaic cartonnage elements from TT 414: tentative steps into a promising field

Posted on October 19, 2022 by ankhhorproject

It is well known that Ptolemaic mummies were typically equipped with trappings made of cartonnage. The most common cartonnage elements are a helmet-style funerary mask, a foot case and several panels along the body. Such elements are commonly displayed in museums and collections worldwide (and frequently found as objects sold on the art market). Several aspects like the manufacture process or stylistic features of such cartonnages have already been discussed by scholars, with a clear focus on funerary masks in Ptolemaic times (see e.g. Stadler 2004, Vandenbeusch et al. 2021).

In Theban funerary archaeology, little research has been done on Ptolemaic cartonnages. Such elements are mentioned frequently in excavation reports, but a concise assessment, including a study of the diachronic development in Ptolemaic times, still needs to be undertaken. Seminal, but only preliminary work was conducted by the late Gabor Schreiber (Schreiber 2006).

The rich corpus of cartonnage elements from TT 414 was also neglected and remains to be studied in detail and of course published. This material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor covers a long and intriguing period. Cartonnage trappings are already known from the in situ burial of Wahibre I (Bietak and Reiser-Haslauer 1982) and thus seem to start in the 30^th Dynasty with a peak in early Ptolemaic times. In mid- to late Ptolemaic times cartonnage coffins replacing wooden coffins are attested from TT 414, allowing to compare the iconography of wooden coffins with that of cartonnage pieces.

During the current 2022 season of the LMU Ankh-Hor project, I managed to get a good overview of all the cartonnage elements from TT 414. It became obvious that there are many matching pieces throughout several boxes – it is a large jigsaw-puzzle very much comparable to the wooden coffin fragments. Many cartonnage elements belong to funerary masks, but also foot cases and trappings placed on the mummified body are well attested. Among my favourite elements are pectorals in the shape of broad collars. These usually show alternating dotted and floral motifs and include the representation of a winged scarab and falcon heads on the sides. Representations of the goddess Nut spreading her wings are also attested – thus a range of motifs also known from various types of coffins. In line with this, many of the cartonnage elements are decorated on both sides. Some cartonnage trappings also show actual scenes like the deceased being led by Anubis to Osiris (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: examples for the high quality but fragmentation of the cartonnage elements from TT 414.

One of my personal highlights is the identification of a new cartonnage element for Mr. Twt – an individual otherwise only attested by his outer anthropoid coffin in yellow-red on black-style (Fig. 2). Already in 2019, I was convinced that there must be other objects belonging to Twt – well, here we are, three years later with new evidence of cartonnage trappings.

Fig. 2: We can now assign cartonnage trappings to Twt, owner of coffin Reg. No. 510. This also offers us the possibility to compare the motifs and styles on coffins and cartonnages.

These are just the first tentative steps into a very promising fields! Updates will follow, work continues!

References

Bietak, Manfred and Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer 1982. Das Grab des ‘Anch-Hor vol. II. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Schreiber, Gábor 2006. Ptolemaic cartonnages from Thebes. In Győry, Hedvig (ed.), Aegyptus et Pannonia III: Acta symposii anno 2004, 227-246. Budapest: MEBT-ÓEB.

Stadler, Martin Andreas 2004. Ägyptische Mumienmasken in Würzburg (Schenkung Gütte). Wiesbaden: Reicher.

Vandenbeusch, Marie, Daniel O’Flynn, and Benjamin Moreno 2021. Layer by layer: the manufacture of Graeco-Roman funerary masks. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 107 (1-2), 281-298.

Week 3 of field season 2022: a short update

Posted on October 14, 2022 by ankhhorproject

We have just completed week 3 of our field season 2022. We managed to make good progress on many of our work tasks. I had to go back to Germany for other important tasks, but thanks to Patrizia, Hassan and Ashraf as well as the support from the local authorities, the remote supervision from Munich is really easy.

Most importantly, Patrizia arrived last weekend and started her work in week 3 which focuses this year on drawing special objects like stamped bricks and unclear painted mud fragments.

Patrizia and Hassan busy drawing various kinds of small finds.

Strengthened by Hassan Ramadan and our inspector Saad Knawy, the drawing team of this season is extremely effective and covers all categories of small finds – from ceramics to mud shabtis, faience shabtis, wooden statues and boxes as well as a few selected coffin fragments.

