DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0019
6
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
distance of one hundred and forty yards and found that while it was
destroyed toward the cultivation to the eastward, it extended beyond
the limit of our excavations this year to the west (pl. 68). The wall,
which was found to be preserved to a height of 2.60 meters, was built
of very fine-grained white limestone, laid in admirably regular courses,
with builders’ marks in red paint on many of the stones. Cleared
thoroughly in this way, we could see just how the low hill had been
cut through in grading the avenue. The rock had been attacked by
gangs of quarrymen armed with chisels. Some of the gangs had cut
in farther than others, and the face left is broken up into irregular
bays, but it must be remembered that when the walls stood to their
full height the cut would have been entirely hidden to passers on the
causeway. The walls were here not only as boundaries—they were
screens as well. Tombs which here had been cut into the face of the
rock proved to belong to the period of the Empire—five hundred
years later than Neb-hepet-Ref Visitors to these tombs sometimes
wrote their names on the parts of the wall exposed in their day,
where we found them.
The circular depressions in the rock in the foreground (pl. 68) are
among the most interesting finds of the season—or, in fact, of any of
the recent excavations at Luxor. They are the mouths of pits cut
into the rock, nearly thirty feet in depth and filled with rich black
loam. The first of these which we found, with its filling of black earth,
puzzled us, but later, as the clearing proceeded westward along the
wall, we found similar pits at regular intervals of about 6 meters,
and it then became apparent that they must have been for trees.
The proof came as we got farther from the dampness of the cultiva-
tion. Then we found fragments of roots, and at last stumps. From
there on, each hole was found to have in it the stump of a young tree
surrounded by a low brick wall, a sort of tree box.
We had been so successful in fixing the north side of the causeway
that it seemed advisable to split the force of workmen, one-half
digging east and northeast, the other turning to the south where we
had seen from the hilltop traces of the cut on the other side. This work
to the south was successful in determining the cut, but before we
could get down to the bottom we found the edges of a limestone
pavement considerably above the level on which the wall was built.
As this was soon found to be part of an unexpectedly large structure
of later date blanketing the causeway, our search was delayed here;
but in another season we expected to find walls here as we did on the
north.
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
distance of one hundred and forty yards and found that while it was
destroyed toward the cultivation to the eastward, it extended beyond
the limit of our excavations this year to the west (pl. 68). The wall,
which was found to be preserved to a height of 2.60 meters, was built
of very fine-grained white limestone, laid in admirably regular courses,
with builders’ marks in red paint on many of the stones. Cleared
thoroughly in this way, we could see just how the low hill had been
cut through in grading the avenue. The rock had been attacked by
gangs of quarrymen armed with chisels. Some of the gangs had cut
in farther than others, and the face left is broken up into irregular
bays, but it must be remembered that when the walls stood to their
full height the cut would have been entirely hidden to passers on the
causeway. The walls were here not only as boundaries—they were
screens as well. Tombs which here had been cut into the face of the
rock proved to belong to the period of the Empire—five hundred
years later than Neb-hepet-Ref Visitors to these tombs sometimes
wrote their names on the parts of the wall exposed in their day,
where we found them.
The circular depressions in the rock in the foreground (pl. 68) are
among the most interesting finds of the season—or, in fact, of any of
the recent excavations at Luxor. They are the mouths of pits cut
into the rock, nearly thirty feet in depth and filled with rich black
loam. The first of these which we found, with its filling of black earth,
puzzled us, but later, as the clearing proceeded westward along the
wall, we found similar pits at regular intervals of about 6 meters,
and it then became apparent that they must have been for trees.
The proof came as we got farther from the dampness of the cultiva-
tion. Then we found fragments of roots, and at last stumps. From
there on, each hole was found to have in it the stump of a young tree
surrounded by a low brick wall, a sort of tree box.
We had been so successful in fixing the north side of the causeway
that it seemed advisable to split the force of workmen, one-half
digging east and northeast, the other turning to the south where we
had seen from the hilltop traces of the cut on the other side. This work
to the south was successful in determining the cut, but before we
could get down to the bottom we found the edges of a limestone
pavement considerably above the level on which the wall was built.
As this was soon found to be part of an unexpectedly large structure
of later date blanketing the causeway, our search was delayed here;
but in another season we expected to find walls here as we did on the
north.