Mid-season update from the field

Posted on October 3, 2025 by ankhhorproject

It’s gone by in the blink of an eye – we’ve already reached the mid-season point after two weeks of work in the Asasif. We’ve been super busy with wooden and cartonnage coffins from TT 414, both from the 26th Dynasty and the Ptolemaic period.

Ladina did a great job of documenting a really interesting wooden shrine coffin – the complete cornice of which has survived, allowing us to reconstruct its dimensions. This piece offers much to discover! We can highlight details of the woodworking, such as markings for dowel holes. Ladina has therefore also produced detailed pencil drawings of the individual elements.

Ladina busy drawing one of the beautifully carved peices of a wooden shrine coffin.

Mohamed Mahmoud and Iman Ibrahim Zaghlol, our conservators, did a great job over the last two weeks, cleaning and consolidating a large number of fragments.

Iman working on a 26th Dynasty fragment.

Mohamed’s work on fragile cartonnage pieces is really something else. He’s done some amazing stuff here, transforming broken and fragile pieces into stable objects again.

The fragment here shows that we’ve also got ‘openwork’ cartonnage coffins like the famous one by the Ptolemaic Theban priest Djed-Hor, which is now in the Leiden Museum and was recently published in a great new book by Maarten Raven (Raven 2025).

This piece from TT 414 and the cartonnage of Djed-Hor show that this type of cartonnage only covered the front and sides of the mummy. However, we also found bivalve cartonnage coffins from TT 414 in the last few seasons (check out last year’s reconstruction of the lower part of the cartonnage coffin Reg. No. 08/05). I’ve been working on these this week, trying to find joints between lower parts and upper parts of pieces that are similar stylistically.

This is me working on one of the beautifully painted bivalve cartonnage coffins from TT 414.

Hassan Aglan, who got here earlier this week, has a special task to finish up on in the next few days. He started documenting infant coffins from Tomb VII in the Austrian concession in great detail. This is a small family tomb used by a Kushite family (see Budka 2010 with references). The Austrian mission directed by Manfred Bietak found several burials in situ, including three infants. We’re currently photographing and scanning the coffins and human remains. As tragic as the children’s early passing must have been for their family, these burials are of significant importance. They are securely dated to the 25th Dynasty, so we’re doing everything we can to meticulously document them.

This is one of the infant coffins from Tomb VII. It’s still not cleaned and in poor condition (here with Ladina happy in the background) (photo: Hassan Aglan).

There’s loads of work waiting for us, starting with tomorrow and the start of week 3! But with all these great new advances, I’m really looking forward to getting back to the site.

References

Budka 2010 = J. Budka, Bestattungsbrauchtum und Friedhofsstruktur im Asasif. Eine Untersuchung der spätzeitlichen Befunde anhand der Ergebnisse der österreichischen Ausgrabungen in den Jahren 1969-1977, Untersuchungen der Zweigstelle Kairo des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 34, Vienna 2010.

Raven 2025 = M. J. Raven, The Lost Mummy of Djedhor. Reconstructing the burial of a Ptolemaic priest from Thebes, Leiden 2025.

Presenting the Ankh-Hor project in Munich

Posted on May 25, 2023 by ankhhorproject

It is a great pleasure to have been invited by the Collegium Aegyptium, the friends of the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology at LMU Munich to give a lecture about my Ankh-Hor Project.

My talk later today will be in German and focuses on the questions of Ptolemaic wooden coffins and cartonnage fragments from TT 414.

It is the first time that I present some preliminary remarks on the cartonnage cases from the tomb of Ankh-Hor. There is evidence for various types of cartonnages from the 30th Dynasty well into the Ptolemaic era. I will discuss some of the results from the 2022 season.

One particularly interesting topic, that I will briefly mention today in my lecture is the appearance of zodiac representations on the interior of lids of cartonnage coffins.

Interior decoration of the lid of a cartonnage coffin from TT 414 with the Taurus zodiac sign.

The recent publication by Daniela Mendel (2022) is an excellent collection and comparison of representations of astronomical ceilings and zodiacs in Ptolemaic and Roman temples, coffins and sarcophagi as well as tombs. Due to the poor state of publication on Ptolemaic cartonnage coffins from Thebes, there is no reference in the book to cartonnage examples of zodiac representations. It is well known that the wooden coffins of the famous Soter family from Thebes include representations of the sky with zodiac – but as the material from TT 414 shows, there were already examples well before the Roman era.

