Elizabeth Thomas

The Four Niches and Amuletic Figures in Theban Royal Tombs

A relatively rare architectural feature of Theban royal tombs and the objects for which it was designed amply warrant delineation in detail the set of four niches provided for the four amuletic figures, mounted on bricks/ that were to protect the deceased. Unlike the niches, the Protectors to name them conveniently in full realization that a like purpose applies to all amulets are not limited to royal tombs in Thebes or in Egypt. Their time of origin was perhaps approximately the beginning of Dyn. 18, for they occur at least as early as the reign of Thutmose III. However, special provision was first made for them in the crypt of Thutmose IV. This provision, the four small niches, occurs regularly thereafter through the tomb of Seti I and probably that of Ramses II in the Valley of the Kings, in three or more contemporary queens tombs, and apparently not again. Attention appears to have been first directed toward the Protectors and their texts, invariably from BD 151, by Naville.1 They are treated more fully by Gardiner after the discovery of two in the tomb of Amenemhat, t. Thutmose III, then in detail from another aspect by Mile Monnet.2 Gardiner finds the figures rare, the bases rather common,3 while their texts are drawn from the spell that includes a graphic representation of a burialchamber combined with appropriate formulae for the objects it contains. His translation, based primarily on the papyrus of Yuya, may be abstracted as follows : Against the N. wall was placed a small wooden shawabti-like statuette with this text: 0 thou who comest to cast down, I let thee not cast down. O thou who comest to push aside, I let thee not push aside. I will cast thee down, I will push thee aside. I am for the protection4 of the Osiris N. Against the S. wall, a reed with a wick inside it, i.e., a torch or flame: It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber, and who repel that one who would repel him with the desert-flame. I have set aflame the

Solar Barks Prow to Prow

THE extensive use quite naturally given the boat in fact and in image by all Egyptians has most recently been indicated by Dr. Abubakr.> In the nautical solar imagery of Ancient Egypt, of course the two boats used respectively by the sun-god during day and night had an important place from the time of the First Dynasty.! When the New Kingdom frequently placed these two barks prow to prow, it only followed and perhaps elaborated an old traditionthat is, it would appear, to be interpreted as it stands. Since the direction of solar motion actually reverses above and below the earth-Eo to W., W. to E.-the juxtaposed barks do not .depict simply sunrise or sunset, I believe, but instead represent almost literally solar motion above, below, and around the earth, a suggestion I find Schafer made without pursuing the matter.! Thus all solar motion above the earth in Egypt appears to be from E. to W., while

Was Queen Mutnedjemet the owner of Tomb 33 in the Valley of the Queens

while in the Middle Kingdom, whereas Mentuhotpe combined in his tomb the pyramid form with a rock-cut tomb, the accepted norm eventually was the rock-cut tomb which persisted into the New Kingdom. The mastaba-form corresponds to a stage before the rise of a solar religion, whereas the rock-cut tomb signifies the combination of the solar religion with Osirian ideas. Political and social trends have affected the size and elaboration of the tombs pertaining to the higher and lesser nobility. A basic factor which related to all forms of tombs was a social one, namely the desire to avoid the interference of robbers. It must not be forgotten that sculpture and reliefs were also affected by this changing background. I

Pȝ Ḫr ḪN'I HNW / N HNW ḪN'I, A Designation of the Valley of the Kings

The ostracon cited is Cairo 25302,2 but no mention is made of the application of the same phrase to other areas; for example, in the inspection of the wadi between that of the unfinished temple of Sesankh-ka-ree and Deir el-Mcdina,! and in that of the left branch of Gabbanat el-Giroud.! TJ lnt thus appears to be a familiar abbreviation for a wadi as occasion indicated.! rather than the name of any particular necropolis. However, Peet quite rightly expected a specific name for the royal Valley and apparently just failed to recognize two designations for it, because of the Egyptian fondness for using the same word, phrase, and even clause in one or more meanings. The first of the two he considered to be the name of the great Necropolis of Thebes as a whole, pJ br rJ spsy n I;l;w n rnpwt n pr-r; rnb wgJ snb I;r lmntt WJst, The Great, Noble Necropolis of Millions of Years of Pharaoh-may He Live, be Prosperous, and Healthy-on the West of Thebes. This name, used in the protocol of official documents, was too long for common use, and was abbreviated into The Necropolis pJ br, or The Necropolis of Pharaoh. Peet further finds br curiously used in these papyri not only for the Necropolis but for single tombs in it (e.g. Abbott, 5, 3). But in failing to apply this curious yet typically Egyptian usage to the expression as a whole he fails to realize that here he has the official name he sought, parallel to ts st nfrw, the Place of Beauty, the Valley of the Queens.

