Ahmose(-Sapair) in Dra Abu el-Naga North

774262 research-article2018 EGA0010.1177/0307513318774262The Journal of Egyptian ArchaeologyGalán Article The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 2017, Vol. 103(2) 179–201 © The Author(s) 2018 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav https://doi.org/10.1177/0307513318774262 DOI: 10.1177/0307513318774262 journals.sagepub.com/home/ega Ahmose(-Sapair) in Dra Abu el-Naga North José M. Galán Abstract Prince Ahmose-Sapair was worshipped soon after his death and regarded as a memorable member of the royal family in Thebes for around five centuries. While his ancestry, remembrance and worship have been the subject of several studies by C. Vandersleyen and others, the location of his tomb has not been discussed in depth, despite the fact that it appears to be a significant aspect in his posthumous cult. This matter is hereby addressed, re-examining the data from earlier excavations and in the light of recent discoveries made by the Spanish mission working in Dra Abu el-Naga North, south-west of the open courtyard of the tomb chapel of Djehuty (TT 11). The archaeological context becomes significant in the analysis of each document and in the overall appraisal of their complexity. It will be argued that Ahmose-Sapair must have been buried in Dra Abu el-Naga North, only a few metres south-west of TT 11, contrary to what has been assumed since Winlock’s 1924 article. Keywords Ahmose Sapair, Dra Abu el-Naga, early Eighteenth Dynasty, funerary equipment, Seventeenth Dynasty, Thebes, tombs ‫ جاالن‬.‫خوزية م‬ ‫أحمس )سابير( في منطقة دراع أبو النجا الشمالية‬ ‫ كما كان يعتبر شخصا يستحق التقدير في العائلة الملكية في طيبة طوال خمسة قرون‬،‫سابير عقب وفاته‬-‫تمت عبادة األمير أحمس‬ ‫ لم يتم التعرض لموقع مقبرته على‬،‫ بينما كان نسبه وذكراه وعبادته محل دراسات عديدة من قبل فاندرسيلين وأخرون‬.‫عقب وفاته‬ ‫ باإلضافة إلى إعادة دراسة ما لدينا‬،‫ لهذا يتعرض هذا البحث لهذا الموضوع‬.‫الرغم من أنها لعبت دورا محوريا في عبادته عقب وفاته‬ ‫من معلومات في ضوء االكتشافات التي قامت بها البعثة اإلسبانية العاملة في دراع أبو النجا جنوب غرب الفناء المفتوح الخاص‬ .‫ تتضح أهمية السياق االثري من خالل تحليل كل وثيقة وفي التقييم الشامل لتعقيدها‬.(TT 11) ‫بمقصورة جحوتي والتي تحمل رقم‬ ‫ بما يتنافى مع‬، TT 11 ‫سابير البد وأن يكون قد دفن في دراع أبو النجا الشمالية على بعد أمتار جنوب غرب‬-‫يقترح البحث أن أحمس‬ .1924 ‫االعتقاد السائد منذ مقال وينلوك المنشور عام‬ Introduction The figure of Ahmose-Sapair encapsulates part of the essence and drama of Thebes in the transitional years from the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Dynasty. He is known from a wide variety of documents, yet he is surrounded by a halo of mystery. Basic questions remain unanswered, such as his ancestry, the reason behind his posthumous cult, and the location of his tomb chapel. This article focuses on the latter, first reviewing later textual references (papyrus Abbott) as well as related contemporary archaeological data. Nineteenth-century reports on the discovery of the burials of some members of the Seventeenth Dynasty royal family in Dra Abu el-Naga, together with their interpretations, will be partially analysed as a way to approach the issue of Ahmose-Sapair’s burial. Objects referencing Ahmose-Sapair which could have been associated with his funerary monument (obelisk, stela, shabtis, linen) will then be reviewed, followed by a report on some of the findings made by the Spanish mission working in Dra Abu el-Naga North between 2011 and 2016. The gathered data are complex, from which no simple and definite conclusions can easily be extracted. The research on the king’s son Ahmose, also named Sapair, is also unavoidably linked to the problem of names, nicknames and the identities behind them, since Ahmose was a very common name at that time, and the use of nicknames or second names was a practice with multiple variables. Instead of forcing the interpretation of some of the evidence to produce a clearer picture, the following analysis will retain the ambiguity of the documents as they are, and their interpretation will still contain a number of uncertainties. The royal cachette, papyrus Abbott and royal burials in Dra Abu el-Naga The Theban necropolis appears to have been intensively plundered at the end of the Twentieth and during the Twenty-first Dynasty. In order to save the bodies and identities of their owners (crucial for their expectations of eternal life in the hereafter) many coffins and/or mummies of the royal family were removed from their tombs and transferred to more secure places. By the beginning of the Twenty-second Dynasty, a large number had been Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain Corresponding author: José M. Galán, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC); Calle de Albasanz, 26–28, Madrid 28037, Spain. Email: jose.galan@cchs.csic.es 180 stored and hidden in the so-called ‘Deir el-Bahari cachette’ (DB 320).1 Some of the coffins were already in a bad condition or were damaged during the transfer, and so their mummies were accommodated in new coffins. In order to identify each individual, dockets with their names were written on the coffin lids and/or the mummy wrappings. One of the coffins found in the cachette is relatively small in size, 1.22 x 0.4 x 0.56 m, and designed for an infant.2 It is an anthropoid coffin, painted in black and with gilded vertical bands between walking figures, and the carving and style corresponds to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty. On the lid, after the gold leaf had already been removed, a hieratic docket was written in black ink. Unfortunately, only , pA-i (fig. 1), four legible signs are preserved, which Daressy interpreted as part of the name […Sa] pai[ir…], and thereby identified the owner as the venerated Prince Ahmose-Sapair of the late Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty.3 Inside the coffin, rewrapped in Twenty-first Dynasty linen, were the remains of a mummy 0.93 m in height.4 Two wooden sticks were used to keep the few bones and the distorted skin of the body straight, which had been stripped and plundered. G. Elliot Smith and A. R. Ferguson unwrapped (once more), inventoried and studied the mummy on 9 September 1905, and recorded that the vertebral column, most of the other bones of the skeleton, and all the viscera, are missing. The greater part of the right leg is wanting; the right femur (diaphysis 0.21 m) but not the left is present. The left tibia and fibula and foot are present. The right scapula is present, but not the left. 1C. N. Reeves and R. H. Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt’s Greatest Pharaohs (London, 1996), 195–7; E. Graefe and G. Belova, The Royal Cache TT 320: A Re–examination (Cairo, 2010), 57. 2CCG 61007; Daressy, Cercueils des cachettes royales (Cairo, 1909), 9–10. 3Daressy’s reading of the docket was collated and confirmed in December 2015, see fig. 1. C. Bennett, ‘Thutmosis I and AhmesSapaïr’, GM 141 (1994), 35–7, argues that Ahmose-Sapair was the younger son of Seqenenra and Ahhotep, and father of Thutmose I, which would explain why he was remembered among the most distinguished members of the royal family in the Ramesside Period, and why he was chosen to be rescued by the Twenty-first Dynasty Amun priests. Bennett assumes in his argumentation that Ahmose-Sapair’s mummy was confused with that of another contemporary young prince also named Ahmose, but there are no data to support this assumption. Against this hypothesis and on the cult that the young prince received years after his death, see C. Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr fils de Séqénenré Djéhouty-Aa (17e dynastie) et la statue du Musée du Louvre E 15682 (Brussels, 2005). For an overall re-examination of the data see B. van Assche, ‘Ahmose Sapair: Discussing the Identity of a Deified Prince’, JSSEA 37 (2010), 113–21. 4CCG 61064; G. E. Smith, Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912), 22–5. Linen recorded as being inscribed: no. 21 ‘a series of pieces of rag of varied texture, some with ink inscriptions’; no. 28 ‘a ragged cloth … Hieroglyphs written in ink upon it; also designs in red’. None have been published. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 1. Detail of the hieratic docket written on the coffin CCG 61007, with signs pA-i still legible. They concluded that ‘the boy had a full set of deciduous teeth and presumably was about five or six years of age’.5 Before the priests of Amun began to remove the coffins and/or mummies of several members of the royal family and the social elite from their original burials at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, precisely during year 16 of Ramesses IX, third month of the Akhet season, day 18, their tombs were visited and inspected to establish whether or not they had been robbed. The text begins by enumerat), isw ing three types of tombs inspected: mrw ( ( ) and maHawt ( ) (pAbbott II, 1). According to the report, the first term refers to the burials of ‘the former kings’ (pAbbott, III, 15), which are described on pages II and III, while the other two terms refer to ‘where the praised ancestors, townsfolk and countrymen rest therein, on the west of the town’ (pAbbott IV, 1–2), including ‘the rock-cut tombs of the great places, which are in the Perfect Place, where the royal children, royal wives, kings’ mothers, the grandfathers and grandmothers of the Pharaoh rest inside’ (pAbbott V, 8–9; cf. IV, 11–12; VI, 5–6). On page III, line 13, it is pointed out that ‘the “tomb-pyramid” of king (pA mr n nswt, ) Ahmose-Sapair was inspected and found in a good state (wDA)’.6 If this report is accepted as a reliable source, it seems that his tomb had not been disturbed until at least that point, c.1114 BCE.7 Winlock argued in 1924 that the term mr, written with the semantic determinative of a pyramid ( ) in papyrus 5Smith, Royal Mummies, 22–5. Papyri in the Hieratic Character from the Collection of the British Museum, II (London, 1860), pl. 3; T. E. Peet, The Great Tomb-Robberies of the Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty (Oxford, 1930), pl. 2. 7H. E. Winlock, ‘The Tombs of the Kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty at Thebes’, JEA 10 (1924), 222, stated concerning the tomb-robbery papyri: ‘All are business-like, straightforward documents … and therefore thoroughly trustworthy historical evidence’. For the absolute date see E. Hornung, R. Kraus, and A. Warburton, Ancient Egyptian Chronology (HdO 83; Leiden, 2006), 493. 6Select 181 Galán Abbott, had to be translated here literally as ‘pyramid’,8 as was also pointed out by Breasted.9 Polz also inferred from papyrus Abbott that Ahmose-Sapair must have had a pyramid.10 It is true that other related words mentioned in this context do not have the pyramid-determinative, such as isw ), maHawt ( ), swt aAwt ( ) ( and xr ( ). However, it should be noted that the word wD, ‘stela’, mentioned in papyrus Abbott II, 9–10 and 17, as part of the tomb-pyramids of King Intef (I) and King Intef Sekhemra, is written with the pyramid and house determinatives ( ), in exactly the same manner as the word mr.11 Thus, it seems plausible that the double determinative did not pretend to describe the physical appearance of the monument, but rather was used as a marker for a royal funerary monument. The fact that Ahmose-Sapair is referred to as ‘king’ and not as ‘king’s son’, as he should have been, may indicate that the scribe preferred to keep the same terminology and to compose a homogeneous list of the 10 tombs inspected in Dra Abu el-Naga, rather than introducing an exception with Ahmose-Sapair’s status and monument.12 Thus, it seems safer not to necessarily interpret AhmoseSapair’s funerary monument as a pyramid, based only on the evidence from papyrus Abbott. Winlock advanced the idea that in the list of 10 tombs included in papyrus Abbott ‘all of them were put down in the order in which they were inspected’ (p. 223), and ‘while the list is strictly speaking an itinerary … their order from north to south is equally their order from earlier to later’ (p. 224), adding that ‘the general trend from north to south following the kings’ temples is evident for the courtiers’ tombs as well’ (p. 224, n. 2); but he remarked that ‘while the general north to south tendency may be true, it may not hold strictly between two adjoining tombs in so rugged and restricted an area as the Dirâ’ Abu’l-Nagâ’ (p. 225).13 The tomb of Ahmose-Sapair is mentioned in ninth place, after Kamose’s, and Winlock opted to locate both at the southern end of Dra Abu el-Naga.14 8See also in pAmherst III, 6, 8; IV, 2; Select Papyri, II, pl. XXXXX; Peet, Tomb-Robberies, pl. 5. JEA 10, 225–6; J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (New York, 1906) IV, 252–6. 