DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0195
182
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
“Linen made by the High Priest of Amun, Ma-sa-har-ti, true of voice,
for his father Amun in the Year 18.” Since Ma-sa-har-ti was high
priest in the reign of King Pay-nudjem, it was clearly in the latter’s
nineteenth year—or about November 25th, 1049 b.c.—that the
mummy of Meryet-Amun had been restored.
We were learning a good deal about the history of the tomb. That
second blocking of the doorway must have been done in 1049 b.c.
by the necropolis officials who restored Meryet-Amun’s mummy.
After they had closed up the doorway, they would naturally have
been careful to hide the tomb once more, but in spite of their pre-
cautions its existence would have been known to lots of people work-
ing in the necropolis at the time. That is to say, the location of the
tomb would have been known and would have been remembered for
several years, but few could have seen it inside or would have sus-
pected the existence of the well which cut off the back chambers. We
must assume that when Entiu-ny died none of the officials who had
ever been in the tomb were still active in the necropolis, and that those
who chose it for her burial place were in possession only of this second-
hand knowledge. Of course it is impossible to translate such a con-
dition of affairs into terms of years, but at least we can feel reasonably
certain that Entiu-ny died well within a generation of the nineteenth
year of Pay-nudjem—an excellent check on our idea that she was
Pay-nudjem’s daughter.
However, we had not yet settled to our own entire satisfaction the
problem of the first blocking and the original ownership of the tomb.
At the time when the robberies were becoming only too common, the
royal mummies were often moved by the priests to hidden and un-
suspected corners of the necropolis. Hence the mere finding of Meryet-
Amun’s mummy in this tomb did not necessarily mean that it had
been hers in the first place, and it was only when we had cleaned the
last of the rubbish out of the tomb that we were certain. A pile of rags
had been thrown into the unfinished corridor to the left of the well
(fig. 9 e). When we came to examine them they turned out to be the
bandages cut and ripped off a mummy, and among them we found
one marked: “The God’s Wife, the King’s Wife, Meryet-Amun, be-
loved of Amun. May she live!” These, then, were obviously the
original bandages torn off of Meryet-Amun’s mummy by the thieves.
A pile of rubbish of all sorts had been swept out of the back chambers
into the well and still lay where it had fallen on the far side of the well
bottom (fig. 9 f). Among other fragments of funeral furniture this
pile contained bits of an enormous wooden coffin plastered over with
EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL BAHRI
“Linen made by the High Priest of Amun, Ma-sa-har-ti, true of voice,
for his father Amun in the Year 18.” Since Ma-sa-har-ti was high
priest in the reign of King Pay-nudjem, it was clearly in the latter’s
nineteenth year—or about November 25th, 1049 b.c.—that the
mummy of Meryet-Amun had been restored.
We were learning a good deal about the history of the tomb. That
second blocking of the doorway must have been done in 1049 b.c.
by the necropolis officials who restored Meryet-Amun’s mummy.
After they had closed up the doorway, they would naturally have
been careful to hide the tomb once more, but in spite of their pre-
cautions its existence would have been known to lots of people work-
ing in the necropolis at the time. That is to say, the location of the
tomb would have been known and would have been remembered for
several years, but few could have seen it inside or would have sus-
pected the existence of the well which cut off the back chambers. We
must assume that when Entiu-ny died none of the officials who had
ever been in the tomb were still active in the necropolis, and that those
who chose it for her burial place were in possession only of this second-
hand knowledge. Of course it is impossible to translate such a con-
dition of affairs into terms of years, but at least we can feel reasonably
certain that Entiu-ny died well within a generation of the nineteenth
year of Pay-nudjem—an excellent check on our idea that she was
Pay-nudjem’s daughter.
However, we had not yet settled to our own entire satisfaction the
problem of the first blocking and the original ownership of the tomb.
At the time when the robberies were becoming only too common, the
royal mummies were often moved by the priests to hidden and un-
suspected corners of the necropolis. Hence the mere finding of Meryet-
Amun’s mummy in this tomb did not necessarily mean that it had
been hers in the first place, and it was only when we had cleaned the
last of the rubbish out of the tomb that we were certain. A pile of rags
had been thrown into the unfinished corridor to the left of the well
(fig. 9 e). When we came to examine them they turned out to be the
bandages cut and ripped off a mummy, and among them we found
one marked: “The God’s Wife, the King’s Wife, Meryet-Amun, be-
loved of Amun. May she live!” These, then, were obviously the
original bandages torn off of Meryet-Amun’s mummy by the thieves.
A pile of rubbish of all sorts had been swept out of the back chambers
into the well and still lay where it had fallen on the far side of the well
bottom (fig. 9 f). Among other fragments of funeral furniture this
pile contained bits of an enormous wooden coffin plastered over with