Tag Archives: Ptolemaic

Wife or Granddaughter? Who was T3-khj-bj3t?

Posted on by
Reply

Among the mass of coffin fragments from TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor, one stands out in particular: a coffin of a woman with both demotic and hieroglyphic inscriptions.

Reg. 770 was published by one of the experts on Demotic, Jan Quaegebeur in Anch-Hor II. He focused on the front board of the foot section, which shows the demotic inscription. However, the board of the corresponding coffin lid – with a vertical hieroglyphic inscription line – was not published as a drawing or photo.

This season, our conservator Mohamed cleaned and fixed the very fragile lid fragment and I could document it together with the foot part. Our aim is to present this unique piece in the planned publication of all coffins from TT 414.

Happy moment – joining the footpart of Reg. 770 with the lid fragment (photo: L. Soubeyrand).

The coffin owner is a woman with the typical Theban name T3-khj-bj3t, daughter of Wesjr-wer/Osoroeris and T3-njt-Khonsw/Tachonsis. This filiation is given in the demotic text, translated by Quaegebeur (1982, 259) as follows:

“May your Ba live in eternity and forever: T3-khj-bj3t daughter of Osoroeris born of Tachonsis”.

Screenshot of the new 3D model of the lid fragment of Reg. 770 with the hieroglyphic inscription.

The vertical text on the lid only mentions the mother’s name, not the father’s.

T3-khj-bj3t belongs to a Ptolemaic family attested by several wooden painted coffins from TT 414, especially Reg. 800 and Reg. 828 with hieroglyphic texts. However, there is one problem: we do not know whether our coffin owner of Reg. 770 was the wife or the granddaughter of the owner of Reg. 800, Wesjr-wer. It is possible that a woman named Ta-Khonsu, daughter of T3-khj-bj3t, named her own daughter after her mother. Quaegebeur has also expressed the opinion that the ‘granddaughter’ scenario is perhaps more likely than that of the wife, since Reg. 770, unlike Reg. 800 (and Reg. 828), also bears a demotic inscription in addition to the hieroglyphic one and might thus be of later date.

Well – as I will also be working on Reg. 800 this season, perhaps a solution will emerge. I am also very much hoping for additional information based on cartonage coffins that have not yet been included in the scenario, but which are attested for several members of this family.

Whether wife or granddaughter – the coffin Reg. 770 still raises exciting questions today and I am very pleased that we have now documented it in the best possible way. A more precise dating will hopefully be possible soon.

Reference

Quaegebeur 1982 = Jan Quaegebeur, VIII. Demotic Inscriptions on Wood from the Tomb of Anch-Hor, in: M. Bietak/E. Reiser-Haslauer, Das Grab des Anch-Hor II, Vienna 1982, 259-266.

Depictions of pairs of jackals on wooden coffins from TT 414

Posted on by
Reply

When you photograph numerous fragments of coffins every day and hold them in your hand, your eye for small details becomes sharper. One example for this is a small observation I made over the last days, and which I would like to share. It concerns the execution of individual motifs within designs arranged symmetrically along a central axis on Ptolemaic coffins from TT 414. More specifically, I am talking about pairs of jackals and the way they are represented on the same coffin. Three examples out of a larger set of coffins will hopefully illustrate why I am intrigued by these figures.

In general, two jackals, arranged symmetrically on various pieces of ancient Egyptian funerary art, are very common motifs, especially as guardian figures on coffins but also on stelae. In Thebes, the typical design of the coffin lid on the upper surface of the feet during the Late Period and Ptolemaic times shows two jackal-shaped Wep-wawet deities recumbent on a shrine on each side. The jackals commonly have a scepter between their paws and a flail above their back.

Let’s now have a look at my examples from TT 414. K07/125 is the lid of the top part of the feet of a Ptolemaic coffin. The pair of recumbent jackals flank a central vertical line of text which mentions Wep-wawet. The shrines of the jackals are not preserved, but above the jackal figures on each side are five uraei with sun discs on their head – representing the toes of the deceased.