10D. Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches: Zur Vorgeschichte einer Zeitenwende (DAI Kairo Sonderschrift 31; Berlin, 2007), 158. For the use of pA mr referring to this and other monuments see ibid., 197–211. 11Note that the signs for pyramid, obelisk and stela (O24–26) are practically identical in hieratic; see G. Möller, Hieratische Paläographie, II (1927–36), nos 369–71. 12On the use of the title ‘king’ instead of ‘king’s son’ referring to Ahmose-Sapair, see Winlock, JEA 10, 222–3. Note that by the end of the Twentieth Dynasty Ahmose-Sapair was commonly included among the royal personalia, although always carefully characterised as ‘king’s son’; see Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr. 13E. Thomas, The Royal Necropoleis of Thebes (PhD thesis, Princeton University; Princeton, 1966), 40, disagrees with Winlock and states that ‘Intef VI did, indeed, begin a new row on the north’; see also p. 38 and fig. 6. 14Winlock, JEA 10, 222. See also S. Harvey, ‘King Heqatawy: Notes on a Forgotten Eighteenth Dynasty Royal Name’, in Z. A. Hawass and J. Richards (eds), The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David O’Connor (Cairo, 2007), 350–1. 9Winlock, Winlock recalled how the coffin of Kamose was actually discovered at the opposite end, at the north of Dra Abu elNaga, by Mariette’s gang in December 1857: on the flat plain below the Dirâ’ Abu’l-Nagâ, just south of the mouth of the Valley of the Kings … near where Ahhotp was found during the following season, but a little further from the hill … hidden in a mass of rubbish into which it had been dumped, carelessly, upon its right side, but absolutely uninjured and unrobbed.15 Winlock (p. 259),16 however, argued that this was not Kamose’s original burial ground, and that sometime after his tomb-pyramid was inspected and found uninjured in the reign of Ramesses IX, thieves caused the guardians of the tomb to carry off ‘its lord’ bodily, coffin and all. This they hastily buried, still unopened, in a hole in the rubbish on the plain below the Dirâ’ Abu’l-Nagâ near where Ahhotp and two of the Intefs were similarly hidden. Thus, he concludes that ‘we are not nearer establishing the site of his tomb, for it is impossible to say how far the mummy was carried before being consigned to its hidingplace …’ but he adds that ‘we should not be far wrong in locating it at the southern end of the eastern face of Dirâ’ Abu’l-Nagâ’ (p. 262). He opts for the southern end based on his finding of ‘a small Seventeenth or Eighteenth Dynasty brick pyramid in 1913, during the Metropolitan Museum’s excavations …’ because of the ‘tombs of the Kamose and Ahmose period clustering about it’,17 and, moreover, because ‘the tomb in which Lord Carnarvon found the Kamose tablet18 lies within less than 150 metres from the pyramid’ (p. 262). 15Winlock, JEA 10, 260; the area mentioned corresponds to letter A in the map of pl. XIII. See also Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 39; G. Miniaci, Rishi Coffins and the Funerary Culture of the Second Intermediate Period Egypt (GHP Egyptology 17; London, 2011), 54–5. 16Winlock, JEA 10, 235, n. 2, argued that the two Intefs’ coffins now in the Louvre were probably found between 1845 and 1849, in the same cache in the rubble where Kamose and Ahhotep were reburied. However, it is unlikely that these four coffins were lying together, but more probably, as Winlock himself pointed out elsewhere, they were buried and found within the same area, at the northern end of Dra Abu el-Naga. On the documentation locating the discovery of Ahhotep’s coffin in front of TT 155, see Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 55–7. On the discovery of the coffins of the two Intefs now in the Louvre (E 3019, E 3020), see M. Dewachter, ‘Nouvelles informations relatives a l’exploitation de la nécropole royale de Drah Aboul Neggah’, RdE 36 (1985), 52–9; and Note 21 of the present article. 17H. E. Winlock, Excavations at Deir el Bahri 1911–1931 (New York, 1942), 7–8; Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 40; Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 138–60; D. Polz, ‘New Archaeological Data from Dra’ Abu el-Naga and Their Historical Implications’, in M. Marée (ed.), The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth–Seventeenth Dynasties): Current Research, Future Prospects (OLA 192; Leuven, 2010), 349–50. 18The Earl of Carnarvon and H. Carter, Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes: A Record of Work Done 1907–1911 (London, 1912), 34–7. 182 However, private tombs of the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasties are all over Dra Abu el-Naga, not only at the southern end.19 It also seems unlikely that Kamose’s coffin would have been moved about 800 m north to end up being buried in the rubble. Actually, Winlock himself pointed out that ‘it is quite possible that Nos. 8 (Kamose) and 9 (Ahmose-Sapair) should be near point A’ (i.e. at the northern end of Dra Abu el-Naga) (p. 223, n. 9), ultimately leaving open both possibilities. Winlock assumed that the coffins of the two Intefs now in the Louvre, Kamose and Ahhotep were all reburied in the north by the Amun priests in charge of the necropolis.20 Indeed, the brief and vague accounts on the discovery of the royal coffins leave many open questions. Nevertheless, it is hard to accept that a hole in the rubble would constitute a cachette, and it seems unlikely that the coffins were deposited together, since they were discovered one by one over a span of several years.21 It also seems unlikely that the Amun priests would have left behind the extraordinary funerary equipment and jewellery that was found inside Ahhotep’s gilded coffin, or the metal objects that accompanied the mummy of Kamose: dagger, poignard, mirror, cartouche, scarab, amulets, etc.22 Certainly, they would have taken the valuable objects with them.23 This seems to be the case for a prince called Amenemhat of the early Eighteenth Dynasty (son of Amenhotep I?), who died when he was slightly over one year old and was found by Lansing in 1918/19 on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the cliffs between the 19Vassalli, excavating on behalf of Mariette in 1862–63, found a number of Seventeenth Dynasty burials near the area where the coffins of Kamose and Ahhotep were found, at the entrance of the wadi Khawi el-Alamat, at the northern end of Dra Abu el-Naga; see Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 56–63, where he states: ‘The burial places of Kamose and Ahhotep, evidently situated close to each other, could have belonged to a Second Intermediate Period cemetery lying at the mouth of the wadi Khawi el-Alamat’, implying that they were not reburied, but were discovered as they had been originally interred. 20Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 39–40, is also of the opinion that the coffins had been reburied and that Kamose’s tomb ‘was presumably placed southwest of that of Ta’a II and perhaps in the vicinity of a tomb of a presumed official of his that was cleared by Carnarvon and Carter in 1908–09 … about one hundred and fifty metres north-east of the mouth of the Dêr el Bahari valley’. 21See Dewachter, RdE 36, 44: ‘on est amené à réviser l’idée selon laquelle ces deux cercueils auraient été transferrés dans l’antiquité vers une cachette voisine de celle qui, en décembre 1857, libra la momie du roi Kamosé’. 22M. Desti, ‘Dra Aboul Nagga’, in Des dieux, des tombeaux, un savant: En Égypte, sur les pas de Mariette pacha (Paris, 2004). 23A. M. Roth, ‘The Ahhotep Coffins: The Archaeology of an Egyptological Reconstruction’, in E. Teeter and J. A. Larson (eds), Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente (SAOC 58; Chicago, 1984), 369, referring to Ahhotep’s coffin and the Amun priests, she pointed out that ‘it is unlikely that they would have left the gold on its outer surface intact, much less the numerous gold and silver objects found with it … The most likely hypothesis … is that it was buried during the early part of the reign of Ahmose, containing the body of a royal woman, who was closely related to Ta’o II, but not the mother of a king, and that it remained hidden until the workmen of Mariette came across it’. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Deir el-Bahari cachette and the tomb of Meketra.24 His mummy was placed inside a child’s coffin of the late Ramesside Period and was left on the ground under ‘a large flat stone’, without any funerary equipment.25 Along this line, in 2014 the Spanish mission found an elegant and wellpreserved rishi-coffin of an individual called Neb, which was reburied, likely in the Third Intermediate Period, given some of the material found down the shaft, inside the burial chamber of a funerary shaft without a single piece of funerary equipment.26 The fact that the coffins were placed on the ground, unprotected and covered only by sand, does not necessarily imply that they were reburied, as this seems to have been a common burial practice in the Theban necropolis in various periods. The excavations conducted by Lansing in 1918/19 in the area of Deir el-Bahari, ‘East of Pabasa’ (TT 279) and ‘eastward along the great wall of Pedamenopet’ (TT 33), came across six rishi-coffins and two rectangular black coffins with vaulted lids of the Thirteenth Dynasty lying on the ground, covered only by rubble.27 In 1935/36, two white coffins of the Early Eighteenth Dynasty were found under two tumuli of limestone blocks below TT 71 in Sheikh Abd elQurna.28 At least one Twenty-first Dynasty coffin was also found in the rubble, unprotected, by the MMA expedition.29 24Cliff tomb identified as MMA 1021. Lansing, ‘The Egyptian Expedition 1916–1919: II. Excavations in the Asasif at Thebes. Seasons of 1918–19’, BMMA 15 (1920), 7–10, figs 1, 4–6. The coffin and the wooden pectoral depicting Amenhotep I are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (19.3.207 and 19.3.210). Near the findspot, wooden boxes containing mummified meat offerings (MMA 19.3.212–289) were found inside a 2 m-deep funerary shaft. 26J. M. Galán and A. Jiménez-Higueras, ‘Three Burials of the Seventeenth Dynasty in Dra Abu el-Naga’, in W. Grajetzki and G. Miniaci (eds), The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (Middle Kingdom Studies 1; London, 2015), 104–11. 27MMA negatives 30.3.5–6; I am grateful to Dorothea Arnold, C. Roehrig and D. Patch for permission to consult the MMA photographic archives in 2007/8. Lansing, BMMA 15, 12, 14, 16, describes the find in the following words: ‘a series of coffins of the Middle Kingdom and the period between it and the XVIII dynasty came to light. At the end of the season more than forty of these, which had evidently been moved from some other place and deposited here, were found … Although few of the burials produced anything very remarkable in the way of articles of adornment or toilet appurtenances, yet in the sum, the material, being well dated and having been found undisturbed on the bodies, is of considerable value’. See remarks by Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 106: ‘more than forty coffins were found piled up together under a mound of filling and rubbish. The excavators noted that although some funerary equipment was missing from a number of burials, there was scarcely evidence of plundering. At first sight, it was thought that the huge number of burials and their chaotic disposition was the result of having been moved from their original resting places … Nowadays, although the preliminary excavation does not record any specific structure, we can parallel the situation with two family interments found by Carter and Carnarvon in el–Birabi and many other tombs belonging to the Second Intermediate Period’. 