DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0187
>74
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
deep deposits of rubbish lying on the hillside north of Hat-shepsut’s
temple. Hayes, in connection with the texts in the tomb of Sen-Mut
found a couple of years before, had copied the inscriptions carved by
Sen-Mut behind the doors in Deir el Bahri.12 13 * Incidentally, among
these last there were two which stated that it was with Hat-shepsut’s
permission that Sen-Mut had placed memorials of himself within the
temple.
We had, however, another reason for being interested in that hill-
side.18 On it we had noticed two chip heaps, weathered during cen-
turies and almost hidden by drifted sand and by fallen rock. We could
see that the chip was shale from the lowest strata of the cliff and that
it lay much higher up the slope than any natural agency could have
carried it. Of course it was possible that we were dealing with heaps
of shale dug out in leveling the temple courts below, but it was hard
to see why the quarry chip from there should have been carried so far
uphill—and across a ravine, at that. On the other hand it was equally
possible that what we had were heaps of chip from the tunneling of
some undiscovered tomb or tombs in the shale strata, and it was on
this that we pinned our hopes.
The hillside had never been seriously explored. We had always
postponed digging it until we should have cleared room for a dump to
the eastward. A few years before our time Lord Carnarvon had left it
after excavating a part of the priests’ houses and making a few sound-
ings along the top of the slope, just under the cliff. Naville had started
to dig just outside of the temple wall—we had an old photograph
showing some of his men working there—but he soon abandoned the
place and covered the lower part of the slope with one of his inevitable
dumps.
The gang of workmen were started at the foot of the hill, one half
of them clearing the slope up to the cliff on the north, and the other
half working along the bottom facing west, just outside the north
wall of the temple. These last men soon found themselves crowded
into a little natural ravine, cut across at the bottom by the temple
wall. Above, it was choked with rubbish thrown out from the temple
in the Eighteenth Dynasty; with more water-washed sand pitted
with shallow graves of the Roman Period; and finally with debris
from Naville’s clearing of the temple. In fact the ravine had almost
disappeared and its rocky sides only emerged slowly under the picks of
12 See above, page 105.
13 The following pages and part of the next report cover material more fully described
in Winlock, The Tomb of Meryet-Amun.
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
deep deposits of rubbish lying on the hillside north of Hat-shepsut’s
temple. Hayes, in connection with the texts in the tomb of Sen-Mut
found a couple of years before, had copied the inscriptions carved by
Sen-Mut behind the doors in Deir el Bahri.12 13 * Incidentally, among
these last there were two which stated that it was with Hat-shepsut’s
permission that Sen-Mut had placed memorials of himself within the
temple.
We had, however, another reason for being interested in that hill-
side.18 On it we had noticed two chip heaps, weathered during cen-
turies and almost hidden by drifted sand and by fallen rock. We could
see that the chip was shale from the lowest strata of the cliff and that
it lay much higher up the slope than any natural agency could have
carried it. Of course it was possible that we were dealing with heaps
of shale dug out in leveling the temple courts below, but it was hard
to see why the quarry chip from there should have been carried so far
uphill—and across a ravine, at that. On the other hand it was equally
possible that what we had were heaps of chip from the tunneling of
some undiscovered tomb or tombs in the shale strata, and it was on
this that we pinned our hopes.
The hillside had never been seriously explored. We had always
postponed digging it until we should have cleared room for a dump to
the eastward. A few years before our time Lord Carnarvon had left it
after excavating a part of the priests’ houses and making a few sound-
ings along the top of the slope, just under the cliff. Naville had started
to dig just outside of the temple wall—we had an old photograph
showing some of his men working there—but he soon abandoned the
place and covered the lower part of the slope with one of his inevitable
dumps.
The gang of workmen were started at the foot of the hill, one half
of them clearing the slope up to the cliff on the north, and the other
half working along the bottom facing west, just outside the north
wall of the temple. These last men soon found themselves crowded
into a little natural ravine, cut across at the bottom by the temple
wall. Above, it was choked with rubbish thrown out from the temple
in the Eighteenth Dynasty; with more water-washed sand pitted
with shallow graves of the Roman Period; and finally with debris
from Naville’s clearing of the temple. In fact the ravine had almost
disappeared and its rocky sides only emerged slowly under the picks of
12 See above, page 105.
13 The following pages and part of the next report cover material more fully described
in Winlock, The Tomb of Meryet-Amun.