The jackals themselves are depicted very differently – in particular the shape of the heads and snouts as well as the size and shape of the visible eye are very different. That this is not a unique feature becomes obvious when we look at two other examples. Two fragments of two qrsw-type coffins show pairs of jackals in a similar arrangement – in one case recumbent, in the other sitting – flanking the central sun disc and vertical text line, very similar to the design of stelae.

The figures I have compose illustrate how different the jackals are on the left sides to the one on the right sides. It’s mostly again differences regarding the shape of the head, snout and eye, but on K07/149 the right jackal also shows a much stockier body. If I would show you the pictures isolated – would you have guessed that it comes from the same object? This piece also shows small differences in the execution of the uraei and the space arrangement of the scenes differ slightly.

How can we explain these differences? It seems rather unlikely that different painters were involved in these minor motifs but of course this is a possibility. Perhaps there was a lot of freedom in how exactly standard motifs had to be executed on coffins during Ptolemaic times, perhaps not much accuracy was given to small details but rather to the complete design of coffins. Or could the deviations also be related to simply “natural” differences that depend on the direction of painting (animals facing to the right or to the left)?

Be it as it might, the pairs of jackals on coffins from TT 414 illustrate the complexity of coffin design in Ptolemaic Thebes and that a symmetrically arranged motif is executed in anything but the same way. This makes the study of these objects such a fascinating task.

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

Posted on by
Reply

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 30th 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.

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.

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.

Summary of week 1 of the 2021 season

Posted on by
Reply

We just finished a first, very successful week of our 2021 season. We started off with cleaning, dusting, and sorting things and are now well underway to document small finds, ceramics, shrines as well as wooden and cartonnage coffins.

The painted coffins from TT 414 belong both to primary burials of the family of Ankh-Hor and to secondary burials of Amun priests, mostly dating to the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, which appear as relatively wealthy. Most of the material derives from the secondary use of the tomb. I am still busy collecting fragments which can be dated stylistically and because of the technique to the 26th Dynasty – these are usually very small pieces, sometimes just small splitters of the painting.

Example of small fragments of 26th Dynasty coffins including a piece from the outer coffin of Ankh-Hor (bottom right).

These are nevertheless important to reconstruct the original burials in TT 414 – yesterday, I found one loose fragment of the foot pedestal of the outer coffin of Ankh-Hor himself. This foot part is in a very fragile condition and will be consolidated later this season, including fixing the loose fragments back in place. Among the most interesting finds is another 26th Dynasty coffin giving the female name of a Mutirdis – a common name in this era, but I still do not know to which specific person this coffin once belonged. During the Austrian excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, no Mutirdis from the 26th Dynasty was recognised in the material from TT 414 – another example why our current work is so important to understand the complete phases of use in the monumental tomb of Ankh-Hor!

Jessica working on one of the late Ptolemaic coffin fragments.

The Ptolemaic wooden and cartonnage coffins are much better preserved and are currently treated by our conservation team. Since 2018, our conservation programme is conducted in cooperation with the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OeAI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This year, our team is comprised of four young conservators, all graduates including one current student of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. We are kindly supported by one of the experienced Egyptian conservators from the West Bank. The team finished already a considerable number of pieces in week 1 and these objects are now ready for their final photographic documentation with a full-frame camera with high resolution (Nikon D810 with a 35mm objective lens).

In terms of documentation, the Egyptologists of our team concentrate on ceramics and small finds. This week, Hassan and Patrizia were both busy with funerary cones. Patrizia, who is about to finish her PhD about Late Period statuary, wrote some years ago her BA thesis about funerary cones and thus shares my own enthusiasm for these intriguing objects which still pose some questions in the Late Period. Drawing these cones (among others funerary cones of Monthemhat, Padineith and Pabasa), Patrizia does not only focus on the stamped end but also on technical features, remains of colours and other details.

Although very challenging objects to draw, we love Late Period funerary cones! And Patrizia is doing a perfect job here.

Our youngest Egyptologist is Caroline, a MA student from LMU Munich. She is very talented and enthusiastic and started with drawing Late Period and Ptolemaic vessels. Later this season, she will join me working for the South Asasif Conservation Project.