28MMA neg. M16C.60–1 (singer Harmose), and M16C.111–12 (anonymous); A. Lansing and W. C. Hayes, ‘The Egyptian Expedition 1935–36’, BMMA 32 (1937) 6–8, figs 11, 13. 25A. 183 Galán At the northern end of Dra Abu el-Naga, Petrie discovered the coffin of an elite woman of the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty in 1909, together with her elaborate funerary equipment, ‘placed in an open shallow trench in the rock’ covered only by ‘several natural boulders’.30 The aforementioned and the following data may be used as circumstantial evidence to argue that Kamose’s coffin was found in the position and in the place where it was originally buried. The Spanish mission in Dra Abu elNaga, excavating 1 m below the courtyard of the tomb chapel of Djehuty (TT 11), found three Eleventh Dynasty coffins in their original context, all next to each other.31 One of them, belonging to a woman, was lying on the bedrock without any protection, and next to it another was found with only its lower half preserved. The third coffin belonged to a man, whose mummy was accompanied by staves, bows, arrows and one marl-clay pot. The coffin in this case was pushed inside a rock cavity, which was then blocked with large boulders, and a mud offering-tray was left outside. In addition, between 20 and 50 cm above the courtyard floor, a Twenty-first Dynasty female coffin (uninscribed, only whitewashed) was found in the rubble, its base fixed with limestone blocks. In the same layer, a group of four individuals (including one infant) was resting under a tumulus of stones, coffin boards and other fragments of earlier funerary equipment.32 Recently, two Seventeenth Dynasty coffins found southwest of Djehuty’s courtyard have joined the list.33 They belonged to children and both were also deposited on the ground, lying on one side and fixed with stones, just as Kamose’s coffin was recorded. Along this line, in 1910/11 Carnarvon and Carter found ‘a Rishi coffin belonging (?) to the original burial. It was found lying on its right side in a space on the floor especially cleared for it, and was bound at the head and 29MMA neg. 5A 11–12. Recently, the ARCE mission working in Qurna found a group of Third Intermediate Period coffins lying on the ground, without any protection, near the entrance of TT 110, as reported by G. Scott in the Theban Workshop on Tomb Decoration, held at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in April 2016. 30W. M. F. Petrie, Qurneh (London, 1909), 7–10, pls 22–9. Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 65–6, remarks that ‘the kind of interment points to a recurrent attribute of Second Intermediate Period royal burials, like the coffins of Ahhotep and Kamose’, again assuming that the latter ‘were placed just below the surface of the sand without any recognizable funerary structure’. The rishi-coffin and funerary equipment are kept at the National Museum of Scotland, with the inventory numbers A.1909.527.1–43; B. Manley and A. Dodson, Life Everlasting: National Museums Scotland Collection of Ancient Egyptian Coffins (Edinburgh, 2010), 21–7. 31J. M. Galán, ‘An Intact Eleventh Dynasty Burial in Dra Abu elNaga’, EA 35 (2009), 32–5; J. M. Galán, ‘11th Dynasty Burials Below Djehuty’s Courtyard (TT 11) in Dra Abu el-Naga’, in A. Oppenheim and O. Goelet (eds), Studies in Honor of Dorothea Arnold (BES 19; New York, 2016), in press. 32J. M. Galán, ‘Excavations at the Courtyard of the tomb of Djehuty (TT 11)’, in P. Kousoulis and N. Lazaridis (eds), Proceedings of the Xth International Congress of Egyptologists (OLA 241; Leuven, 2015), 207–20. 33Galán and Jiménez, in Grajetzki and Miniaci, The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt, 113–16. foot with palm fibre cords’.34 It seems, therefore, that some coffins were intentionally placed on the ground on their side, at least in the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty. While one may expect such a basic burial for an infant or a middle/upper-middle class individual, it might seem odd for a king or queen, even in an ‘intermediate period’, for whom a funerary shaft and a commemorative-offering chapel would seem more appropriate. In this discussion, it should be taken into account that Mariette was absent from the dig when the coffins of Kamose and Ahhotep were discovered, and it is possible that unnoticed and/or unrecorded mud-brick structures once stood in the area, which could have been the remains of an offering chapel or even part of the layout of a pyramid.35 Winlock was correct when he concluded that ‘Mariette missed the pyramid feature above the tomb of Nubkheperre’, in view of the recent discovery by the German Archaeological Institute, and thus Mariette’s workmen could also have missed other mud-brick structures at that time. Even if the coffins of some members of the royal family were originally placed in the rubble and not down a shaft, they must have been associated with some kind of nearby cultic place.36 The inspection of the funerary monuments as recorded in papyrus Abbott implies that each one comprised an architectural superstructure: a cult chapel and/or tomb, either rock-cut or built in masonry and/or mud-brick. King Nubkheperra Intef built a mud-brick pyramid,37 but the burial chamber remains unlocated. It is only known from d’Athanasi’s 1827 account, ‘a small and separate tomb, containing only one chamber, in the centre of which was placed a sarcophagus, hewn out the same rock, and formed evidently at the same time as the chamber itself; its base not having been detached’,38 and through Mariette’s report of his rediscovery of the tomb, in 1860, ‘a semi-speos, the façade ornamented by two obelisks’. Moreover, the burial of Sekhemra Wepmaat Intef and Sekhemra Heruhirmaat Intef (see later in this article), whose coffins are now in the Louvre, is only known through Wilkinson’s sketch and notes written in 1855, indicating that they were found together in Dra Abu el-Naga, in ‘a pit of brick to depth of 4 men both mummies covered with cloth & dirt thrown over them’.39 In his article, Winlock only indirectly addressed the question of the location of Prince Ahmose-Sapair’s tomb, when discussing the order of the tombs mentioned in the 34Carnarvon and Carter, Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes, 62. JEA 10, 226, and see Note 37 in this present article. 36See descripton in Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 40–5. 37D. Polz and A. Seiler, Die Pyramidenanlage des Königs NubCheper-Re Intef in Dra Abu el-Naga (DAI Kairo Sonderschrift 24; Mainz, 2003). 38Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 37–8; Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 70–1. 39Wilkinson had seen the two coffins in the house of Triantaphyllos six years before. Winlock, JEA 10, 235, n. 2, concluded that ‘it seems safe to accept the essential point that the Louvre coffins were found buried in a cache in the rubbish’. See remarks by Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 36; Dewachter, RdE 36, 56; and Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 71–2, fig. 65. 35Winlock, 184 papyrus Abbott list and Kamose’s burial.40 Probably for that reason, he overlooked three pieces of evidence that could offer a clue as to the area of Prince Ahmose-Sapair’s tomb, which were found in Dra Abu el-Naga north. The first was found by Urbain Bouriant, and the other two in the excavations led by Wilhelm Spiegelberg and Percy Newberry on behalf of the Fifth Marquis of Northampton. Bouriant in Dra Abu el-Naga, 1886 Having left his position at the Boulaq Museum, Bouriant started a field season in Dra Abu el-Naga on behalf of the Mission Archéologique Française in January 1886. Among other ‘petits monuments’ he found a stela, CCG 34004, dedicated to ‘the herald and senior steward of the king’s mother, Kenres, justified’, depicting him together with ‘the king’s . Both are son Ahmose, called Sapair’, depicted standing and facing each other with an offering table in between them. Kenres offers a lotus flower to Ahmose-Sapair, while the latter is shown smelling another lotus. They both hold a handkerchief in the other hand and are wearing similar outfits. Their names are written with the same determinative , probably suggesting that both were dead, which is also implied by the fact that the stela was dedicated by a third person. Ahmose’s name is written with the moon-sign facing down. The stela was found in January 1886 in Dra Abu el-Naga,41 but the exact find spot is not indicated. Bouriant reports that in the following month he cleared the tomb chapels of Nebamun (TT 24) and Montuherkhepeshef (TT 20),42 which are located 33 and 39 m, respectively, north-east of the tomb chapel of Hery, implying that he was working in an area near TT 12 at that time.43 The stela dates to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, attesting to an early cult of the king’s son Ahmose-Sapair in that area.44 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Excavations of Spiegelberg and Newberry 1898/99 Spiegelberg and Newberry, excavated for little more than three months during the winter of 1898/99, at the foothill of Dra Abu el-Naga. They covered the area from around the tomb chapel of Baki (TT 18), located in front of wadi Khawi el-Alamat, which opens a few metres south of the wadi that leads to the Valley of the Kings, to as far south as the area around the tomb chapel of Nebamun (TT 17), south of wadi Shig el-Ateyat, which is taken as the natural separating line between Dra Abu el-Naga North and South.45 The final publication, which followed nine years later, supervised by Newberry, is irregular and incomplete.46 Fortunately, the digging diary that Spiegelberg kept is preserved in the archives of the Griffith Institute in Oxford.47 It is through this that more specific information on the findings may be obtained. Among them are two objects that could be ascribed to Prince Ahmose-Sapair. 1. to represent his mummy wrapped in linen bands. The face is yellow, the wig is coloured green and is square at the top and long over the shoulders. A broad necklace or pectoral, painted green, covers the chest. The body is coloured white, and is bound round with three bands of yellow outlined green. A yellow band runs vertically 45See 40Winlock, JEA 10, 222–3, pl. 13. Thomas, Royal Necropoleis, 40, fig. 6 (‘Q’), without further arguments also tentatively locates Ahmose-Sapair’s tomb at the southern end of Dra Abu el-Naga, ‘a short distance beyond the Kamose tomb (‘P’), yet still in the gebel’. 41U. Bouriant, ‘Petits monuments et petits textes recuillis en Égypte’, RecTrav 9 (1887), 93–4; P. Lacau, Stèles du Nouvel Empire. Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos. 34001–34064 (Cairo, 1909), 9–10, pl. 4; Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 39 (1), 58–9. 42Bouriant, RecTrav 9, 95. 43Related to the stela of Kenres, it should be noted that two months later Bouriant found the stela of Kares, ‘senior steward of the king’s mother Ahhotep, live!’ in Dra Abu el-Naga and probably in the same area. The stela, CCG 34003, was very carefully carved and is dated to year 10 of Amenhotep I. 44Another stela (fragment) dating to the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty that could have come from Dra Abu el-Naga, but is ascribed more generally to ‘Qurna’, is London UC14219; H. M. Stewart, Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection (Warminster, 1976), 34, pl. 27 (3); Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 42, 73 (no. 19). In this case, ‘the king’s son Ahmose, called Sapair’ is standing with the two hands raised in adoration (to a deity that is now missing). The moon-sign is written facing down. The first object is a wooden stick-shabti inscribed in cursive hieroglyphs and mentioning ‘the Osiris, the king’s son Ahmose, true of voice’, with the name written with the moon-sign facing up, . The figurine is 23.5 cm in height and described by Newberry in the final publication as being plastered and painted old plans by various authors collected by G. Miniaci, ‘The Archaeological Exploration of Dra Abu el-Naga’, in M. Betrò, P. del Vesco and G Miniaci (eds), Seven Seasons at Dra Abu elNaga: The Tomb of Huy (TT 14): Preliminary Results (Pisa, 2009), 36–56; Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 78–9. 