DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0151
138
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
in a tangle of long, curly hairs from the ceiling. From here on down
to the bottom of the tomb they had grown everywhere in that deathly
still air, until some of the fine pendent hairs had attained a length of
nearly three feet (pl. 62).
A few more yards down the steps, and my torch was darting around
a chamber about ten feet square, half filled with stone-cutters’ chip.
Before it had been piled there, however, all four walls had been
minutely carved, and the light suddenly flashed on a sculptured panel
beside the door. There, bowing in the conventional Egyptian salute
before the cartouches of Hat-shepsut, stood the somewhat mutilated
figure of “The Prince and Count; the only mouth which speaks with
silence” (in other words, the only one whose silence, even, is eloquent);
“the Chief of the King’s Dignitaries; the dearly beloved Companion;
the Steward of Amun, Sen-Mut, triumphant; the true servant of his
affection, doing that which meets with the approval of the Lord of the
Two Lands” (pl. 64).
So this was the tomb of Sen-Mut. Well, there was plainly nothing in
this room except chips of stone, and the stairway went on below.
Another climb down; another chip-filled chamber—but undecorated
this time; a third stair so choked with chip that I had to crawl down
it flashing the light ahead—and I had gone a hundred yards from the
entrance, down stairs all the way, and was in a little vaulted room, at
the end of the tomb.’ Nor had I seen a single thing except stone-
cutters’ chips, bits of workmen’s torn shirts, and broken water jars
and dishes. The place was unfinished. We had always suspected that
Sen-Mut had fallen into disgrace, and now it was plain that he had
never even been allowed burial in the tomb that he was preparing
when his fate overtook him. Still this was no place for cogitations. By
this time the men at the top would be getting worried and there was
that hundred yards of stairs to toil up again.
Toward the bottom of the first long stairway, two round-topped
stelae were to have been let into the wall on either side. The niche
for one had been carved and the rock had been smoothed off for the
outline of the other. The finished surface of the creamy white stone
had offered an irresistible temptation to one of the draughtsmen, and
he had rapidly sketched in with his reed pen the head of his patron,
labeling it “The Steward of Amun, Sen-Mut” (pl. 65). Undoubtedly
he was a calligraphist, this draughtsman, and his style was strictly
circumscribed by the limitations of penmanship. And yet, in spite
9 The length of the tomb from the top step outside, measured along the stairs, is
99.15 meters; on the horizontal projection on the plan it is 88.80 meters.
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
in a tangle of long, curly hairs from the ceiling. From here on down
to the bottom of the tomb they had grown everywhere in that deathly
still air, until some of the fine pendent hairs had attained a length of
nearly three feet (pl. 62).
A few more yards down the steps, and my torch was darting around
a chamber about ten feet square, half filled with stone-cutters’ chip.
Before it had been piled there, however, all four walls had been
minutely carved, and the light suddenly flashed on a sculptured panel
beside the door. There, bowing in the conventional Egyptian salute
before the cartouches of Hat-shepsut, stood the somewhat mutilated
figure of “The Prince and Count; the only mouth which speaks with
silence” (in other words, the only one whose silence, even, is eloquent);
“the Chief of the King’s Dignitaries; the dearly beloved Companion;
the Steward of Amun, Sen-Mut, triumphant; the true servant of his
affection, doing that which meets with the approval of the Lord of the
Two Lands” (pl. 64).
So this was the tomb of Sen-Mut. Well, there was plainly nothing in
this room except chips of stone, and the stairway went on below.
Another climb down; another chip-filled chamber—but undecorated
this time; a third stair so choked with chip that I had to crawl down
it flashing the light ahead—and I had gone a hundred yards from the
entrance, down stairs all the way, and was in a little vaulted room, at
the end of the tomb.’ Nor had I seen a single thing except stone-
cutters’ chips, bits of workmen’s torn shirts, and broken water jars
and dishes. The place was unfinished. We had always suspected that
Sen-Mut had fallen into disgrace, and now it was plain that he had
never even been allowed burial in the tomb that he was preparing
when his fate overtook him. Still this was no place for cogitations. By
this time the men at the top would be getting worried and there was
that hundred yards of stairs to toil up again.
Toward the bottom of the first long stairway, two round-topped
stelae were to have been let into the wall on either side. The niche
for one had been carved and the rock had been smoothed off for the
outline of the other. The finished surface of the creamy white stone
had offered an irresistible temptation to one of the draughtsmen, and
he had rapidly sketched in with his reed pen the head of his patron,
labeling it “The Steward of Amun, Sen-Mut” (pl. 65). Undoubtedly
he was a calligraphist, this draughtsman, and his style was strictly
circumscribed by the limitations of penmanship. And yet, in spite
9 The length of the tomb from the top step outside, measured along the stairs, is
99.15 meters; on the horizontal projection on the plan it is 88.80 meters.