Caroline very quickly adapted to our “drawing office” at the site and made already a good number of pottery drawings in her first week.

It is wonderful that the two sites, Ankh-Hor and South Asasif, share so many similarities in terms of re-use – Caroline will thus be perfectly prepared, knowing the most common vessel types already from our mission.

Today, the last team members will arrive, and we are all looking much forward to another exciting week starting on Saturday in the gorgeous setting of the Asasif in front of Deir el-Bahari.

Our conservation tent and a view to the Theban mountains.

All set for the 2021 season

Posted on by
Reply

Tomorrow will be the day: we will open the 2021 season of the LMU Ankh-Hor project. Not all members of the field season have yet arrived but will do so in the next days.

Thanks to much help by kind colleagues both in Cairo and in Luxor, I was able to get all paperwork done well in time. In addition, I joined the South Asasif Conservation Project directed by Elena Pischikova and started to work on the amazing amounts of pottery they unearthed in newly discovered tombs! I will continue to work in part-time for this mission and I am looking much forward to such an opportunity of a direct comparison between the South and the North Asasif. The parallels are really intriguing!

At our site in northern Asasif, we were already allowed to set up our beautiful conservation tent. Starting from tomorrow, this tent will be the centre of our conservation programme focusing on Ptolemaic wooden coffins and cartonages but including other painted objects as well.

We will keep you updated about our progress in the next four weeks!

Mr. Twt and his outer anthropoid coffin

Posted on by
Reply

As conservation work and documentation of coffins from TT 414 is well in progress, I am proud to introduce today one of the little known person buried in the tomb of Ankh-Hor.

We just finished documenting the fully consolidated outer anthropoid coffin of a male person with the name Twt. Unfortunately, we only know little about Mr. Twt and his coffin is very fragmented. No titles are preserved and his mother is unknown. Thankfully his father who was also buried in TT 414 is attested and allows connecting our person of interest with the offsprings of the wider family of Mwt-Min (see Budka, Mekis and Bruwier 2013). The genealogical data suggest a dating of the death and burial of Twt around 150 BCE, so in the mid-2nd century BCE.

Of Twt himself only his outer anthropoid coffin has survived, no other items of his burial equipment are known until today. His father, Djehwtj-jr-djs, was buried in a similar outer coffin in TT 414; for him, fragments of a colourfully painted inner coffin have also survived.

Both father and son used the well-known Ptolemaic coffin style of yellow and red decoration on black. Twt’s coffin, of which the left side, part of the feet and lower part have survived, shows some nice representations of gods and demons, mythological scenes and one particularly charming offering scene of the deceased in front of Osiris.

Detail of Twt’s coffin with the deceased before Osiris.

Although the chances could be higher, there is definitly hope that during the ongoing Ankh-Hor Project new data about little known Ptolemaic persons buried in TT 414 like Twt will be unearthed – I am personally convinced that some cartonage fragments will turn up within the large amounts of mid-to late Ptolemaic fragments which still need to be studied in detail. For now, documenting the only existing source for Twt in full detail is already an important step into the right direction.

Reference

Budka, Julia, Tamás Mekis and Marie-Cécile Bruwier 2013. Re-use of Saite temple tombs in the Asasif during the early Ptolemaic time – the tomb group of Mw.t-Mnw from TT 414, Egypt & Levant 22/23, 2012/2013, 209–251.

Summary of week 1 of the Ankh-Hor project

Posted on by
Reply

Time flies by as usual here in Luxor… Unbelievable that we opened our magazine and started the season already one week ago! Our first full week of work has now passed, we were very busy and also quite successful. We accomplished already a number of important tasks in week 1 of our 2019 season.

The main task this week was to set up the conservation programme – which worked out perfectly, thanks to the experience of Daniel Oberndorfer from last year and the enthusiastic conservators and students of conservation from the University of Applied Art in Vienna. The working places in our new luxury tent are well suitable, equipped with electricity and allow working on large boards of coffins.

