DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0196
SEASON OF 1928-1929 183
white gesso. Other pieces of the same coffin had been found already
in the corridor and in the entrance pit, and when they were put to-
gether, we discovered that it had been actually big enough to hold
the great coffin of Meryet-Amun. In addition, we found the vulture
head of the queen’s crown from the coffins’s brow. Obviously here
was a third, outermost coffin of Meryet-Amun so completely wrecked
by the thieves that it had been simply swept out of sight at the time
of the restoration of the mummy. From these finds it followed that
Meryet-Amun had been robbed here in this tomb, for it was very
unlikely that the necropolis officials would have brought scraps of
her torn-up bandages and of her demolished coffin from a distance.
Furthermore, the most minute examination of the rubbish from the
tomb failed to show any trace of an earlier occupant. And thus it was
that at the end of all of our theorizing we arrived at the conclusion
that we had discovered the tomb of Queen Meryet-Amun and that it
was at her funeral that the door had first been walled up.
In the meantime, we had noticed two things that gave us a very
good idea of the date of the tomb itself. The corridor passed obliquely
under the north portico of the temple. In fact, so close under the
portico did it pass, that the under side of the temple foundations were
actually exposed in one place in the corridor roof, hanging precariously
over our heads as we worked (fig. 9 d). Now it is possible to dig
under foundations once they are set, and even to expose them without
necessarily bringing them down, but it is absolutely impossible to lay
heavy stones unsupported across a void, or supported at most by
only a thin shell of crumbling shale. Thus the tomb must have been
made after the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the temple
was built. On the other hand, while a well cutting off the back part
of the tomb was common in the Valley of the Kings throughout the
Eighteenth Dynasty, in the Nineteenth Dynasty it was given up.
Therefore, we felt safe in dating the tomb of Meryet-Amun to the
second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and her coffins confirmed this
date absolutely. No one familiar with the two gigantic coffins now in
Cairo, which Amen-hotpe I made for the Queens Neferet-Iry and
Afh-hotpe, could place the almost identical, and equally large coffin
of Meryet-Amun much more than a century later. In short, Meryet-
Amun could not have been buried earlier than 1480 b.c. when the
temple was finished, and probably not much later than about 1440 b.c.
The only question that remained at this point was to settle the
identity of Meryet-Amun herself. Two queens of that name were
known, but our queen could be neither. One of them belonged to the
white gesso. Other pieces of the same coffin had been found already
in the corridor and in the entrance pit, and when they were put to-
gether, we discovered that it had been actually big enough to hold
the great coffin of Meryet-Amun. In addition, we found the vulture
head of the queen’s crown from the coffins’s brow. Obviously here
was a third, outermost coffin of Meryet-Amun so completely wrecked
by the thieves that it had been simply swept out of sight at the time
of the restoration of the mummy. From these finds it followed that
Meryet-Amun had been robbed here in this tomb, for it was very
unlikely that the necropolis officials would have brought scraps of
her torn-up bandages and of her demolished coffin from a distance.
Furthermore, the most minute examination of the rubbish from the
tomb failed to show any trace of an earlier occupant. And thus it was
that at the end of all of our theorizing we arrived at the conclusion
that we had discovered the tomb of Queen Meryet-Amun and that it
was at her funeral that the door had first been walled up.
In the meantime, we had noticed two things that gave us a very
good idea of the date of the tomb itself. The corridor passed obliquely
under the north portico of the temple. In fact, so close under the
portico did it pass, that the under side of the temple foundations were
actually exposed in one place in the corridor roof, hanging precariously
over our heads as we worked (fig. 9 d). Now it is possible to dig
under foundations once they are set, and even to expose them without
necessarily bringing them down, but it is absolutely impossible to lay
heavy stones unsupported across a void, or supported at most by
only a thin shell of crumbling shale. Thus the tomb must have been
made after the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the temple
was built. On the other hand, while a well cutting off the back part
of the tomb was common in the Valley of the Kings throughout the
Eighteenth Dynasty, in the Nineteenth Dynasty it was given up.
Therefore, we felt safe in dating the tomb of Meryet-Amun to the
second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and her coffins confirmed this
date absolutely. No one familiar with the two gigantic coffins now in
Cairo, which Amen-hotpe I made for the Queens Neferet-Iry and
Afh-hotpe, could place the almost identical, and equally large coffin
of Meryet-Amun much more than a century later. In short, Meryet-
Amun could not have been buried earlier than 1480 b.c. when the
temple was finished, and probably not much later than about 1440 b.c.
The only question that remained at this point was to settle the
identity of Meryet-Amun herself. Two queens of that name were
known, but our queen could be neither. One of them belonged to the