Our inspector Saad is making great progress in drawing small finds (photo: P. Heindl).

The conservation team continued its work – Antje Zygalski focused on the reconstruction of a Middle Kingdom rectangular coffin which was found in one of the shaft tombs in the Austrian concession while Noura was busy cleaning Ptolemaic coffin fragments from TT 414.

Antje working on the Middle Kingdom coffin (photo: P. Heindl).

Our Egyptian colleague Noura cleaning Ptolemaic coffin fragments (photo: P. Heindl).

I managed to complete the documentation of the most important boxes with cartonnage fragments – there are already some exciting new data gained from this which I will share in a separate blog post. Much progress was also made in documenting Ptolemaic wooden coffins by photography. It was already highlighted that one of my most favourite coffins from TT 414, Reg. No. 657, is adding fresh ideas about the tomb group of Isetemkheb and the family of Wahibre I.

The conservation, cleaning, photography and drawing of the rich material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor in the 2022 season has already provided very interesting results – and we have two more weeks to go, so stay tuned for more exciting news!

Putting together what belongs together: the tomb group of Istemkheb (G10) from TT 414

Posted on October 13, 2022 by ankhhorproject

One of the main aims of the current Ankh-Hor Project is to reconstruct the original tomb groups of the persons buried in TT 414. Much progress was made in the 2022 season already, and the last days were extremely productive in this respect.

Our conservator Antje Zygalski finished the consolidation of a beautiful painted wooden inner anthropoid coffin (Reg. No. 657), the sistrum player of Amun, Isetemkheb. I managed to identify new joints to the previously registered pieces and together with new infrared photos (Fig. 1), we have now a rich data set for a detailed study of this fragmented coffin.

Fig. 1: Example of details from the fragmented coffin lid Reg. No. 657, now visible thanks to infrared photos.

The lady Isetemkheb was labelled as G10 by Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer in the genealogical register (Reiser-Haslauer 1982, 268). Thanks to the names of her parents, several objects can be attributed to her:

A beautiful and unusual Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue – its pedestal is Reg. No. 695 and still here in Egypt, the statue was in Paris (Louvre N 670) and is now in Warsaw Inv.No. 143346 (Lipinska 2008)
A colourful painted canopic box in London (BM EA 8532, see Budka, Mekis & Bruwier 2013)
A gilded hypocephalus in Paris (Louvre N 3524, Mekis 2020, No. 1, 148-149)
A Book of the Dead papyus in Turin (cat.no. 1793, TM 57048)

Together with the inner coffin, this makes a substantial tomb group which finds close parallels with other 30^th Dynasty/early Ptolemaic burial assemblages from the tomb of Ankh-Hor (Budka, Mekis & Bruwier 2013). The fact that her objects are distributed throughout European museums is also something we already know very well from other tombs groups from TT 414.

What I find especially remarkable are close parallels between the inner coffin, in particular the front panel of the foot part of the lid, and the pedestal of the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue (Fig. 2). This allows us to speculate that both objects were produced in the same workshop.

Fig. 2: A comparision between the foot part of the lid of the coffin of Isetemkheb and one side of her pedestal for the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue now in Warsaw.

The inner anthropoid coffin of Isetemkheb is in many respects remarkable – although the bier scene with the mummy is only partly preserved, it is very likely that we have another so-called Lamentation coffin (see Kucharek and Coenen 2021). Directly next to the bier on its left side, part of the speech of Isis is preserved, the typical phrase come to your house, “mj r pr=k”.

Coffin Reg. No. 657 is one of the eleven colourful painted coffins found in the debris in the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor. Here, a group of six female inner anthropoid coffins is especially noteworthy (Reg. Nos. 656, 657, 658, 659, 661 and 696). According to its design and colour scheme as well as the execution of its hieroglyphs, the coffin of Isetemkheb is very similar to the Reg. Nos. 656 and 658 as well as Reg. No. 655 of a male owner. These parallels seem relevant for dating the coffin as I will outline below.