The current focus of conservation is on Ptolemaic coffins – although I am already perfectly familiar with the rich variety of coffin styles from TT 414, this variability still amazes me. Our group of conservators was especially busy with two very common coffin styles, the black-yellow and black-yellow-red outer anthropoid coffins. They found some very nice new matches among the fragmented pieces, some of which could even be glued back together.

Examples of the more colourful Ptolemaic inner coffins were consolidated this week by our Egyptian colleague Iman Ibrahim Zaghlol.

I myself am still busy with re-organising the magazine, checking for joining pieces and sorting the objects according to priorities. Besides new additions to Roman coffins, one of the highlights is a new match to the foot part of a Ptolemaic coffin. It is the beautifully painted coffin of a female singer of Amun-Re with the name Iretru. More fragments of her coffin were already consolidated in 2008 and the new piece allows reconstructing the coffin further, especially once all the fragments will be cleaned.

Working picture of new joint to coffin Reg. 658

Another major task this season, like in 2018, is documenting the objects from TT 414 with our fullframe camera. Cajetan was busy this week photographing various groups of objects – mostly coffin fragments, but also shabtis, stelae fragments and wooden statues. The quality of these pictures is just amazing and perfectly suitable for publication! Mona helped with photography and also made some nice drawings of 26th Dynasty pottery from TT 414.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, I am very satisfied with the results of this first week and grateful to all team members including our Egyptian workmen – now we’re all off to a well-deserved weekend with some sightseeing in beautiful Luxor, work will continue on Saturday, much looking forward to this!

End of 2018 season: summary and outlook

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_1811

Our first, quite short season just ended yesterday – the magazine in the Asasif is sealed and closed again, some of the team members are already back in Vienna and Munich, three of us arrived this afternoon in Cairo and will leave in the next days.

Altogether, the first season was very successful and all goals were achieved. The focus was on documenting coffins and other objects from the long use-life of TT 414. More than 80 drawings were produced by Patrizia and Mona, comprising small finds (mostly Ptolemaic faience shabtis with texts bearing the names of their owners), wooden objects including a beautiful Ptolemaic Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue and pottery (complete pottery vessels and fragments, mostly Ptolemaic from the re-use of TT414, but also some Saite vessels from the original phase of use).

In addition to these drawing, 360 objects were photographed in very high resolution with a full-frame camera by Cajetan. These objects were primarily coffin fragments, fragments of wooden shrines and boxes and again shabtis. With these new photos suitable for publication, most of the objects are now fully documented.

IMG_1791

The conservation work was successfully started thanks to cooperation with the Austrian Archaeological Institute.  Daniel Oberndorfer joined the project in the field and managed to get a first general overview of the material, its needs and specifications to develop a program for cleaning and consolidation. Conservation work focused during the 2018 season on wooden objects, especially on coffins and fragments of shrines and wooden statuettes (Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figures). It mainly comprised of consolidation and mechanical cleaning.

IMG_1799

A total of 23 wooden and painted objects were successfully cleaned, consolidated and photographed. Drawings of some selected pieces are planned for the next season. With the data and experience from the 2018, a larger-scale conservation programme can be designed for the next years, considering the individual properties of the material from TT 414. Conservation work will be the main focus of the upcoming seasons.

Related to this, I managed to reorganize the magazine according to priorities. The majority of the material still to be studied is the large amount of coffins – more than 180 coffins within the magazine are currently entered in our database, several dozen are still missing.

IMG-20180328-WA0000

Besides sorting the material regarding their state of preservation and thus the need of consolidation as well as of scientific importance (datable pieces, pieces of well-known persons buried in TT 414 etc.), the focus of this working tasks of the 2018 season was to find matches between the fragments preliminary registered under “K-numbers”. This proved very time consuming, but also quite successful – 16 new matches to registered coffins from the “K-numbers” were achieved. Furthermore, four newly identified registered coffin fragments can be noted and five additional parts to fragmented coffins were documented.

The importance of this search for joints, which will continue in the next season, can be illustrated by the examples of a new fragment of coffin of the daughter of Ankh-Hor and a newly identified black-and-yellow style Ptolemaic coffin as the outer coffin of a singer with the name Ta-net-Geb. More new names were noted on various fragments and still have to be added to our genealogical data and processed in detail.