46Marquis of Northampton, W. Spiegelberg and P. E. Newberry, Report on Some Excavations in the Theban Necropolis during the Winter 1898–9 (London, 1908). Spiegelberg sent a caricature to Newberry referring to the latter’s delay in finishing up the report, now kept at the Griffith Institute; Newberry MSS 1.41.31. I am grateful to R. Jasnow for calling my attention to the drawing. 47W. Spiegelberg, Fundjournal – Theben. 7 November 1898–27 Januar 1899. One of Newberry’s notebooks is also kept at the Griffith Institute (PEN/G/IX/N.A). See J. M. Galán, ‘The Tombs of Djehuty and Hery (TT 11–12) at Dra Abu el-Naga’, in J.-C. Goyon and C. Cardin (eds), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists (OLA 150; Leuven, 2007), 784; J. M. Galán, ‘Early Investigations in the Tomb-chapel of Djehuty (TT 11)’, in D. Magee, J. Bourriau and S. Quirke (eds), Sitting Beside Lepsius: Studies in Honour of Jaromir Malek at the Griffith Institute (OLA 185; Leuven, 2010), 154–81; P. Whelan, Mere Scraps of Rough Wood? 17th–18th Dynasty Stick Shabtis in the Petrie Museum and Other Collections (GHP Egyptology 6; London, 2007), 4–10; P. Whelan, ‘The Marquis’ Excavations: A Tale of Two Diaries’, in M. Betrò and G. Miniaci (eds), Talking Along the Nile: Ippolito Rosellini, Travellers and Scholars of the 19th Century in Egypt (Pisa, 2013). 185 Galán Through Spiegelberg’s digging diary,52 we know that the stick-shabti of the king’s son Ahmose was found on 17 December 1898, when the mission was excavating near the house of Idris Awad, which stood 80 m south-west of the tomb chapel of Hery (TT 12) according to his own notes.53 It stood behind the ‘Opera Aida for Alabaster’ shop, before the modern village of Dra Abu el-Naga was demolished during the winter of 2006/7,54 that is, northeast of the entrance to the small wadi known as Shig elAteyat (fig. 3). 2. Fig. 2A. Stick-shabti of the king’s son Ahmose, found and drawn by Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 48f (Griffith Institute, University of Oxford). Fig. 2B. Photo of JdE 33491, taken by the author in March 2016. down the front of the figure, and upon it is a hieroglyphic inscription in black ink.48 It is now kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, JdE 33491 (SR 5/7692); unfortunately, part of the inscription has been lost since it was drawn by Spiegelberg (fig. 2). Winlock referred to its owner as ‘the Eldest Son Ahmose’ and associated him with the Louvre statue (E 15682; see later in this article) assumed to have come from Dra Abu el-Naga, mentioning a prince called Ahmose,49 and with the Prince Ahmose venerated in the tomb chapel of Khabekhnet (TT 2).50 Vandersleyen went one step further and argued in favour of equating all the references to ‘prince Ahmose’ in this and other documents with the renowned Prince Ahmose-Sapair.51 The second find that could be ascribed to Prince Ahmose-Sapair is a pair of fragments of an inscribed limestone obelisk. Spiegelberg’s digging diary mentions that one or more photographs were taken and squeezes were made at that time, which may explain some of the discrepancies between the sketchy drawings of the inscriptions that he traced on the spot and the final drawing of the publication supervised by Newberry nine years later using second-hand documentation (fig. 4).55 Unfortunately, the fragments seem to be now lost,56 along with the photo(s) and rubbings. Spiegelberg mentions that the surface of the two fragments has a slight inclination (‘Böschung’) and adds a sketch of what looks like the tip of a small obelisk. The ensemble is described by Newberry in the publication as: ‘fragments of a Pyramidion bearing the name of the Royal Son Aahmes’, although only one out of the four inscriptions copied was labelled by Spiegelberg as ‘Zeichenreste an der Spitze’. The four columns of inscription that were traced seem to be framed by vertical lines, and three of them also have a horizontal closing line at the bottom. There is no extant complete drawing of the pieces showing their full shape and how the two join together, making the reading order of the columns difficult to interpret, since their upper part is missing and some of the signs are unclear. The texts of the columns do not seem to be independent statements, and taking into account the direction of the signs it seems that there were two texts running in opposite directions. In the following three paragraphs, the columns have been rearranged in order to present a new hypothetical reading.57 52Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 48, 48f. Fundjournal, 58f and 59; Miniaci, in Betrò, del Vesco and Miniaci (eds), Tomb of Huy (TT 14), 44–5, fig. 22; Whelan, in Betró and Miniaci, Talking Along the Nile, 233–5. 54See the Diario de Excavacion/‘Digging Diary’ section on the ‘Proyecto Djehuty’ website: <http://www.excavacionegipto.com/ el_proyecto/diario_de_excavacion.php?year=2007> (accessed 16 May 2018). 55Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 62, 62f; Northampton, Theban Necropolis, 18 (no. 20), pl. 17 (8). 56The objects taken to Cairo Museum in 1899 were registered as ‘Thebes. fouilles Lord Northampton’ between JdE 33436 and 33533, among which there is no mention of a limestone obelisk or pyramidion. 57Vandersleyen, SAK 10, 318, n. 34, did not have access to Spiegelberg’s Fundjournal and did not consider the direction of the signs, 53Spiegelberg, 48Northampton, Theban Necropolis, 31 (no. 11), pl. 18 (5). Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 48f; on p. 48 he notes ‘Das folgende nach Newberry …’ See also Whelan, Stick Shabtis, 4–10. I am grateful to the Cairo Museum curator Sabah Abdel Razek for helping me find the piece, and to the then General Supervisor of the Museum, Dr Khaled El-Anany, for permission to publish it. 49Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 9–27, 77–80, pls 1–16; Ch. Barbotin, ‘Un intercesseur dynastique à l’aube du Nouvel Empire: La statue du prince Iâhmès’, La revue des musées de France. Revue du Louvre 4 (2005), 19–28. 50Winlock, JEA 10, 255–6. 51C. Vandersleyen, ‘L’Identite d’Ahmes Sapair’, SAK 10 (1983), 318, 321–4, esp. n. 46; C. Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 29–34. 186 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 3. View of the central area of Dra Abu el-Naga when the modern village was still active (2004). Fig. 4. Inscription on obelisk fragments of the king’s son Ahmose(-Sapair), drawn (A) by Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 62, 62f (Griffith Institute, University of Oxford), and (B) by Newberry in Northampton, Theban Necropolis, pl. 17 (8). 187 Galán Side 1 is Spiegelberg’s ‘Stein II’. It may be considered as the opening column of the inscription to be read from right to left, starting with a Htp-di-nswt offering formula. The preserved signs at the bottom of the column are legible: ‘… an invocation offering of bread and beer, beef and fowl, unguents and incense, and offerings …’ Side 2 is Spiegelberg’s ‘Zeichenreste an der Spitze von a’. The signs, facing right, are difficult to interpret the way they were copied, apart from of the final t-sign. Spiegelberg’s ‘Stein I a)’ may be considered the closing column of the inscription arranged from right to left. While Spiegelberg copied the text in his digging diary as written from right to left, the final publication reproduces it written left to right. After the break, the first legible sign is pA ( ), but it is not followed by an alif ( ) as it would be expected, but rather by a bird-sign that looks like a w ( ).58 The sign for sw and the n-sign following it are also clear, leaving a blank space above the latter for a t ( ) to form the word nswt. The name Ahmose is written with the moon-sign upwards and ends with a male determinative, followed by three horizontal signs that stand for mAa-xrw.59 Side 4 is Spiegelberg’s ‘Stein I b) andere Seite’. If this column is carved on the reverse side of ‘Stein I (a)’, i.e. our Side 2 just mentioned, there must have been a column of text between the two that would have formed the missing Side 3, since Side 4 would have been the second and closing column of the inscription carved from left to right, ending with a personal name. Spiegelberg copied the text as written from left to right and unframed, but the final publication reproduces it from right to left and framed. Although one side of the column is missing, the beginning of the preserved text can be reconstructed as ‘the king’s son Ahmose’, again with the moon-sign facing up and the personal name ending with a male determinative. Immediately below, there is a pA-sign, a blank space within which a horizontal sign could fit, and two signs that could stand for ir(i).n. The size of the inscribed fragments is not indicated. The pair of sandstone obelisks of King Nubkheperra Intef, found in 1860 by Mariette in Dra Abu el-Naga North and lost in the Nile in 1881, were 3.5 and 3.7 m high, although originally they could have been almost 1 m higher: 4.49 and 4.65 m, according to Polz.60 Ahmose-Sapair’s obelisk was probably much smaller. It could have been similar to the limestone obelisk of Intefmose that the Spanish mission found south-west of the open courtyard of Djehuty, at the reconstructing a single text running along the four columns in the following order: Side 1-4-[3]-2. His transcription and reconstruction is followed by Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 157–8. When taking into account the direction of the signs, there is only one other possibility for the reading order of the columns, although it seems less plausible than that offered here: Side 1 would be shared and act as the opening column of two texts running from it in opposite directions, one taking one more column and the other taking two more. 58In the final publication, above the pA-sign there seems to be part of an r that was not traced by Spiegelberg in his digging diary. Spiegelberg wrote ‘sic’ next to the bird-sign that looks like a w. 59The first sign is drawn in a slightly different way in the final publication. 60Winlock, JEA 10, 229; Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 122–9. bottom of a funerary shaft.61 Missing the tip, it measures 120 x 16.5 x 16.5 cm,62 from which can be estimated a total height of at least 150 cm. Obelisks erected at the entrance of private tomb chapels are attested since the Old Kingdom;63 most of them are little more than half a metre high and very few surpass 80 cm. Some are only inscribed on one side, but there are cases where the four sides bear inscriptions, mostly comprising the name and titles of the tomb owner, the obelisk thus acting almost as a stela. The obelisk of Intefmose is inscribed on two sides and that of Ahmose-Sapair on all four, and they seem to be among the most elaborate nonroyal obelisks known today. King Nubkheperra Intef’s pair of obelisks were found broken in several pieces and lying on the ground in front of the rock-cut tomb. Now, concerning the obelisk of Ahmose-Sapair and that of Intefmose, it seems probable that they would have been erected at the entrance of their respective mud-brick offering chapels, that is, between the latter and the edge of the funerary shaft opening a couple of metres in front and aligned with it. Private tombs could have one or two obelisks, but in this case the royal sons seem to have had only one; at least, there is no evidence of a second obelisk for either of the two.64 The fragmentary obelisk of Ahmose-Sapair was found, according to Spiegelberg’s digging diary, on 19 January 1899, when they were excavating almost halfway between the house of Idris Awad and the tomb chapel of Hery (TT 12), i.e. south-west of the open courtyard of Djehuty’s tomb chapel (TT 11).65 Again, this area was later occupied by the houses of the modern village of Dra Abu el-Naga until their demolition in January 2007. Spanish mission excavations 2011–14 This area south-west of the open courtyard of TT 11 was assigned to the Spanish mission in 2008. The new limit of 61F. Borrego, ‘New Evidence on the King’s Son Intefmose from Dra Abu el-Naga: A Preliminary Report’, in G. Rosati, M.C. Guidotti (eds), Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists (Archaeopress Egyptology 19, Oxford, 2017), 56–57. 