There is still so much work and research to be done – and hopefully we will be back in Luxor for the 2023 season of the Ankh-Hor Project soon. For now, I am very much looking forward to tonight’s lecture and hope for some constructive feedback and questions.

Reference

Mendel, D. 2022. Die Geographie des Himmels: eine Untersuchung zu den Deckendekorationen in ägyptischen Tempeln der griechisch-römischen Zeit und zeitgleichen Darstellungen auf Särgen und in Gräbern. 3 vols. Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion 37. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

Back from the ICE 2019 in Cairo

Posted on November 12, 2019 by ankhhorproject

Wow, it has been a very intense and very stimulating week at the International Congress of Egyptologists last week in Cairo. Besides stunning settings for dinners at Manial Palace and the Citadelle, there was much food for thought in the lecture halls. Especially intriguing were presentations of new results from the Theban necropolis and beyond – there is so much current fieldwork in Egypt that one week can barely cover all of these missions and projects!

I myself presented the LMU Ankh-Hor Project at the ICE.

I talked about some new data which allow an update on the use-life of TT 414, the 26th Dynasty tomb of Ankh-Hor. The important aspect here is that I believe it can be used as a model for other temple tombs in the Asasif. I also summarized the history of research of TT 414 and stressed the important aspect of joining data from museums and collections and the Austrian excavations in order to reconstruct the actual tomb groups from TT 414.

Looking already now much forward to the next ICE, this time in Leiden!

Summer in Luxor, Munich and Vienna

Posted on September 5, 2019 by ankhhorproject

Time flies by – on such a rainy day like today in Munich, summer really seems to be over… My recent study season in Luxor was very successful and despite of the high temperatures really productive.

The necropolis of Asasif on an early August morning.

The South Asasif Conservation Project directed by Elena Pischikova had made fantastic discoveries this season and the corresponding ceramics were exciting to process. Of course I was especially looking for parallels for TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor. This season, not only nice comparisons from the second heyday of the Asasif during the 4^th and 3^rd centuries BC showed up, but also intriguing pieces from a little understood period, the late 26^th Dynasty and the 27^th Dynasty. Especially the latter are important because, as clearly stated by Wolfram Grajetzki already some years ago: „The period of the first Persian domination remains something of a mystery for archaeology in Egypt. There are very few monuments and even fewer tombs that can be securely dated to this time“ (Grajetzki 2003, 117). Especially within Thebes, burials attributable to the Persian Period (27^th Dynasty) still remain an enigma and are difficult to date (see Aston 1999), but ceramics from both Southern and Northern Asasif clearly attest to the funerary activities during that time. Much more research is required here!

For now, some post-excavation work is necessary for the 2019 South Asasif season and I am busy with entering data into the database. Next week, Vienna is calling and the focus will be more on Sudan and the MUAFS project. All in all, this summer was not only hot in terms of temperatures, but also extremely interesting and inspiring for my projects in Asasif and beyond.

References

Aston, David A. 1999. Dynasty 26, dynasty 30 or dynasty 27? In search of the funerary archaeology of the Persian period, in: Studies in Ancient Egypt in honour of H. S. Smith, ed. by Anthony Leahy & John Tait, London, 17–22.

Grajetzki, Wolfram. 2003. Burial Customs in Ancient Egypt: Life in Death for Rich and Poor, London.

Dissemination of the rich potential of the Ankh-Hor Project

Posted on July 31, 2019 by ankhhorproject

Good news within the summer break: Our study of neglected finds from the tomb of Ankh-Hor in Asasif, TT414, in Egypt is highlighted in the latest issue of the The Project Repository Journal (July 2019, pp. 42-43).

Our aimed reconstruction of the complete use life of the tomb from the 6^th century BC until Roman and Coptic times will provide new information about the people buried in TT 414 and also allows high lightening important new aspects of Egyptian funerary customs throughout the ages.

