DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0088
SEASON OF 1922-1923
75
the Valley of the Kings, and within a few years his wife, Hat-shepsut,
in her own honor planned a great fane. The avenue from the cultivated
fields to the new temple was laid out on a line practically parallel to
the avenue of the older one, and to-day tourists on donkeys and in
motors approach her temple along this ancient roadway. Since both
avenues were built up on embankments across a shallow valley, the
space between them at their upper ends was a shut-in hollow. This
hollow between the avenues was exactly right for level and, hidden as
it was between the two banks, it had every appearance of always hav-
ing been just what we wanted to use it for again—a dumping place.
We merely had to take the precaution of assuring ourselves that there
was nothing of importance in it, and therefore set our gang to clearing
it out. It was one of those routine jobs which take time and promise
nothing of interest.
In the bottom of the hollow were broken pots, drifted sand, and
now and then signs of an ancient workman’s hovel. We could recog-
nize the foot of the embankment on the right, for there it had been
held up by roughly laid walls of fieldstones. As the men cleared along,
drawing each day nearer and nearer the temples, we began to find
broken ex-votos from Hat-Hor chapels up at Deir el Bahri. Among
them there were innumerable scarabs, mostly of Thut-mose Ill, but
also bearing nearly all of the other royal names of the Eighteenth
Dynasty from its founder, A rh-mose 1 and his wife, A rh-mose Neferet-
iry, down to Amen-hotpe 111. More and more of them were found on
the left-hand side of the dig. At first they seemed to lie against the
sides of the Neb-hepet-Ref bank, but eventually pockets of dirt con-
taining them were found deeper and deeper in the bank itself, until
finally the foundation stones of the Eleventh Dynasty side actually
seemed to hang suspended above the men sifting Eighteenth Dynasty
scarabs and beads out below.
Now if there is one self-evident axiom in digging, it is that things on
top are later than things underneath. Yet here was what looked like
an Eleventh Dynasty wall meters above scarabs of the Eighteenth
Dynasty. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. Were we to believe that
the Eleventh Dynasty followed the Eighteenth?—for there was no
question about the scarabs belonging to Thut-mose I i 1 and we had
both ends of the wall and thought that they were both built by Neb-
hepet-Ref.
Of course we were wrong, but it was only in 1930 that we realized
it. Then it was that we discovered that only the southernmost avenue
with its brick pavement was built by King Neb-hepet-Ref Mentu-
75
the Valley of the Kings, and within a few years his wife, Hat-shepsut,
in her own honor planned a great fane. The avenue from the cultivated
fields to the new temple was laid out on a line practically parallel to
the avenue of the older one, and to-day tourists on donkeys and in
motors approach her temple along this ancient roadway. Since both
avenues were built up on embankments across a shallow valley, the
space between them at their upper ends was a shut-in hollow. This
hollow between the avenues was exactly right for level and, hidden as
it was between the two banks, it had every appearance of always hav-
ing been just what we wanted to use it for again—a dumping place.
We merely had to take the precaution of assuring ourselves that there
was nothing of importance in it, and therefore set our gang to clearing
it out. It was one of those routine jobs which take time and promise
nothing of interest.
In the bottom of the hollow were broken pots, drifted sand, and
now and then signs of an ancient workman’s hovel. We could recog-
nize the foot of the embankment on the right, for there it had been
held up by roughly laid walls of fieldstones. As the men cleared along,
drawing each day nearer and nearer the temples, we began to find
broken ex-votos from Hat-Hor chapels up at Deir el Bahri. Among
them there were innumerable scarabs, mostly of Thut-mose Ill, but
also bearing nearly all of the other royal names of the Eighteenth
Dynasty from its founder, A rh-mose 1 and his wife, A rh-mose Neferet-
iry, down to Amen-hotpe 111. More and more of them were found on
the left-hand side of the dig. At first they seemed to lie against the
sides of the Neb-hepet-Ref bank, but eventually pockets of dirt con-
taining them were found deeper and deeper in the bank itself, until
finally the foundation stones of the Eleventh Dynasty side actually
seemed to hang suspended above the men sifting Eighteenth Dynasty
scarabs and beads out below.
Now if there is one self-evident axiom in digging, it is that things on
top are later than things underneath. Yet here was what looked like
an Eleventh Dynasty wall meters above scarabs of the Eighteenth
Dynasty. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. Were we to believe that
the Eleventh Dynasty followed the Eighteenth?—for there was no
question about the scarabs belonging to Thut-mose I i 1 and we had
both ends of the wall and thought that they were both built by Neb-
hepet-Ref.
Of course we were wrong, but it was only in 1930 that we realized
it. Then it was that we discovered that only the southernmost avenue
with its brick pavement was built by King Neb-hepet-Ref Mentu-