Ramesses III: Notes and Queries

RECENT interest in Ramesses III, his sons, and his successors leads me to record a few notes and queries put down in the Queens Valley in 1953-4, in the hope that further investigation along the lines indicated will provide additional evidence for this perplexing period. Ramesses III was surely, as Campbell understates it, somewhat frugal in recording wives names> -and childrens, he should have added. Seele has now pointed in fullest detail to this frugality in reliefs at Medinet Habu and Karnak; but no one, to my knowledge, has suggested the possibility of a carry-over to the Queens Valley. Here four or five tombs listed on the 1926 Survey Map> as prepared for an unknown queen are strangely reminiscent of religious papyri prepared for an unknown buyer whose name was never entered in the spaces reserved for it. Tombs 32, 40, and 73 contain one or more blank cartouches,s while 36 has spaces only; my notes fail to include these details for 75 and it is likely that its present anonymity was not original, particularly since its extensive plan differs widely from the others.s These notes, made for another purpose, are totally inadequate for considering the possibility of a relation of these tombs to Ramesses III. But they do show that enough decoration remains on the walls of the four for comparison and approximate dating. The overall plans available to me tend to be short and wide, rather than long and narrow. The outstanding quality of 40 is comparable to that of Nefertari in some respects, while its canopic room in particular appears to be too individual for anonymous conception.s Thus lack of names in these tombs seems more puzzling than their absence in the temples. Does the coincidence have a meaning that perhaps would help explain the practice in both cases? In contrast, there was originally no dearth of names in the sons tombs in respect of the father, Ramesses III, or of the owner: 42, Prashiwenmaf; 43, Sethikhopshef, Ramesses VII or VIII;7 44, Khasemwese: 53, Ramesses, Ramesses IV;8 55, Amenhikhopshef, Ramesses VI. The decoration in all cases appears to have been much the same, while the principal characteristic of the plans is length and narrowness in 43, 44, 55-as in the presumably unfinished tomb of Isis, 51, the mother of Ramesses VI, who provided the tomb, and the queen of Ramesses III.9 42 and 53 differ:

A further note on rock-cut boats

A further note on rock-cut boats A FULLER discussion of rock-cut boats than their proportion of examples warranted in my article on Solar Barks, pp. 65 ff. above, is called for here by various expressions of doubt as to the possibility of determining their directions with certainty and by several points of disagreement with Professor Cerny, A Note on the Recently Discovered Boat of Cheops, JEA 41, 75-79. Unfortunately, as it appears to me, boat pits-apparently meaning holes without distinguishing characteristics-has been too common a designation of the rock cuttings discovered prior to 1954, I believe always by those who have made little, if any, personal investigation. Such a description is readily understandable, for they often do look undifferentiated without examination, sometimes without comparison and familiarity as well. Presumably Cerny, also, does not take into account the excavations themselves when he assumes, as he says, p. 77, directions for Cheops 3-5 1 that correspond to his explanation of function. According to my experience, direction can always, often easily, be determined when conditions allow sufficient examination, even in the case of the trench graves found by Emery and Saad, as plans of the latter show clearly (references above, p. 65, n. 3). The principal criteria, as indicated in Solar Barks, are relative draught, height, and width of the two ends, regularly invariable in all boats, ancient and modern, skiff to liner: the prow tends to be deeper and narrower, the stern higher and wider. In exceptional cases, prow and stern may be even, as P4 in Gardiners Catalogue; and they may be the same width, as in reed or papyrus examples like Cheops 2. But no solar sterns to my knowledge are intentionally deeper or narrower, no prows higher or wider. By these standards there can be no doubt of the directions of Cheops 3 and 5 (4 cannot now be seen, of course): the prow of 3 is N., that of 5 is E., the reverse in each case of the directions given by Cerny, fig. I, P: 77. And the same thing appears true of the wooden boat, Cheops 2: with one tentative exception all photographs available to me reverse CernYs directions (p. 76) in labelling the lower end, the W., as prow, a conclusion supported without expression of doubt by all reports I have had. In this case, however, the condition of the boat should be considered, too, with the possibility that one end could have been pushed up in the cramped space, the other down. Prow and stern curves, Cernys criteria, vary too much in my view to be depended upon alone, particularly here, where part of only one end-post, dismounted and straight against a wall, is visible; compare, for example, the second boat shown on pl. 33 of Cernys reference to jequier, and note the drawing in Les Grandes Decouvertes archeologiques de 1954, La Revue du Caire, Numero special (Cairo, 1955), 39· But the direction of Cheops 2 is probably beside the point now, for it is quite possibly known at this writing and preliminary publication may precede that of this note.> Of far greater concern is the numerical factor taken by Cerny as making unjustifiable the solar conclusion, four boats, granted a second S. of the pyramid, or five instead of two. But he later explains the fifth as funerary and says that it was quite unnecessary for the king to provide solar boats at all. Of course, it was unnecessary in fact, but it may easily have been necessary in symbol, it would appear to me, perhaps to put the pyramid in proper cosmological setting, as it were. This is not to say that there was symbolic necessity, only that present evidence is insufficient to rule it out; compare Solar Barks, p. 77, n. 5. And if there was symbolic necessity we are obviously not yet in a position to say how many boats fitted optimum requirements. Certainly three boat excavations were astonishingly found from December 1952 to June 1954 in the complex supposedly best