TT 414 has a huge potential to serve as a case study to analyse various attitudes of later generations towards the original owners of monumental Theban burial places – this can be best illustrated by the recycling of coffins. For the understanding of the complete, very complex use life of TT 414 a more in depth study is therefore much needed and will be carried out in the next years. At present, large amounts of coffins, fragments of coffins and cartonnage from TT 414, dating from the Late Period to Ptolemaic and Roman times, still remain to be cleaned, consolidated and fully documented. These tasks require time and financial support, but will definitly contribute to writing a new chapter of Theban funerary archaeology.

TT 414 as monumental jigsaw puzzle with huge potential

Posted on May 30, 2019 by ankhhorproject

The rich potential of the thousands of finds from TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor, for understanding the funerary culture of Late Period and Ptolemaic Thebes as well as family relations and more was recently the focus of an interview I gave to the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Screenshot

The interview was published yesterday in German – more media coverage of the project which makes me very proud. Besides the interesting re-use of coffins I also mentioned the fascination history of the use and re-use of the “Lichthof” in TT 414. A blog post about this aspect of the tomb of Ankh-Hor will follow shortly.

Media coverage for the Ankh-Hor Project

Posted on April 10, 2019 by ankhhorproject

Very proud and honoured: our work in the Asasif on the finds from the TT 414 has made it into an Austrian newspaper – an article in “Die Presse” presented some information about the Ankh-Hor project (print version 06/04/2019, online since 09/04/2019), based on an interview I gave in Vienna two weeks ago.

On this occasion, I stressed the rich potential about the coffins from the tomb of Ankh-Hor – not only for establishing a typology for Ptolemaic coffins and for discussing coffin workshops at Thebes, but especially for discussing the diverse re-use of TT 414, burial chambers and coffins. The best example is of course the 26^th Dynasty coffin Reg. No. 590 of Iret-her-rw, which was re-used by Wah-ib-re in Ptolemaic times.

There are still plenty of information to unveil from the tomb of Ankh-Hor.

Media coverage like this article and also the recent blog post at DerStandard.at are very nice rewards for our busy and successful 2019 season – and it also helps to keep the motivation high. Among others, for writing proposals and applications which will keep me busy in the next months. Money does matter – not only for death and burials as you can read in the “Die Presse” article but also for researching complex burials like the multiple ones in TT 414.

Closing of the 2019 season of the Ankh-Hor project

Posted on March 12, 2019 by ankhhorproject

From Luxor back to Munich – it was not in particular a warm welcome yesterday, arriving at Munich airport with snow showers and much too low temperatures for March! Well, today it is quite sunny and time to resume the last day of work in Asasif.

My last sunrise at TT 414 for 2019…

We successfully closed our tomb magazine and the 2019 season on Sunday – it has been some very intense days full of work and things to organize. Our conservators provided me with a fully illustrated and concise report about the large amount of conservation work conducted in 2019 – in total, 61 objects, in particular coffins, including the five fragmented ones we transported to the magazine, were successfully cleaned and consolidated.

Hassan and Mona were also very productive, resulting in more than 80 drawings of wooden objects, small finds and ceramics. In addition to these drawing, more than 470 objects were photographed by Cajetan with our full-frame camera with very high resolution.

In the final days of work, I took some last photographs of objects, last coffin fragments were cleaned and consolidated. And of course I continued to organize the magazine. Since it always happens on excavations that something new and important turns up at the very last day of work, I was not surprised that I found some new fitting coffin fragments literally in the last minutes of work…. These new fragments are important because they belong to a fascinating, but unfortunately very fragmented coffin we documented earlier this season.

Reg. 661 are fragments of a nicely painted, inner anthropoid wooden coffin which was found as one of the secondary burials within the burial compartment of Ankh-Hor (Room 7.2). For our conservators, these fragments presented one of the biggest challenges this year: The soft wood fragments are partly blackened and burnt due to the looting of TT 414 and the respective damage to the tomb inventories.

Part of Reg. 661 illustrating the bad condition of this coffin.

The owner of Reg. 661 was a female singer of Amun-Re from Karnak with the name Taremetjbastet. Since we know her family relations very well, we can date her death and burial to between 320 and 300 BCE.

The owner of Reg. 661 belongs to a well-attested family of Amun priests from Karnak buried in TT 414.