After all these general comments on her tomb group, there is of course one essential question: who was this sistrum player Isetemkheb? This remained unclear for many years, no relatives other than her parents were known and her connection to the priestly family using TT 414 in early Ptolemaic times was mysterious. Back in 2017, Tamás Mekis and I proposed to identify her as the previously unknown wife of Wah-ib-Re I, the famous owner of the in situ burial in Room 10 of TT 414 (Budka and Mekis 2017). Tamás included an updated family tree of her and her husband in his PhD thesis, making it clear that Isetemkheb G11 of Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer is identical with our Isetemkheb G10 (Mekis 2020, 150). We can now reconstruct three of her sons and several descendants of these.

Although I still believe that this identification of Isetemkheb as the wife of Wah-ib-Re I is correct and built on strong evidence, a new look on her coffin raises several questions. This coffin is completely different from the coffin assemblage of her husband; rather, it finds a particular close parallel in the inner coffin of one of the nephews of her husband, Padias, Reg. No. 655 (Fig. 3). Could this imply that she survived Wah-ib-Re I for almost one generation? Could this maybe also explain why she was not buried in the same compartment?

Fig. 3: Comparison of the shoulder part of the lid of Isetemkheb with the one of Padias.

All in all, some of these questions might remain impossible to answer – but our new reassessment of the finds from TT 414 allows us to address them and to think further about the complexity of the reuse of the tomb of Ankh-Hor by the large Padiamunnebnesuttaui family.

References

Budka and Mekis 2017 = J. Budka and T. Mekis, The Family of Wah-ib-re I (TT 414) from Thebes, Ä&L 27 (2017), 219–239.

Budka, Mekis and Bruwier 2013 = J. Budka, T. Mekis and M.-C. Bruwier, Reuse of Saite temple tombs in the Assasif during the early Ptolemaic Time, Ä&L 22/23 (2013), 209–251.

Kucharek and Coenen 2021 = A. Kucharek and M. Coenen 2021. The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys. Fragmentary Osirian papyri, Part I (The Carlsberg Papyri 16, CNI Publications 46). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2021.

Lipinska 2008 = J. Lipinska, An Unusual Wooden Statuette of Osiris, in S.H. D’Auria (ed.) Servant of Mut. Studies in Honor of Richard A. Fazzini (Probleme der Ägyptologie 28): 166–169. Leiden/Boston: Brill 2008.

Mekis 2020 = T. Mekis, The hypocephalus: an ancient Egyptian funerary amulet. Archaeopress Egyptology 25. Oxford: Archaeopress 2020.

Reiser-Haslauer 1982 = E. Reiser-Haslauer, IX. Genealogisches Register, 267–284, in: M. Bietak and E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris, Band II. Mit Beiträgen von Joachim Boessneck, Angela von den Driesch, Jan Quaegebeur, Helga Liese-Kleiber und Helmut Schlichtherle und Relief- und Fundzeichnungen von Heinz Satzinger, UZK 5, Vienna 1982.

Totenbuchprojekt Bonn, TM 57048, <totenbuch.awk.nrw.de/objekt/tm57048>.

www.trismegistos.org/text/57048

Week 2 of field season 2022 in pictures

Posted on October 7, 2022 by ankhhorproject

It is always a miracle that the time on an excavation goes by even faster than at home. Week 2 of our field season 2022 just ended and was very successful in many respects.

Most importantly, the new conservator of the project has arrived and joined the team this week. Antje Zygalski is a researching conservator for archaeological wooden objects (furniture, sculptures, panel paintings etc.) and a preventive conservator for archaeological and historical objects. She has started her work and is now very productive cleaning and consolidating coffin fragments from TT 414.

Antje busy documenting already cleaned pieces from a Ptolemaic wooden painted coffin.

We also have an Egyptian conservator, Noura, as a new team member who is helping us with the cleaning of the large number of objects (I need to take a working pic of her next week 😉).

Hassan Ramadan continued the documentation of various small finds by drawing in week 2. He also introduced our inspector Saad Knawy to the archaeological illustration of objects – Saad got an intense training with Late Period clay shabtis and is already making great progress.

Hassan and Saad produced a considerable amount of drawings of objects in week 2.

From now until the end of the season, Hassan will focus mostly on wooden objects like shrines and pedestals for stelae – he has already much experience with this kind of material from TT 414.

Fragmented shrines and other wooden objects are documented in detail by Hassan.