62The base is quadrangular, but with the corners blunt, thus leaving a surface 11.6 x 11.6 cm wide at each side. Only two of the sides were inscribed with an independent column of text. 63M. C. Kuentz, Obélisques. Catalogue Géneral des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos. 1308–1315 et 17001–17036 (Cairo, 1932), 1–18, pl. 1–6; K. Martin, Ein Grantsymbol des Lebens (HÄB 3; Hildesheim, 1977), 48–62. 64J. Malek, ‘New-Kingdom Pyramidia’, JEA 76 (1990), 180–1. 65Northampton, Theban Necropolis, 18 (no. 20), pl. 17 (8), without any indication of its findspot. More details in Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 62. Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 156, n. 609, points out that in Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 41, the house of Idris Awad is said to be at the southern part of Dra Abu el-Naga: ‘Der südliche Teil von Drah Abul Neggah dicht bei dem Hause des Idris Awad in Angriff genommen’. However, this remark could refer not to the entire hill, but to the area where they were working, i.e. the southern part of Dra Abu el-Naga North; as mentioned by Miniaci in Betrò, del Vesco and Miniaci, Tomb of Huy (TT 14), 44–5 (note that Miniaci mistakenly refers to the tomb-chapel of Hery here as TT 11 instead of TT 12). Its location becomes clear in the two sketch plans traced by Spiegelberg, Fundjournal, 58-b and 59. 188 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 5. Mud-brick offering chapel (UE 1002) that Djehuty respected when enlarging the courtyard of his tomb chapel. the concession is around 80 m south-west from the entrance of the tomb chapel of TT 12, approximately where the house of Idris Awad was standing, thus comprising the area that Northampton’s team was excavating in January 1899. Once the debris resulting from the demolition of the houses was removed and the area cleared, the excavation began here in January 2011. Djehuty was ‘overseer of the treasure’ during the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.66 The open courtyard of his tomb chapel is 34 m long. The sidewalls were cut in the bedrock, but at 12 m away from the façade, due to the descending hillslope, they were extended with mud bricks. At around that distance the left sidewall deviates from its alignment and shifts inside towards the court, breaking the ideal straight line of the court’s wall. This unorthodox layout was adopted to avoid running into a small mud-brick structure standing in its way. The latter was excavated in 2012 and identified as an offering chapel (UE 1002; fig. 5). It rests on a layer of rubble, 1.08 m higher than the floor of Djehuty’s courtyard, which means that the court was excavated deep into the ground, and while the inner face of the sidewalls reached the court’s floor, the mud bricks of the outer face rested on the loose ground, which at that time was at a higher level. The offering chapel measures 2.2 x 2.27 m and 0.9 m in height (fig. 6). The mud bricks are around 28 x 15 x 7 cm. The back wall is only 1.19 m wide, but it has the maximum height. It also has an elliptical vertical hole at the top of the right end (18 x 14 cm and 16 cm deep), which could have been used for the insertion of a flagpole, although no significant remains were found inside.67 There is no evidence 66J. M. Galán, ‘The Inscribed Burial Chamber of Djehuty (TT 11)’, in J. M. Galán, B. Bryan and P. Dorman (eds), Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut (SAOC 69; Chicago, 2014), 247–72. 67The logogram , Xrt-nTr, literally ‘what is under the divine (influence/jurisdiction)’, commonly translated as ‘necropolis’, could have had a physical rendering similar to how the mud-brick chapel would have looked crowned with a flag. It should be noted that at the entrance of another Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty mud-brick chapel of a larger size, located 21 m to the north-west, there was a cylindrical plastered mud-brick structure, 30 cm in height and 30–35 m wide, with a central 10–12 cm circular hole at Fig. 6. Drawing of the mud-brick offering chapel (UE 1002), by C. Cabrera. that the chapel was roofed.68 The front side is a low step or podium 15 cm high and wider than the rectangular body of the chapel. The structure is hollow and the inside measures 1.36 x 0.38 m. Its inner floor is made of crude mud bricks and seemingly was not flat. Inside the chapel was a sand layer around 20 cm deep, which contained a wide range of vegetal remains, small pieces of wood, fragments of human and animal bones, torn and wrinkled linen, and a few pottery sherds dating to the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty and also to the Third Intermediate and Saite Periods (fig. 7). The following objects were found mixed up, probably disturbed by robbers: the top, 37 cm deep, probably meant as a base in which to insert a flagpole. However, there are no attestations of flagpoles at the entrance of tomb chapels in the iconographic repertoire. In another vein, the small mud-brick chapel resembles one of the semantic determinatives for tomb; see J. Cervelló Autuori, ‘Les déterminatifs d’édifices funérarires royaux dans les Textes des Pyramides et leur signification sémantique, rituelle et historique’, BIFAO 106 (2006), 1–20; I. Régen, ‘À propos des graphies de jz/js “tombe”’, BIFAO 107 (2007), 171–200. 68Mud-brick chapels, however, usually had a vaulted ceiling; see D. Polz, ‘Dra’ Abu el-Naga: Die thebanische Nekropole des frühen Neuen Reiches’, in J. Assmann, E. Dziobek, H. Guksch, and F. Kampp (eds), Thebanische Beamtennkropolen: Neue Prespektiven archäologischer Forschung (SAGA 12; Heildelberg, 1995), 25–42, pls 1–2; D. Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 239–45; Ch. Lilyquist, ‘A Foreign Base Representation from a New Theban Tomb (The Chapel for MMA 5ª P2)’, in J. Phillips (ed.), Ancient Egypt, the Aegean, and the Near East: Studies in Honour of Martha Rhoads Bell (San Antonio, Texas, 1997), 307–43; Z. I. Fábián, ‘Paintings of a Mud Brick Chapel from the 18th Dynasty in the Theban Necropolis’, Acta Ant. Hung. 50 (2010), 1–26; Z. I. Fábián, ‘Attempts of Reconstruction of an Eighteenth Dynasty Mud Brick Mortuary Chapel in the Theban Necropolis’, in Current Research of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission in Thebes: Publications of the Office of the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor in Cairo, 2014–2015, 23–41. 189 Galán 1. Stick-shabti, 14.3 x 2.5 x 2 cm, painted white and inscribed (fig. 8). Slightly carved rounded head with the wig coloured in grey and the facial features traced in black, resembling the Hr-sign. The arms are not shown, and the torso and legs are crossed by seven horizontal lines going all the way from one side to the other, leaving the back uninscribed. The text between the lines is written in black ink and carefully traced cursive hieroglyphs, with a few signs in hieratic. It opens with a Htp-di-nswt formula that Osiris lord of eternity and the shabti figu, have to grant, for the rine itself, sAwabti ipn, benefit of ‘the ka of Ahmose true of voice’, consisting of an invocation of offerings, that he may go in and out as a living soul, aq pri m [bA anx], ,69 and that he may breathe the 2. 3. 4. Fig. 7. Interior of the offering chapel, with linen, stick-shabtis and wooden model coffins thrown inside. Fig. 8. Stick-shabti of Ahmose, no. 1. 69The 70See last signs are distorted, due to the curved surface of the figurine. Möller, Paläographie, I, nos 197, 198. northern breeze. The personal name is written twice, with the moon-sign facing down and the . No titles semantic determinative for a deity, are mentioned. The figurine was found with fragments of linen attached to it. Stick-shabti, 11.1 x 2.2 x 2 cm, painted white and inscribed (fig. 9). Slightly carved rounded head, with facial features traced schematically. A hieratic vertical inscription in black ink, with relatively large signs, covers the torso and the upper part of the legs. It consists of a personal name: Ahmose-Pasheri. The moon-sign is facing down, the s-sign is flat, and the last sign is a version of the sparrow-sign (G37), .70 The figurine was found with the legs partially wrapped in a narrow linen strip. Stick-shabti, 12 x 2.5 x 2.5 cm, only painted on the front side with a very thin coat of white pigment (fig. 10). The head and the outline of the face have been sharply carved, and the feet are squared. The chest preserves a hieratic inscription in black ink, arranged in two horizontal lines without a dividing line. The signs are small and the reading of some of them at the left end of the line is uncertain due to the curved surface. They comprise a personal name: Ahmose-Pasheri, . It is noteworthy that there are two male determinatives, one after Ahmose and the other after Pasheri, taking them as two independent names. Stick-shabti, 13 x 2.5 x 1.8 cm, uninscribed and unpainted. The lower end of the back of the wig has been carefully outlined, but the face and feet are only rudely carved. 190 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) 5. Fig. 9. Stick-shabti of Ahmose-Pasheri, no. 2. Fig. 10. Stick-shabti of Ahmose-Pasheri, no. 3. Stick-shabti, 15.5 x 3 x 3 cm, uninscribed but painted white. Oval head well defined (no wig), prominent chest and feet. 6. Stick-shabti, 15.5 x 2.7 x 3 cm, uninscribed and unpainted. Rudely carved, only face and feet are slightly indicated. 7. Wooden model coffin, 18.9 x 6/4.4 x 3.5/3 cm, inside 15.2 x 3.5/2.8 cm, painted white. The head end is slightly higher and the sides have been carved to imitate a wig. 8. Wooden model coffin, 22 x 4.9/4.3 x 4.2/2.7 cm, inside 18.8 x 3.6/3 cm, not painted. The head end is higher than the feet. 9. Mud model coffin, 28 x 12.2 x 14.3 cm, uninscribed but whitewashed inside and outside. The thickness of the walls is irregular, but the average is around 1.5 cm. The box is broken into several pieces and was of lower quality than the lid. The lid has raised and rounded ends (7.8 cm in height), with a low bump crossing the centre. 10. Linen cloth, 9 x 21 cm, preserved complete (fig. 11). The piece has been intentionally and carefully cut, following the weft and warp threads. The hieratic text is written in black ink, and arranged in two vertical columns without a dividing line, near the right side of the cloth. It informs us that the cloth is a ‘daiu-linen for Ahmose-Sapair’. The signs are well traced and grouped. The moon-sign is facing down, the s-sign is flat, and the personal name ends with a determinative for a deity. The term dAiw usually refers to a skirt or kilt.71 11. Linen cloth, fragment of 20 x 12 cm, with a hieratic inscription in black ink (fig. 12). The text is written in vertical columns, with the signs well traced and spaced, preserving only part of the first column, ‘… his son, Ahmose …’, with the moon-sign facing down. 12. Linen cloth, 22 x 20 cm, also complete, the fabric very similar to the foregoing example. The hieratic text was written in black ink and with a loose hand, along two horizontal lines (fig. 13). The signs are Fig. 11. ‘daiu-linen for Ahmose-Sapair’, no. 10. 71Centuries later, in Deir el-Medina it would have cost 20 deben, the price of a small donkey (R. Demarée pers. comm.). 191 Galán The area around the shaft was excavated in 2013. Numerous pottery sherds (and one complete Nile silt vase) dating to the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty were found spread all over the area, together with worn linen fragments. The following significant objects were also found adjoining the shaft’s edge, some of them probably thrown out by ancient looters searching at the bottom of the shaft or disturbing cultic installations nearby: Fig. 12. Linen cloth mentioning ‘his son, Ahmose’, no. 11. Fig. 13. Linen cloth no. 12. slightly faded and thus difficult to read. It seems to comprise mostly personal names. 