Of particular interest is the decoration of the foot part of the coffin – I have published first ideas about Reg. 661 already some years ago (Budka 2013). In the center of the foot board there is a sun disc flanked by a snake and a crocodile – this is nothing else than the opening scene of the Litany of Re, attested for the first time in the famous tomb of Sety I in the Valley of the Kings! To be best of my knowledge, there is only one parallel for this motif on foot boards of private coffins – and this is CG 29316, a stone sarcophagus from the 30^th Dynasty (see Budka 2013).

Our wooden coffin Reg. 661 from TT 414 is exemplary for is the complex creation of decorated and inscribed coffins in Thebes during the 4^th century BCE – Amun priests were extremely creative in combining various aspects, especially cosmogonic ones, using older texts and depictions and creating new ones, focusing on the resurrection of the deceased in conjunction with Re and Osiris. Still little is known about this fascinating creative work which is embodied in funerary objects like coffins, but also cartonage and canopic boxes – all of which are so plentiful from TT 414.

The lid fragments of Reg. 661 which I re-located in the last minutes of the 2019 season still need to be consolidated in the next season of the Ankh-Hor Project – like many other pieces, in particular of Ptolemaic and Roman coffins. Thus, Reg. 661 with its intriguing decoration nicely illustrates the already successful outcome and the scientific potential of the Ankh-Hor Project – but also the urgent need to continue our jigsaw puzzle reconstructing the complex burial processes in TT 414 and enlightening the intricate design of 30^th Dynasty and Ptolemaic wooden Theban coffins.

Reference

Budka, Julia. 2013. Krokodil, Schlange und Kuhantilope: Ein frühptolemäischer Holzsarg aus dem Grab des Anchhor (TT 414), in: Florilegium Aegyptiacum ‒ Eine wissenschaftliche Blütenlese von Schülern und Freunden für Helmut Satzinger zum 75. Geburtstag am 21. Jänner 2013, ed. by Julia Budka, Roman Gundacker and Gabriele Pieke, Göttinger Miszellen Beihefte 14, Göttingen, 41–57.

Summary of week 2 of the Ankh-Hor Project

Posted on February 28, 2019 by ankhhorproject

Another week of our 2019 season just ended – and was altogether again very successful.

The main tasks this week were the cleaning and consolidation of Ptolemaic coffins from TT 414. Our group of conservators was busy with both black-yellow-red outer anthropoid Ptolemaic coffins like the one of Twt and nicely multi-coloured painted coffins like the one of Iret-Hor dating to the 26^th Dynasty.

Re-organising the magazine is also well in progress; I am currently sorting the large number of coffins which are still in urgent need of consolidation according to priorities.

Photographing objects and in particular the consolidated coffins and coffin fragments also continued and required some sportive activity as well as creative solutions regarding the photo-set up by Cajetan.

Thanks to Mona and Hassan, a number of both Late Period and Ptolemaic pottery vessels from TT 414 was successfully drawn, nicely rounding up our concise study of all objects from all periods of use of the tomb of Ankh-Hor.

Last but definitely not least, many thanks go to Mohammed, Mahmoud and Ashraf – without our workmen the work which requires handling and carrying large boxes and heavy wooden pieces would not be possible.

I am, as always, very grateful to all team members and looking much forward to week 3 starting on Saturday, now wishing a nice weekend to everybody – here in Egypt and beyond!

Official start of the 2019 season

Posted on February 14, 2019 by ankhhorproject

After some very nice days in Cairo, we managed to finish all the paperwork and officially started our 2019 season in Asasif today! The team is not yet complete, but Mona and Hassan will join us soon.

Our magazine in the Asasif, an original Middle Kingdom Saff tomb, was opened today and we had a quick first check. Thankfully everything is exactly as we left it in 2018, just dusted.

All is now set and documentation and conservation work of funerary objects and primarily wooden coffins will start on Saturday – very grateful to the great support of everybody involved, especially the authorities in Cairo and here in Luxor, especially the local inspectorate.

Can’t wait to get fully occupied with our complex jigsaw puzzle, tracing the numerous people buried in the tomb of Ankh-Hor, TT 414, over several centuries!

The Ankh-Hor Project

TT 414 in Asasif revisited

Category Archives: Thebes