I started the week with finding more fitting pieces of coffins as well as identifying unnumbered ones and photographing these. I then proceeded to study and document fragmented Ptolemaic cartonnages. There are many boxes with small and sometimes larger pieces for which the challenge is to identify related pieces originally belonging to the same cartonnage element. Many of the pieces represent funerary masks of a well-known Theban Ptolemaic type. Larger fragments covering the body of the mummy are often decorated on both sides, with very interesting designs of the sky and deities on the interior.

The typical content of one of the dozens of boxes of cartonnage elements – here, there are mostly fragments from Ptolmaic funerary masks.

Infrared photography works perfect for pieces of cartonnage with darkened surfaces and I could identify some names and titles using this method. This allows me to attribute cartonnage elements to persons buried in TT 414 who are already known from their wooden coffins. In the 1970s, the fragmented cartonnage pieces could not be studied because of time restrictions – therefore this new study is of key importance to reconstruct the former burial assemblages. Apart from this great advancement in attributing cartonnage elements to Ptolemaic individuals using the tomb of Ankh-Hor as a burial place, the stylistic assessment, and the comparison of the design of cartonnages with the one of coffins is extremely promising and will take more time and a detailed study.

For now, we are very much looking forward to week 3 of our 2022 season! Conservation, cleaning, photography, study and drawing of the rich material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor will of course continue.

Highlights of Week 1, Season 2022

Posted on September 30, 2022 by ankhhorproject

Our 2022 season was opened on Tuesday and thus we only have worked three days in the magazine in the Asasif. We cleaned all the area and our workplaces were set up including new tents. Hassan Ramadan is already busy with drawing small finds – jar stoppers, clay figurines, shabtis and wooden objects are waiting for him this season.

I was organising coffin fragments according to priorities for the conservation programme which will start next week. While sorting the material, I took a considerable number of infrared photos – this method allowed us already last year to identify several pieces because the decoration and the texts becomes much clearer and nicely readable. Amazingly, already on the first day I could identify three coffins by means of such photos!

In total, I could detect seven previously unidentified fragments as belonging to registered coffins in just two days. In addition to this great progress, the reading of the text and decoration also adds new information to several pieces.

The best example here is Reg. No. 689, found in the debris in the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor. It is the front part of a pedestal of an inner anthropoid painted wooden coffin with an unusual decoration, showing three cartouches of Osiris, Isis and Horus above the binding of the heraldic plants of Upper and Lower Egypt. A ba bird is shown in adoration of the cartouches to the left; a human adoring figure is traceable on the right. Unfortunately, this side of the coffin board is very darkened, and the painting is difficult to see on an ordinary photograph.

When Elfriede Reiser-Haslauer studied this coffin in the 1970s, she therefore could not read the name of the human figure. She also made a question mark behind her identification as a male deceased, being unsecure of the gender of the darkened figure. Thus, this coffin was never included in the genealogical register of TT 414 created by Reiser-Haslauer (1982).

And here comes the magic moment 50 years later thanks to infrared photography. The decoration and texts become visible, and the name of the deceased is very clear: it is the nb.t pr Takerheb.

Detail of the infrared photo of Reg. No. 689 showing the newly identifed female owner of the coffin.

This lady is already attested from TT 414 by means of fragments of an outer anthropoid coffin in the typical early Ptolemaic black-and-yellow style, Reg. No. 780, also found in the debris of the burial chamber of Ankh-Hor. Thus, we now have new evidence of her complete set of coffins, the inner colourful painted one (Reg. No. 689) and the outer black-yellow one (Reg. No. 780). Her outer coffin also gives the title of a sistrum-player of Amun-Re and the names of her parents (see Reiser Haslauer 1982, G152).

This example hopefully illustrates both the great potential of our current work on the finds from TT 414 as well as the challenges we are facing – loads of material still need to be studied in detail! Thankfully we are just at the beginning of our 2022 season.

Reference:

Reiser-Haslauer 1982 = E. Reiser-Haslauer, IX. Genealogisches Register, 267–284, in: M. BIETAK/E. REISER-HASLAUER, Das Grab des Anch-Hor, Obersthofmeister der Gottesgemahlin Nitokris, Band II. Mit Beiträgen von Joachim Boessneck, Angela von den Driesch, Jan Quaegebeur, Helga Liese-Kleiber und Helmut Schlichtherle und Relief- und Fundzeichnungen von Heinz Satzinger, UZK 5, Vienna 1982.