13. Jackal pin of a board game known as ‘Hounds and Jackals’, 20.2 cm in height and 0.5 cm diameter. A canine head (1.8 x 0.9 cm) with upraised and pointed ears carefully carved on the upper end. The piece is preserved complete, except for the broken nose. The mud-brick curb of a funerary shaft was revealed 1.2 m south-west of the chapel’s front step (fig. 14). The two structures are aligned following an orientation of 28º north-east, coinciding exactly with the centre of the pyramid of Nubkheperra-Intef 100 m north-east. This may be significant, although the relationship between the two is unknown, nor is there any certainty of the possible preponderance of this pyramid above others that might have stood up in the area.72 72See the section on the archaeological context later in this article. 14. Assemblage of late Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty pottery, found between the offering chapel and the shaft (fig. 15), comprising four marl-clay wavy-necked bottles, three of them with a modelled kettle mouth rim. Two are complete, with incised decoration on the shoulder executed with a sharpedged tool or a toothed instrument on the leatherhard surface of the vessel: one with parallel horizontal lines and the other with parallel lines and rows of nicks in the form of inverted commas. One of the vessels shows an intentional small hole postfiring in the body of the vase resulting from a ritual practice. One of the broken jars without decoration still preserves a string tied around the neck. Together with them was a Nile-silt carinated bowl with a modelled rim and a red/orange slip burnish. 15. Linen cloth, 12 x 18 cm, with a hieratic inscription in black ink (fig. 16). The text is written in two horizontal lines. Unfortunately, the signs are worn and difficult to read. A possible reading of the second line appears to mention ‘the daughter of Ahmose, or ‘Ahmose-Turo Pasheri’, sheri’, ,73 with the moon-sign facing down and the ms-sign abbreviated. 16. Linen cloth of similar fabric, 17 x 39 cm, with a hieratic inscription in black ink (fig. 17). The text is written in two horizontal lines, both lacking the beginning. A small fragment joins the right side, comprising in the second line the name ‘Ah[mose-] Pasheri’, , with the moon-sign facing down and no phonetic complement after the pA-sign. 17. Stick-shabti, 16 x 2.5 x 3 cm, not painted but with a vertical hieroglyphic inscription in black ink (fig. 18). The head and the face are sharply angular and wedgeshaped, with the eyes outlined in black ink, the chest and feet prominent. The text is written in clear signs over the front side, but alternates these with hieratic signs on the right side of the figurine, where the wood grain makes tracing the signs difficult. On the right side, a small piece of linen was attached to the wood. The text consists of an offering formula: ‘A boon that the king grants, and (also) Osi[ris], lord of Busiris, for the ka of the king’s [son] Ahmose’, . The first two signs are reversed, the moon-sign is facing down and the s-sign is flat. 73As suggested by R. Demarée, who has advised me on the readings of the shabti and linen discussed here and to whom I am deeply grateful. For the abbreviation of the ms–sign, see Möller, Paläographie, I, no. 559. 192 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 14. Mud-brick offering chapel (UE 1002) and mud-brick curb of the funerary shaft aligned with it (UE 1010). Fig. 15. Pottery assemblage found between the offering chapel and the shaft, no. 14. 18. Stick-shabti, 15.5 x 3 x 1 cm, painted white with a vertical hieratic inscription in black ink (fig. 19). This example was found further away, 4 m south-west of the shaft. The figurine is very flat, even the face, which has been carved in a very basic fashion. The text is written over the chest and the upper half of the legs. The large signs have been worn away by erosion. A personal name may be reconstructed: ‘Ahmose-Pasheri’, , with the moon-sign facing down and the ms-sign abbreviated. 193 Galán Fig. 16. Linen cloth mentioning ‘the sister of Ahmose-Pasheri’, no. 15. Fig. 17. Linen cloth mentioning ‘Ah[mose-]Pasheri’, no. 16. Fig. 20. Funerary shaft (UE 1010). Fig. 18. Stick-shabti dedicated ‘for the ka of the king’s [son] Ahmose’, no. 17. Fig. 19. Stick-shabti of ‘Ahmose-Pasheri’, no. 18. The shaft, UE 1010, was excavated in 2013 and 2014 (fig. 20). The mouth is approximately the conventional size, 2.49 x 0.83 m. The curb is formed of mud bricks, which descend until they reach the bedrock. The upper rows do not have binding mortar and are bent slightly towards the outside, which seems to indicate that they were piled up by robbers to stop the sand around the shaft from sliding inside. The mud bricks measure 36 x 17 x 12 cm, and inside the shaft they were covered by a layer of fine mortar. The shaft descends to a depth of 6 m, four holes on the sides at different heights helped the workmen climb up and down. At the bottom, a burial chamber opens at the north-eastern end, positioned just below the mud-brick offering chapel. It measures 2.55 x 1.5 and 1.2 m in height. The walls of the shaft and chamber were well cut but left unpolished. In the upper layer of the shaft’s filling and coinciding with the loose and bent mud bricks, a complete Saite ‘sausage’ jar was found broken into pieces, all gathered at the south-western end.74 This find may indicate an approximate date when the shaft was filled for the last time. The filling consisted of loose rubble of small limestone chips, loose stones and grey sand, mixed up with fragmented objects of various types and dates, mostly pottery sherds ranging from the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty to the Saite Period. In various layers of the rubble in the shaft, 74Three metres to the north of the shaft a mummification deposit was found, consisting of a similar complete Saite ‘sausage’ jar and 14 linen bags with natron. For other deposits of this type and period found in the area, see S. Ikram and M. J. López Grande, ‘Three Embalming Caches from Dra Abu el-Naga’, BIFAO 111 (2011), 205–28. 194 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 21. Bronze razor found at the bottom of the shaft as part of a shapeless ensemble of human bones and linen. fragments of an elongated jar with flaring rim in silt ware, with red slip and painted black decoration, were found. On the neck, a row of triangles is delimited by two horizontal black lines painted in black, and near the base are three more lines. At a depth of 2.5 m, the amount of material mixed with the rubble decreased. At the bottom of the shaft, two heaps of dismembered human remains were still partially wrapped in linen, and loose bones mixed with mud bricks and boulders. Body parts corresponding to three incomplete infants and three adults could be identified. Despite the fact that the shaft was looted and refilled with rubble containing materials from other nearby burials of various dates, there are a number of significant artefacts – most of them in a fragmentary state – all dating to the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty, which could have been part of the funerary equipment of the original tomb owner, as they are common items of an elite burial of that period:75 19. Tip of a limestone obelisk, 12.5 cm in height. Not perfectly squared, as two of the sides are wider, well polished, the stone similar to the obelisk of Intefmose mentioned earlier. The size would also have been similar. The obelisk could have been erected at the entrance of a mud-brick chapel, probably aligned with the shaft. It is not possible to determine if it was originally part of the obelisk of Ahmose-Sapair found in 1899 by Spiegelberg, which was missing the tip and probably found less than 40 m south-west of this shaft. 20. Bronze razor, 10.8 x 1.4 x 0.1 cm, found at the bottom of the shaft next to partially wrapped human remains (fig. 21). 75Compare with S. T. Smith, ‘Intact Tombs of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Dynasties from Thebes and the New Kingdom Burial System’, MDAIK 48 (1992), 193–231; E. Warmenbol and S. Hendrickx, ‘Une tombe intacte du début de la 18e Dynastie Elkab, BE 18’, in W. Claes, H. de Meulenaere and S. Hendrickx (eds), Elkab and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Luc Limme (OLA 191; Leuven, 2009), 75–125; G. Miniaci, ‘Reconceiving the Tomb in the Late Middle Kingdom: The Burial of the Accountant of the Main Enclosure Neferhotep at Dra Abu el-Naga’, BIFAO 109 (2009), 339–83. On the chance to identify objects from the original burial(s) in a shaft-tomb that has been reused and robbed, see D. Polz, ‘Excavation and Recording of a Theban Tomb: Some Remarks on Recording Methods’, in J. Assmann and G. Burkard (eds), Problems and Priorities in Egyptian Archaeology (London, 1987), 123. Fig. 22. Wooden comb found inside the burial chamber. Fig. 23. Necklace of squared folded bands made of golden iridescent papyrus, no. 22. 21. Wooden comb, 5.2 x 8 x 0.8 cm, its top carved to fit three fingers and decorated with five horizontal lines incised above the comb’s teeth (fig. 22). 22. Necklace formed of square, folded bands of golden iridescent papyrus, imitating jewellery (fig. 23).76 23. Faience beads in the form of large tubes, lentils and small rosettes. 24. Four flat ivory squares, 3.7 x 3.4 x 0.4 cm, from a board game. 25. Rectangular wooden box with a drawer at one end,77 and part of a wooden stand for a large vase. 26. Good-quality leather fragments, one of them embossed, probably part of a musical instrument. 27. Large basket. 28. Three arrows made of reeds and acacia wood. No silex tips were found attached to any of them. 29. Part of the neck and peg box of a wooden musical instrument. 30. Classic Kerma handmade ‘tulip’ beaker in Nile silt with black top and out-turned rim. The exterior is 76A parallel may be found in G. Andreu, Les artistes de Pharaon: Deir el-Médineh et la Vallée des Rois (Turnhout, 2002), 159 (no. 106). 77Similar to the example found by Petrie in the undisturbed burial at the northern end of Dra Abu el-Naga; Petrie, Qurneh, pl. 26. 195 Galán Fig. 24. Fragment of a painted limestone stela mentioning Djehutyhotep, Wadjmose, and Amundedu, no. 31. red washed, polished and horizontally burnished with variegated grey-purple bands, while the interior is black and polished. 31. Lower right fragment, 24 x 14.5 x 8 cm, of a painted limestone stela carved in incised relief (fig. 24). Three male figures walking in line are partially preserved, as are their corresponding captions painted in blue: ‘[… the royal] assistant(?), Djehutyhotep, […] the royal assistant(?), Wadjmose, and […] Amundedu’. The reading of the sign used for the title associating the first two men with the king is debatable and so far no clear parallel has been found.78 The three kilts have a protruding pick, their belts show a large knot pointing upwards, but they are of different lengths, probably an artistic device to break the monotony of the row. The style of the figures, with big hands and long arms falling straight behind the back, resembles stela MMA 90.6.130 and, to a lesser extent, the stela of Aametju, MMA 19.3.32,79 although the kilts are different in these two cases. 32. Stick-shabti, 20.2 x 3 x 4.4 cm, not painted but with a hieroglyphic inscription in black ink (fig. 25). The head and the face are sharply carved, the eyes outlined with black ink. The chest and the feet are 78I was inclined to read it as Smsw, but M. Marée raised doubts. BMMA 15, 12, fig. 3; H. G. Fischer, Varia Nova (Egyptian Studies III; New York, 1996), 166, pl. 33. 