DOI Artikel:
Naville, Edouard; Hall, H. R.: Egypt Exploration Fund: excavations at Deir El-Bahari
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12055#0015
Excavations at Deib. El-Baiiam.
3
Hatlior, which was specially venerated at Deir el-Bahari. A somewhat
similar outline sculpture of a king was found on the blocks of the southern
side of the ramp. The arrangement of the colonnade to the south of the
central building was found to be exactly the same as that to the north
found last year.
The final clearing of the central building was effected by December 20th.
It proved to be a mass of rubble, sixty feet square, with an outer wall of
heavy flint boulders faced with fine limestone blocks (pi. iii, fig 3). The
mass is not more than ten feet high in any place, the top having disappeared
in ancient times. The facing does not slope like that of a regular pyramid,
though it has a decided batter. At each corner was the usual newel or
angle-bead, and many of the blocks of the heavy cavetto cornice which ran
round the top have been found. It was, then, not a pyramid itself, but a
pyloniform base or pedestal, on which was raised a further construction of
some kind. This cannot have been an altar or a sanctuary, as in that
case we should have found remains of a stepway giving access to the top.
But on the basement may have stood a small pyramid, which gave to the
building the appearance of a funerary monument of a type which we often
see depicted in the papyri of the Book of the Dead.
The central erection is then probably the pyloniform base of the small
pyramid of king Mentuhetep III, which is mentioned in later inscriptions
under the name Akh-asu '^^s | I " Glorious are its seats," the name
which probably denoted the whole temple building, the central point of
which was the pyramid rising above it. This seems also, however, to have
been extended to the district of Deir el-Bahari generally, since on a small
stela found this year is a representation of Queen Hatshepsu (?) being-
suckled and protected by the cow of Hathor, "lady of Tjesret which is
within Akh-aset." *
The "pyramid tomb" | A of king (o k37 | * j|j in Tjesret
(Deir el-Bahari), which was found intact by the XXth Dynasty inspectors,
as is recorded in the Abbott Papyrus, must be this Akh-asu, and so must
be the building which we have found. The king's tomb chamber ought
then to be near. It does not, however, seem to be beneath the pyramid.
* This may, however, be merely a mistake, the scribe having transpostd the two
names. On this stela, as on that of Aakhoperka found last year {Report, 1903-J,
p. 10) the word is spelt f |__|? " Glorious is its seat " simply, and without the
pyramid. But the determinative shows that the word originally denoted a
building, not a district.
3
Hatlior, which was specially venerated at Deir el-Bahari. A somewhat
similar outline sculpture of a king was found on the blocks of the southern
side of the ramp. The arrangement of the colonnade to the south of the
central building was found to be exactly the same as that to the north
found last year.
The final clearing of the central building was effected by December 20th.
It proved to be a mass of rubble, sixty feet square, with an outer wall of
heavy flint boulders faced with fine limestone blocks (pi. iii, fig 3). The
mass is not more than ten feet high in any place, the top having disappeared
in ancient times. The facing does not slope like that of a regular pyramid,
though it has a decided batter. At each corner was the usual newel or
angle-bead, and many of the blocks of the heavy cavetto cornice which ran
round the top have been found. It was, then, not a pyramid itself, but a
pyloniform base or pedestal, on which was raised a further construction of
some kind. This cannot have been an altar or a sanctuary, as in that
case we should have found remains of a stepway giving access to the top.
But on the basement may have stood a small pyramid, which gave to the
building the appearance of a funerary monument of a type which we often
see depicted in the papyri of the Book of the Dead.
The central erection is then probably the pyloniform base of the small
pyramid of king Mentuhetep III, which is mentioned in later inscriptions
under the name Akh-asu '^^s | I " Glorious are its seats," the name
which probably denoted the whole temple building, the central point of
which was the pyramid rising above it. This seems also, however, to have
been extended to the district of Deir el-Bahari generally, since on a small
stela found this year is a representation of Queen Hatshepsu (?) being-
suckled and protected by the cow of Hathor, "lady of Tjesret which is
within Akh-aset." *
The "pyramid tomb" | A of king (o k37 | * j|j in Tjesret
(Deir el-Bahari), which was found intact by the XXth Dynasty inspectors,
as is recorded in the Abbott Papyrus, must be this Akh-asu, and so must
be the building which we have found. The king's tomb chamber ought
then to be near. It does not, however, seem to be beneath the pyramid.
* This may, however, be merely a mistake, the scribe having transpostd the two
names. On this stela, as on that of Aakhoperka found last year {Report, 1903-J,
p. 10) the word is spelt f |__|? " Glorious is its seat " simply, and without the
pyramid. But the determinative shows that the word originally denoted a
building, not a district.