New book: The case study of Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu of the family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy from TT 414

Posted on July 18, 2022 by ankhhorproject

It gives me great pleasure to announce a new monograph: The book “The family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy from Thebes (TT 414) revisited” has just been published and is also available open access.

Together with my main co-author, Tamás Mekis, and with contributions by Malcolm Mosher, Jr. and Marc Étienne, we provide fresh material about the identity of one of the key figures of the Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy family who reused the Saite tomb of Ankh-Hor (TT 414) in the Asasif from the 4th century BCE onwards.

It is the woman Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu who was until now listed in the genealogical register of TT 414 as Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy’s daughter and wife of one of his sons, Hor. By examining objects found by the agents of the consuls in the 19th century CE and the ones found by the Austrian mission in the 1970’s in TT 414 and in wider Theban context, we managed to identify Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu, wife of Hor, as another, until now overlooked individual. The examination of the funerary assemblage of Kalutj/Nes-Khonsu and of objects belonging to her husband, daughter and sons revealed not only details of the Late Dynastic and Ptolemaic burial customs in Thebes but also additional information on the priesthood of Khonsu and of the sacred baboons in this era.

This new identification of a previous overlooked person demonstrates that the finds from TT 414 are still far from being processed in its totality. We hope that our publication contributes to awareness of the richness and creativity of Late Period Thebes in regard to funerary and temple rituals and to the fact that great potential still lies in the combination of data from previous excavations like the Austrian mission in TT 414, new data like the LMU Ankh-Hor project, and objects stored in museums and collections.

Looking much forward to feedback and discussion of our theory, I would like to thank my co-authors and first of all Tamás Mekis – it was a great pleasure to collaborate on this project and we already have ideas for the next publication! The material from TT 414 is a real gold mine when it comes to questions about funerary assemblages of Late Dynastic/Ptolemaic Thebes and there’s still much work ahead of us.

New dissemination article about our 2021 season

Posted on November 1, 2021 by ankhhorproject

I am delighted that a new dissemination article was just published about our first field season since the covid 19-pandemic. I stressed in particular the advances due to infrared photography and the continuation of our conservation programme. The material from TT 414, and here especially the large corpus of painted coffins, has so much potential to answer various open questions about Late Period and Ptolemaic funerary archaeology in Thebes. In particular, the rich coffin material as well as cartonnages, canopic boxes, shrines, hypocephali and other elements of the tomb groups illustrate key aspects of Late Egyptian religious iconography which continues to fascinate me, and which will keep us busy during postprocessing the large amount of new data from the 2021 season.

The rich material from TT 414 in Asasif is still far from being processed in its totality.

Reference

Julia Budka 2021. Back to Egypt: The 2021 season of the Ankh-Hor Project in Luxor. The Project Repository journal 11. Oct. 2021, 8-11https://www.europeandissemination.eu/project-repository-journal-volume-11-october-2021/17509 https://doi.org/10.54050/PRJ1117674

Closing of the 2021 season

Posted on October 19, 2021 by ankhhorproject

Times flies by – we worked in the Asasif from September 16 to October 14, 2021, closed the mission last Thursday and are now back in Germany and Austria.

All set for the transport of our boxes with coffins to the study magazine!

As one of the highlights of the 2021 season, the transport of three fragmented coffins from TT 414 to the study magazine on the West Bank was realized on October 13. These are two early Ptolemaic coffins and one 26^th Dynasty coffin, all of them lower parts of wooden anthropoid ones. All three were fully consolidated and documented during our mission.

Three lower parts of coffins from TT 414 and a box with fragmentary statues, shrines, stelae and coffin boards was transported to the study magazine.

Each of these coffins shows very special features – I especially like the base of Reg. No. 656, owned by the temple singer Aset-em-Akhbit III. The back pillar of her coffin is decorated with a Djed-pillar and a sun disc.

The colourful base with the back pillar of Reg. No. 656.