79Lansing, Fig. 25. Stick-shabti, mentioning ‘the great one/elder Ahmose’, no. 32. prominent, similar to no. 17 above. The text is written in a vertical column, in large signs over the chest: ‘The great one/elder Ahmose [?]’, . The first sign could be read sr/wr, or (sA) smsw ‘the elder (son)’.80 The moon-sign is facing up, in 80Note that in the Louvre statue (E. 15682, mentioned earlier in the article), Ahmose is referred to as the ‘king’s eldest son’ (of Seqenenra II and Ahhotep); Barbotin, Revue du Louvre 4, 22; G. Miniaci, ‘Il potere nella 17ª dinastia: il titolo “figlio del re” e il ripensamento delle strutture amministrative nel Secondo Periodo Intermedio’, in S. Pernigotti and M. Zecchi (eds), IV Colloquio 196 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) contrast to the other shabtis described earlier. There is room for two more signs over the legs, but it is difficult to tell if they were ever written. The mud-brick offering chapel and its funerary shaft date to the Seventeenth or early Eighteenth Dynasty. Despite the fact that the shaft was robbed and refilled, for the final time probably in the Saite Period, the material found inside and around the funerary shaft, as well as inside the offering chapel, indicate that the assemblage belonged to a member of the Theban elite of that period. He was probably called Ahmose, and likely also called Pasheri as a nickname, and maybe also Sapair. The stela of Kenres offering to the ‘king’s son Ahmose, called Sapair’, found by Bouriant near TT 11–12, the broken obelisk of ‘the king’s son Ahmose-Sapair’ and the stick-shabti of ‘the king’s son Ahmose’ found by the Northampton expedition a few metres south-west of this area, as well as the linen discovered in the offering chapel also made ‘for AhmoseSapair’, suggest that the tomb chapel of the prince should be located near this spot. However, the connection between Ahmose-Sapair and the funerary monument described earlier cannot be made, since the inscribed material found is complex and non-conclusive, due to following inconsistencies: (a) The name ‘Ahmose-Sapair’ written on the linen has the moon-sign facing down and is not accompanied by any title, while on the obelisk the moon is facing up and the name is preceded by the title ‘king’s son’. (b) One shabti, found near the shaft, has the title ‘king[’s son], Ahmose’, as on the shabti found by Spiegelberg, but while the former has the moon-sign facing down, on the latter it is facing up. (c) Two shabtis and one piece of linen bear only the name ‘Ahmose’. They show the moon-sign facing down, except for the shabti found at the bottom of the shaft. The latter carries the title ‘official’/’great one’ or the epithet ‘the elder’, instead of ‘king’s son’. (d) Three shabtis and four linen fragments mention an intriguing ‘Ahmose-Pasheri’, with the moon written facing down. If these objects are considered to be related, on the grounds of the proximity of their find spots and common layer, the following conclusions may be inferred: (1) the personal name is sometimes accompanied by the title ‘king’s son’, but can also appear by itself, without any title; (2) the name Ahmose is sometimes written with the moon facing up, but in other di Egittologia ed Antichità Copte: ‘Il tempio e il suo personale nell’Egitto antico, (Bologna, 2010), 114, no. 10. Years later, a son of King Ahmose and Ahmes-Nefertari is referred to as ‘the king’s eldest son, of the god’s flesh, Ahmose, -live!-’ on the so-called ‘donation stela’ found in Karnak’s Third Pylon; R. Harari, ‘Nature de la stèle de donation de function du roi Ahmôsis à la reine Ahmès Néfertary’, ASAE 56, 139–201; M. Gitton, ‘La résiliation d’une function religieuse: nouvelle interpretation de la stele de donation d’Ahmès Néfertay’, BIFAO 76, 65–89. See also H. G. Fischer, ‘Epithets of Seniority’, in H. G. Fischer, Varia (Egyptian Studies I; New York, 1976), 81–95. seemingly contemporary documents with the moon facing down;81 (3) the name Ahmose sometimes appears by itself, but can also be accompanied by a nickname or second name. Again, if these objects are related, it seems that not only the style and quality of the craftsmanship varies within the funerary equipment of an individual, but the writing of labels and short texts were also not necessarily consistent and open to a range of possibilities.82 There are other objects mentioning the king’s son Ahmose, Ahmose-Sapair or just Sapair that ought to be included at this point in the discussion because they were supposedly found in Dra Abu el-Naga or could have come from there, although this remains uncertain: I. A stick-shabti mentioning ‘the king’s son Ahmose’ in Northampton, Theban Necropolis, pl. 19 (16), but according to Winlock, JEA 10, 256, n. 4, Newberry told him that this object was not found in the excavation but belonged to the Salt collection. It became part of the Amherst collection and is now kept in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, inv. no. F 1956/2.7.83 II. A stick-shabti of uncertain origin at the Petrie Museum in London, UC 40212, inscribed with the label ‘shabti of Sapair’ in a single, hieratic column of text. It is also included in Northampton, Theban Necropolis, 33 (no. 38), pl. 22 (38), without any further indication of provenance (?).84 III. A ‘shabti of Ahmose-Sapa[ir]’ at the Petrie Museum in London, UC40213, whose origin is also unknown.85 IV. A stick-shabti mentioning ‘Sapair’ at the British Museum, EA 54835, mentioned in Northampton, Theban Necropolis, pl. 22 (39), although Newberry mistakenly refers to it on p. 33 (39) as a ‘model sarcophagus containing the figure No. 38’.86 The 81Note that among the shabtis found in the courtyard of Tetiki (TT 15) the names Ahmose and Ahmose-Sapair are written with the moon-sign facing up, while the names Ahhotep and Djehuty-Iah, supposed to be their contemporaries, are written with the moon facing down; Carnarvon and Carter, Five Years, 19–21. This possibility puts into question Vandersleyen’s theory of using the two variants of the moon-sign as a dating criteria; C. Vandersleyen, Les guerres d’Amosis fondateur de la XVIIIe Dynastie (Monographies Reine Elisabeth I; Brussels, 1971), 205–28. 82It should be kept in mind that funerary equipment may comprise gifts or objects offered by different relatives and acquaintances, even after a gap of several years, which may explain the lack of homogeneity within one assemblage. 83The figurine is not actually described in Northampton’s text, since no. 16 on pp. 31–2 refers to a ‘hieratic inscription in horizontal lines’. Drawing retraced by H. Schneider, Shabtis: An Introduction to the History of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statuettes with a Catalogue of the Collection of Shabtis in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, II (Leiden, 1977), 25, pl. 80; also see photos in vol. III, pl. 6; drawing reproduced in Whelan, Stick Shabtis, pl. 5 (Leiden 2.1.0.1). 84Whelan, Stick Shabtis, 118–19 (45). 85Whelan, Stick Shabtis, 120–1 (46). 86Reproduced without further comments in Whelan, Stick Shabtis, pl. 9. Galán Fig. 26. Stick-shabti of Ahmose-Sapair (British Museum EA 8518). figurine was purchased from Walter Llewellyn Nash in 1920 (Reg. No. 1920, 0612.93). It measures 16 x 4.36 x 4.76 cm, has a carved lappet-wig and the eyes are outlined in black. The text was written directly on the wood in black ink and cursive hieroglyphs, arranged in five horizontal lines between 2 and 1.8 cm in height. V. British Museum EA 8518, an anthropoid model coffin (18.4 x 6.2 x 6 cm) and a stick-shabti (14 x 2.5 x 2 cm) bearing the name Ahmose-Sapair (fig. 26).87 They were acquired through Phillips in 1837 and have the Reg. No. 1837,0717.169. The lid was inscribed, but it is now hard to read. The figurine is similar to our object no. 1 in the foregoing list: rounded head with green/grey wig and tubular body. In this case, the body has not been painted in white. Below the broad collar indicated by three horizontal parallel lines and the hands resting over the chest, there is a vulture with opened wings. Further down, the text is written in black ink and arranged in six registers of around a centimetre in height. The signs are cursive hieroglyphs, a few in hieratic, some of which are difficult to read. The text opens with a Htp-di-nswt formula. The name is written twice, each time with a different spelling but both with the moon-sign facing down: and . VI. At least one stick-shabti inscribed with the name Ahmose-Sapair, with the moon-sign facing up, and apparently without a title, was found in the open courtyard of Tetiki’s tomb chapel (TT 15) in Dra Abu el-Naga South.88 The relationship between Ahmose-Sapair and Tetiki is unknown, which 87I am grateful to J. Taylor and M. Marée for permission to study the shabtis EA 54835 and EA 8518 at the British Museum in July 2015. 88Carnarvon and Carter, Five Years, 19–21, list only the attested names, but not the number of shabtis for each one, nor the full text. See Winlock, JEA 10, 256; Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, doc. 12; N. de G. Davies, ‘The Tomb of Tetaky at Thebes (No. 15)’, 197 makes this find difficult to explain. A large number of shabtis, some of them inside their model coffins, were found in the courtyard and, although the total number is not certain, at least 36 individuals are named. The inscriptions on some of the shabtis make it clear that they had a votive character,89 mentioning the beneficiary as well as the donor, who is introduced by the particle in ‘by…’, through the formula sanx rn.f ‘who causes his name to live’, or in both ways consecutively. The donors identify themselves as relatives of the beneficiary, either as brother, sister, father or mother. Ahmose(-Sapair)’s shabti does not seem to fit this pattern, nor do any of the shabtis recently found by the Spanish mission, and therefore there seems to be no reason to consider them as votive objects. VII. In the Museo dell’Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo, Italy, a model imitating a black, vaulted lid coffin, with golden and inscribed lines and columns on the box and lid, refers to the owner as ‘Ahmose’, ‘the king’s son Ahmose’ and ‘the eld. The name is est king’s son Ahmose’ always written with the moon-sign facing up.90 It is dated to the Seventeenth Dynasty, its provenance is unknown. VIII. The statue E 15682 at the Musée du Louvre is generally assumed to come from Dra Abu el-Naga, but no direct evidence supports this assumption. The inscription implies, however, that it must have been set up in a necropolis.91 The statue represents and is dedicated to ‘the great/elder king’s son Ahmose, justified’, written with the moon-sign facing up, very similar to our piece no. 32 listed earlier. The donors are the king, ‘the good god, the lord of the Two Lands, the son of Ra Taa/Djehut(y), given life forever’, identified with Seqenenra II, and his wife Ahhotep, ‘great king’s daughter, who joins the white crown’, whose name is followed by a seated royal figure as a determinative. Two royal daughters are also mentioned as indirect donors, both named Ahmose: one is referred to as ‘great king’s daughter’ (with the same royal figure as a determinative as Ahhotep) and the other simply as ‘king’s daughter’, who was probably already deceased at that time, as her name is followed by a wish for her to live. The king’s son Ahmose is asked to perform JEA 11 (1925), 12–13; and an overview by Whelan, Stick Shabtis, 10–14. See also J.-L. Bovot, ‘L’art de la miniature: Les modèles de cercueils pour serviteurs funéraires dans la collection du Louvre’, Égypte, Afrique & Orient 48 (2008), 9–16; Ch. Ziegler, ‘Note sur la famille du “fils du roi” Tétiky’, in Z. Hawass, Kh. Daoud and S. Abd el-Fattah (eds), The Realm of the Pharaohs: Essays in Honor of Tohfa Handoussa, (CASAE 37; Cairo, 2008), 411–25; P. Whelan, ‘Small yet Perfectly Formed: Some Observations on Theban Stick Shabti Coffins of the 17th and early 18th Dynasty’, EVO 34 (2011), 9–22. 89See Schneider, Shabtis, I, 295–9. 90C. Dolzani, La collezione egiziana del Museo dell’Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo (Rome, 1969), 11–14 (no. 5), pl. VI–VII. 91Barbotin, Revue du Louvre 4, 26–7. 198 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) every good deed92 in the necropolis (ir.k n.f/s sm nb nfr m Xrt-nTr) on behalf of the king and of the two royal daughters. The fact that Queen Ahhotep is not mentioned as beneficiary of his intervention in the necropolis seems to imply that she was then still alive (unlike the king) and probably the one responsible for the dedication and setting up of the statue. The second name, Sapair, is not mentioned on the statue, but both Vandersleyen and Barbotin believed he is the most plausible choice. Actually, the latter argues that the nickname ‘Sapair’ developed from the statue’s role as an intermediary.93 Names and identities The Louvre statue is a good example of the popularity of the name Ahmose within certain families of the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasties. This is the case, for example, within the family of Hery (TT 12), ‘overseer of the double granaries of the royal wife and king’s mother Ahhotep (may she live!)’, whose mother, somehow related or associated with the king, was called Ahmose, as well as two of his brothers and his eldest son.94 Indeed, one has to be extra cautious not to assume automatically that two or more documents belong to the same individual just because they share this anthroponym.95 Leaving aside a few exceptions, Vandersleyen argues that the objects bearing the name Ahmose-Sapair, just Sapair or Ahmose preceded by the title ‘king’s son’ all refer to the same person.96 It has to be kept in mind, however, that the title did not necessarily imply a blood relationship with the king, i.e. an actual prince, but was used as a social and administrative distinction to indicate that its bearer was acting on behalf of the king’s majesty and was therefore assigned to and/or assumed by high-ranking officials outside the royal family.97 Needless to say that a personal name could occasionally be written by itself, without its corresponding title. In the analysis of the assemblage of stick-shabtis and linen described earlier, one should bear these possibilities and uncertainties in mind, but 92Wb. IV 120, 14–19. Revue du Louvre 4, 24, 26. 