The rich prospective of the detailed work on the complete set of finds from TT 414 became very clear during the 2018 season. But, in order to achieve major results and to support preliminary ideas with further evidence, work must continue in the near future and is planned for a next season in spring 2019. Large amounts of coffins, fragments of coffins and cartonage from the Late Period to Ptolemaic and Roman times still remain to be cleaned, consolidated and restored – and will for sure bring to light more new information about the use of the tomb of Ankh-Hor throughout the ages.

Group picture 2018

My deep thanks go to all team members for their enthusiasm for the project and making 2018 a great season! The photo gallery gives some impressions of all the various tasks achieved and also of how much fun we had working on this really interesting set of diverse objects. Of course, work would not have been possible without the support of the Egyptian authorities and especially of the local inspectorate on the West Bank; I am very grateful to a number of people, first of all to our inspector Zeinab Mohammed Elsayed for enabling us to work according to the working programme.

Looking already much forward to come back to Asasif next year! Updates about our processing of the data collected in 2018 will of course follow.

More shabtis & more coffin matches

Posted on by
1

Week 3 started not at all perfect – yesterday was a very sandy & windy day, work outside was almost impossible, so we had to concentrate on tasks within the magazine, especially the cleaning and consolidation of coffins and other wooden objects.

Today was much better regarding the weather and all were back at their tasks: drawing, photographing and studying objects from TT 414. There are still more faience shabtis which need drawings – and strangely they are now met with just a little less enthusiasm than last week ;).

IMG_1767

Matching coffin fragments was again very successful – the jigsaw puzzle is getting more and more advanced. My personal highlight of today was the identification of a black-and-yellow style Ptolemaic coffin as the outer coffin of a singer with the name Ta-net-Geb. Until today, she was only known from the inner coffin of her son from TT 414 – now we can confirm that she was also buried in the tomb of Ankh-Hor, presumably with her husband Hor-Khonsu!

K07_219 Ta-nt-Geb

This enlarges not only our prosopographical data of people buried in TT 414, but is also relevant for questions of typologies and dating of Ptolemaic coffins. The next goal is now trying to find more matches to Ta-net-Geb’s coffin – the piece identified today is just a very small fragment from the lid of a once substantial anthropoid coffin. So much more to do with this simply amazing material from the tomb of Ankh-Hor!

Short summary of week 2

Posted on by
Reply

Week 2 of work on the finds from TT 414, the tomb of Ankh-Hor in Asasif, was just completed – it has been a very successful week with quite a number of tasks accomplished.

image1

Drawing of pottery and small finds continued – besides faience vessels, shabtis and amulets from bead nets, Patrizia also made beautiful drawings of some peculiar wooden fragments (of which we are still discussing the precise function). Right now, she is busy with the numerous faience shabtis from the family of Pa-di-Amun-neb-nesut-tawy.

IMG_1720

Mona worked primarily on Ptolemaic pottery from the “Lichthof” of Ankh-Hor – these pieces nicely illustrate the function of this part of TT 414 as offering place. Besides small offering cups and plates, fragments of so-called Hadra ware are notable.

IMG_8083

Photographing various groups of objects was continued by Cajetan – with today, we started focusing on larger coffin fragments. Besides, all pieces already consolidated by Daniel are also documented with photos of our full frame camera. Cleaning and consolidation is progressing were well, focusing both on 26th Dynasty objects like the stela of Her-Aset and qrsw-coffins and on Ptolemaic objects like Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figures and of course various coffin fragments.

IMG_1734

Furthermore, I am very happy that Philippe Martinez studied and photographed during this week the re-used New Kingdom blocks from the foundations of the Ramesses IV temple excavated by Manfred Bietak. Philippe kindly also documented small relief fragments from TT 414 stored in the magazine.

IMG_1719

Re-organising the magazine is also making much progress – I’ve just ordered more wooden boxes for a new storage system according to priorities which will be developed further next week.

We’re now off to a well-deserved weekend, many thanks to all team members and looking much forward to Saturday!