STAN HENDRICKX, Leuven

StatusReport on the Excavation of the Old Kingdom Rock Tombs at Elkab

of During the springof 1986,members the Committeefor BelgianExcavaat tomb in the rock necropolis an tions in Egypt, discovered unknown decorated an to Elkab. It appeared be the tomb of S3w-k3(.i), Old Kingdompriest.Since it Old Kingdomrock tombswereuntil than unknownat Elkab and since wasvery neighbourimmediate likely that moreOld Kingdomtombscouldbe found in the (29.12.1986-23.1.1987 and2.11.1988-6.12.1988) campaigns hood,two excavation part of that area.All in all, ninetombswere of weredevoted the examination a to excavated, of them beinga doublegrave(no. 17)t. This last one was found one intact. all other tombs had beenrobbedanciently.The tombs are locatedin the part of the hill, about 200m from the well-knownNew Kingdom north-western etc.2. Setau, Paheri, tombsof of All tombs are of the sametype. It consists a chapel,in front of which an which is located between pit leadingto the burial chamber openaccess is situated, belowthe chapel(Tav. VIII, 1). However,it can not be excluded 3 and7 meters pits The access are that sometombsdid not havea chapel(e.g.tombs 18-19). Thetombs, leading towardsthe burialchamber. or not shafts, slopes staircases but werenot very carefullyhewn, but the walls the and especially burial chambers, tombs,the rock faces levelled. fur the largest As werein mostcases of the chapels were found outside were also levelled,but no inscriptions next to the entrance wasblockedwith to the tombs.After the funeral,the entrance the burial chamber featureabout thesetombs is the fact small slabsof stone.The most remarkable to that the access the burial chamberdoesnot start from within the chapel,as is usual for OId Kingdom rock tombs. but tomb (no. 11)wasdecorated, it mustbe of Only the chapel S3w-k3(.i)'s disl5-19, havelargelyor completely of kept in mind that the chapels the tombs by within the chapel,the rock was covered a sincethey werereused. appeared wasapplied.The left half the thin layerof plaster,whereupon painteddecoration representaof rear wall consists the large-scale the chapel's of of the decoration sittingbehindan offeringtable.In front of him aretwo registers tion of S3w-k3(.i), wife and the other with an offering one with his unnamed on a far smallerscale, The lowest procession his sons.The right part is madeup by threeregisters' of is A with a dancingscene. butcheryscene in the middleone, and one is decorated on top of this a registershowingan arrayof variouskinds of food- and drinkdatby damaged burial niches however, severely are offerings.The threeregisters, 255

ing back most probably to the Greco-roman period. Both of the side walls were left undecorated, while a painted offering list and a sculptured false door with painted representations S3w-k3(.i)and his sonsis locatedto the left of the enof trance door. The latter decorations are in an extremely bad state of preservation. From a technicaland stylisticalpoint of view, the decorationis of very good quality, and does not appear provincial, but can be linked, according to the subjects as well as to the style, with the memphite style. From a graffito in his tomb, as well as from inscribed fragments or pottery, the name of the owner of tomb 12 was identified as Idi, also a priest. For the undisturbed double tomb 17, the name and title of a priestessof Hathor, named Irtenach, was found on a bronze mirror in tomb l7 B, while the name of the person buried in l7 A remains unknown. However, one has to leave open the possibility that the name may have occurred in the chapel belonging to this tomb, which unfortunately was destroyed. Within most of the disturbed tombs, enough fragments of pottery were found to allow the reconstructionof a part of the grave goods. From the two undisturbed burials in the double grave 17, it became clear that the grave goods placed in the burial chamber were not exceptionally numerous nor rich but might anyhow contain metal and stone vesselsas well as fine pottery vessels.Tomb 17 A, the most important of the two, contained the following objects (Tav. VIII, 2): five pottery jars and four plates and bowls; two large and three small stone vessels;a number of beads from different materials and a bronze amulet; abronze mirror as well as a bronze plate; a completely decayed wooden box which originally contained two of the small alabaster vessels;and a number of plant remains. The most important object, however, was a bronze ewer with its basin. On the other hand, objects were also found outside the burial chambers. It can not be decided whether objects were also kepts in the tomb chapels since ail of them were reused or were strongly damaged in more recent times. Within the accesspits of several graves a number of rough pottery vesselsand sherds were found. Their original position became obvious from tomb 17, where over five hundred rough pottery jars were found in situ. They formed an haphazard layer pit. over the access Starting from a preliminary examination of the pottery, three well-known types of ceramic material can be distinguished3.Firstly rough pottery made from Nile silts tempered with sand and chaff or chopped straw (Nile C). Secondly pottery of high quality, made from Nile silt (Nile B1). And finally a limited number of quality vessels made from marl clay (Marl A1). The rough pottery, which was mainly found in front of the tombs, consists largely of beer-vessels and bread moulds. The vesseltypes belonging to both quality fabrics, are identical. Especially Maidum-bowls are present in large numbers, but severaltypes of jars and very large bowls are also typical. Except for the skeletonsin tombs 17 A and B, the skeleton from the anonymous tomb 14 was also found in its original position though the tomb had been plundered. None of the bodies was mummified and all of them were lying on their left side, in a slightly contractedposition. It could not be established beyond doubt whether a sarcophagushad been present, or whether the decayedwood in which

256

the skeletons were found originally belonged to some kind of stretcher. It was, however, obvious that the dead had been lying on a thick layer of linen cloth, parts of which were preserved. s3-k3(.i) and ldi, with their respectivetitles, are also mentioned in graffiti in the Wadi Hellala. An until now unpublished study by Hans Vandekerckhove, shows that the majority of these graffiti date to the sixth dynasty. It furthermore has become clear that the tombs under consideration most probably belonged to priests attached to the main temple at Elkab, who at the same time were in charge of the deserttemple which has disappeard. This temple, however, was most probably located in the neighbourhood of the still existing temple of Amenhotep III in the Wadi Hellals.

1 . T h e t o m b s a r e n u m b e r e d 1 1 - 1 9 ,a s a c o n t i n u a t i o n o f P M V , p g . 1 7 6 - 1 8 5 ' 2. S. Hendrickx & D. Huyge, Elkab IV. Topographie. fasc. 2, Inventaire des sitesarchologiques, 1 B r u x e l l e s , 9 8 9 .n r . 5 3 . 3. Terminology, cf. H. A. Nordstrm, Ton. L, vol. 6, pg. 629-634.Wiesbaden, 1986. Seealso: J. Bourriau, Umm el-Qa'ab. Pottery from the Nile Valley before the Arab Conquest, Cambridge, 1 9 8 1p p . 1 4 - 1 5 . , 4. H. Vandekerckhove, De rotsinscripties van het Oude Rijk te Elkab. Bulletin des Muses Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, 61 (1990),pp. 47-61. 5. S.Hendrickx&D.Huyge,ElkabIV.Topographie.fasc.2, Inventairedessitesarchologiques, Bruxelles, 1989, nr. 73. Concerning Old Kingdom remains in this area, see id. nrs. 64' 69-'72.

257

TAV. VIII - S. Hendrickx

tf. :':.. rlil:

."\ h;'!
.',:,1

1. Tomb 11,S3w-k3(.i). leading Chapel and staircase towardsthe burial chamber.

. .-9

. l :{1s\

:'-W

\-''Y#

2. Tomb 17 A. Grave goodsfrom the burial chamber.