Although the composition as a whole is appealing, the individual strokes and proportions, especially of the ram horns below the feather crown, show signs of a very quick execution. Since several family members of Aset-em-Akhbit III were buried in TT 414 and are also attested by wooden coffins, we will compare the style of coffin painting on Reg. No. 656 with contemporaneous coffins. Tracing specific Ptolemaic coffin workshops based on the material from TT 414 is one of the future goals of the project.

Much material and many new data were collected in the last weeks and will keep us busy post-processing the very successful 2021 season!

Summary of week 3: more than TT 414

Posted on October 8, 2021 by ankhhorproject

A very busy and successful week just came to an end – more team members have left today, and we will finish off the 2021 season in a small group with one more week to go!

We started into the week with a very pleasant and productive visit by my dear friend and colleague Salima Ikram. We have been working together on some embalming deposits this season for the South Asasif Conservation Project. Salima kindly passed by to have a look at the black goo – bitumen and resin – in the interiors of our coffins from TT 414. One lower part of an anthropoid Ptolemaic coffin was particularly interesting.

A number of beetles were stuck into the resin/bitumen – did they enter the coffin together with the mummy? According to Salima, these are darkling beetles, Pimelia nilotica in Egypt. Since these feed on animal (and human) tissue, it is indeed likely that they entered the coffin when the mummy was put there, presumably before the funerary ceremony when the pouring of the black goo took place. However, many questions are still open, and we cannot exclude a reuse of this coffin and a more complex story behind the “coffin beetles”. This is even more true since we documented smaller fragments of lower bases of coffins with similar findings – less well preserved, but also with clear remains of beetles stuck to the resin in the coffin.

The focus of this week was preparing the coffins and other objects which we will transport to the study magazine of the Egyptian authorities next week. Here, one particular challenging piece is the once beautiful 26^th Dynasty coffin of Psammetik-men-em-Waset, Reg. No. 591. He bears the same name like one of the brothers of Ankh-Hor, but belongs to the family of Nes-Menw which is closely related to the family of Ankh-Hor. Maybe the owner of our coffin was the grand-nephew of Ankh-Hor, making his coffin set of an inner anthropoid coffin and a qrsw-coffin extremely relevant for understanding late 26^th Dynasty tomb groups. The piece we are currently working on is an anthropoid wooden coffin with a layer of linen which was painted in white and decorated with texts in blue and green. Unfortunately, the linen was almost completely detached from the wood and the painted layer has suffered much in the last decades in the provisional storage place.

Our team of conservators is still busy with consolidating this important piece from TT 414.

Many challenges in the conservation tent: the painted linen/cartonnage of the 26th Dynasty coffin in the front, the undecorated 25th Dynasty Kushite coffin in the back.

However, this week was also occupied with documentation work of coffins which were not found in TT 414 and are dating to other periods than the 26^th Dynasty to Ptolemaic times. One of them was a poorly preserved 25^th Dynasty wooden coffin of an anonymous Kushite lady found in Tomb VII – one of the most important findings within the Austrian concession with intact burials of Kushites (for details see one of my earlier articles). The coffin fully consolidated this season was found in burial chamber 3 together with three infant coffins and one painted and inscribed coffin of a Kushite male with the name Irw.

In situ situation in Tomb VII of the Austrian concession with a pile of Kushite coffins (after Budka 2007), including the one of an anonymous female consolidated this year.

Another important find from the Austrian mission was made in 1971 in one of the Middle Kingdom shaft tombs in the bed of the causeway of Thutmose III. It is a complete, undecorated Middle Kingdom rectangular coffin which was a big challenge to photograph. Cajetan managed to put the piece together and assembled the coffin box with the help of some external supports for photography.

Last, but not least, several new joints to Ptolemaic coffins from TT 414 were made this week based on new infrared photography. One of my favourite pieces belongs to a woman with the name of Mutirdis – we knew already some fragments of her lid and side boards, but I managed to identify three additional pieces from the pedestal and foot part. Like it is the case for several other Ptolemaic pieces, reconstructing this beautifully decorated coffin will clearly take another season but is full of potential!

One of the newly identifed pieces of a Polemaic coffin of Mutirdis.

For now, I am very happy and thankful to all the team and looking forward to our last week which will focus on consolidation work and reorganising the space within the provisional magazine.

The Ankh-Hor Project

TT 414 in Asasif revisited

Category Archives: Ptolemaic