94J. M. Galán and G. Menéndez, ‘The Funerary Banquet of Hery (TT 12), Robbed and Restored’, JEA 97 (2011), 143–66. 95At the site of the Spanish mission in Dra Abu el-Naga there are a number of documents of the Seventeenth/early Eighteenth Dynasty mentioning Ahmose that clearly do not belong to the same individual. 96Vandersleyen, SAK 10, 321–3; Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 19–36. See objections raised by C. Andrews, ‘New Evidence for Prince Ahmose (Sapair)’, in A. M. Dodson, J. J. Johnston and W. Monkhouse (eds), A Good Scribe and an Exceedingly Wise Man: Studies in Honour of W. J. Tait (London, 2014), 1–6. For a synthesis of the problems concerning Ahmose-Sapair, see van Assche, JSSEA 37, 113–21. 97Miniaci, in Pernigotti and Zecchi, IV colloquio di Egittologia ed Antichità Copte, 99–131; J. J. Shirley, ‘Crisis and Restructuring of the State: From the Second Intermediate Period to the Advent of the Ramesses’, in J. C. Moreno García (ed.), Ancient Egyptian Administration (HdO 104; Leiden, 2013), 553–5. 93Barbotin, on the other hand it also has to be taken into consideration that they were found in the same archaeological area and within the same layer, albeit disturbed. The popularity of the name Ahmose could have been one of the reasons why some of the recipients of the name received nicknames.98 This seems to be the case of two brothers of Hery called Ahmose, represented in the banquet scene of his tomb chapel (TT 12), the second brother ‘(also) called Aamu’, , probably referring to his participation in the campaign against the Hyksos.99 On the other hand, two brothers of Ahmose son of Ebana are also called Ahmose, but neither of them bear a nickname.100 Moreover, one of Hery’s sisters called Ahhotep had a nickname, Idgy, , when there is no other sister called Ahhotep partaking in the banquet.101 There were a number of reasons to adopt and assign nicknames. The nickname Sapair, literally meaning ‘the son of the one who acted/acts’, is intriguing, as it seems to refer to the father’s actions and role rather than to Ahmose’s himself (unlike Hery’s brother),102 which would be understandable if the bearer had died when still an infant.103 Along this line, Sapair is somehow related to the nickname Pasheri, meaning ‘the younger one’, ‘the child’, a name also attested among the inscribed objects found inside the mud-brick offering chapel and around its shaft. Curiously enough, another ‘king’s son’ buried in this area, Intefmose, also received a nickname, Mesti, ‘the red one’, which is again of uncertain interpretation. Intefmose’s nickname is not always mentioned, but is only attested on a scribal statue found in the area of Nebwenenef’s temple, around 400 m towards the valley, while it is missing in the four inscriptions mentioning the ‘king’s son Intefmose’ found by the Spanish mission.104 One could deduce from their meanings that some nicknames were not chosen and adopted by their bearers, but were assigned to them by acquaintances. This could 98Ranke, PN, I (Glückstadt, 1932), 12 no. 19; P. Vernus, Le surnom au Moyen Empire: Répertoire, procédés d’expression et structures de la double identité du debut de la XIIe dynastie à la fin de la XVIIe dynastie (Rome, 1986), 88. 99Galán and Menéndez, JEA 97, 154. 100Two Ahmose without nicknames are also represented together in the tomb chapel of Reneni; J. J. Tylor, The Tomb of Renni (London, 1900), pl. 6. 101Galán and Menéndez, JEA 97, 156. 102Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 31–2, argues that the nickname Sapair was assigned to Ahmose after Seqenenra’s campaign against the Hyksos. He lists royal names of this period adopted by individuals whose own merits granted them epithets or even names starting with Pa-, similar to Pair, ‘the one who acted’. Barbotin, Revue du Louvre 4, 26 n. 38, however, interprets the name Sapair as ‘le fils qui agit’ and relates it with what he argued was the role of the statue, to act as ‘intercesseur’ of his relatives in the hereafter. Barbotin’s interpretation does not fit well with most of the other names that start with Sa-, which refer to the alleged genitor of the name’s bearer, ‘Son of X’. 103Vandesleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 13 (n. 35), 31–2. 104Petrie, Qurneh, 12, pl. 30 (3); Borrego, in Rosati and Guidotti, Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists, 53–54.. Galán have happened during their lifetime, but also posthumously. Taking into account the different circumstances and possibilities, it is even possible that an individual could have had more than one nickname. Inscribed on a funerary object, the nickname intended to influence how someone was going to be remembered in posterity. For this reason, while nicknames or second names were originally an additional identification,105 they could also become the preferred way to refer to an individual, alternating the two and/or standing by itself, as seems to have happened with Sapair.106 The veneration shown to the prince soon after his death107 could have prompted other people to adopt his nickname as a name, and there is evidence of a ‘soldier of his majesty, Sapair’ and of a ‘chief of recruits of the Lord of the Two Lands, confident of the good god, Sapair’, both probably subjects of King Thutmose III.108 Archaeological context The funerary monument described earlier in this article, probably belonging to a certain Ahmose, may seem too humble for a member of the royal family, but there are similar burial ensembles in the area, comprising a small mudbrick offering chapel and a roughly finished shaft, which did belong to other members of the royal family and prominent courtiers.109 This is the case for the king’s son Intefmose (UE 110; see fig. 27),110 and the shaft adjoining that of Ahmose, inside which a steatite scarab (1.1 x 0.7 x 0.4 cm) with the inscription ‘the king of Upper and Lower Egypt (is my) lord’ was found (fig. 28). The mouth of this other shaft (UE 1005) is 2 m south-east from that of Ahmose, laid out parallel to it and with the same orientation. The latter, however, does not seem to have had an offering chapel and was probably sharing that of Ahmose. A large number of pottery vessels dating to the late Seventeenth or early Eighteenth Dynasties was found around it, probably the 105See Vernus, Surnom, 85, 86 (juxtaposition of names), 99 (alternation of names). 106Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr; van Assche, JSSEA 37, 116. See also Th. Stasser, ‘La famille d’Amosis’, CdE 77 (2002), 31: ‘les personnages qui se sont appelés Ahmès + N sont souvent mentionnés avec seulement la seconde partie de leur nom (ex Ahmès Néfertari, Ahmès Méritamon, Ahmès Satamon, Ahmès Henouttemehou …).’ 107Vandersleyen, SAK 10, 321–2; Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr; see the reference to the stela of Kenres at the end of the section ‘Bouriant in Dra Abu el-Naga, 1886’, and Note 44 of this article. 108L. Gabolde, ‘Une stèle au nom du soldat Sa-païr dédiée par son frère’, RdE 62 (2011), 199–203, with reference to the stela British Museum EA 906 on p. 201 n. 6; none of these objects were mentioned by Vandersleyen, Iahmès Sapaïr, 33–6. 109D. Polz, ‘Topographical Archaeology in Dra’ Abu el-Naga’, MDAIK 68 (2012), 118 n. 11; G. Miniaci and S. Quirke, ‘Mariette at Dra Abu el-Naga and the Tomb of Neferhotep: A Mid-13th Dynasty Rishi Coffin (?)’, EVO 31 (2008), 20, point out that ‘It is not necessary to connect this tomb type to poor depositions and to a lower social class. On the contrary, this kind of substructure seems to originate from the élite architecture of the end of the 12th dynasty’. 110See shaft UE 110 and related mud-brick structure in the map of fig. 27, and Notes 61 and 103 of this article. 199 remains of cultic practices.111 The mouth of the shaft measures 2.46 x 0.85 m and the curb was built with mud bricks reaching down to bedrock, as was the case in Ahmose’s tomb. Here however, the shaft is 5.5 m deep and has two opposing chambers at the bottom.112 The scarab was found at the entrance of the unfinished south-eastern chamber. The mud-brick offering chapel of Ahmose (UE 1002) is 1.5 m away from the left sidewall of TT 11’s courtyard. The fact that Djehuty respected such a small and fragile structure and opted to deviate his wall in order to avoid colliding with it, indicates the significance the chapel held at that time. The size and appearance do not accurately reflect how the monument was perceived around a century after its construction.113 It appears that Djehuty chose the location of his funerary monument carefully, inserting it into the middle of a group of Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasty tombs, some of which were cut into the hillside like his (e.g. Hery’s TT 12), while others comprised a mud-brick chapel and shaft. The available space was therefore narrow, but Djehuty must have perceived that location as particularly strategic and gave this priority over other criteria. Moreover, at the other side of the pathway that stretched right behind the façade of TT 11, a mud-brick pyramid could have been built on top of a funerary shaft that has a mouth larger than the standard 3.3 x 1.8 m, which opens in the middle of a mound in the bedrock with its masonryreinforced base. Its size is very similar to the shaft in the middle of the pyramid of Nubkheperra Intef, which is 3.1 x 1.5 m.114 Djehuty might have taken the former pyramid into account (if it actually stood there) when considering the location for his rock-cut monument and its layout, since: (a) Djehuty’s innermost room ended up being right below the shaft, and therefore below the centre of the hypothetical pyramid; (b) the pyramid would have been seen as crowning Djehuty’s façade when standing in the courtyard looking towards the hill, since Djehuty’s façade was heightened with masonry up to 5.2 m and had a flat top. According to Northampton, Theban Necropolis, 4, 14–15, pl. 2, the pyramid of King Sobekemsaf should be located less than 100 m to the west from the mud-brick chapel and shaft of Ahmose. Following the inspection route reproduced in papyrus Abbott II–III (see earlier in this article), between the pyramid of Nubkheperra Intef 111A. Seiler, ‘Archäologisch fassbare Kultpraktiken in Grabkontexten der frühen 18. Dynastie in Dra’ Abu el-Naga/Theben’, in J. Assmann, E. Dziobek, H. Guksch, and F. Kampp (eds), Thebanische Beamtennekropolen: Neue Prespektiven archäologischer Forschung (SAGA 12; Heidelberg, 1995), 185–203; Seiler, Tradition und Wandel: Die Keramik als Spiegel der Kulturentwicklung Thebens in der Zweiten Zwischenzeit (DAI Kairo, Sonderschrift 32; Mainz, 2005), 50–2. 112Miniaci, BIFAO 109, 363–7. 113Tetiki also circumvented a mud-brick offering chapel when building the open courtyard of his tomb chapel (TT 15); see Carnarvon and Carter, Five Years, 12, pl. 2; F. Kampp, Die thebanische Nekropole: Zum Wandel des Grabgedankens von der XVIII. bis zur XX. Dynastie (Theben XIII; Mainz, 1996), 194–6, fig. 98. 114Polz and Seiler, Pyramidenanlage, 33–5, fig. 5, pl. 4. 200 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 103(2) Fig. 27. Plan of Sector 10, south-west of the open courtyard of the tomb chapel of Djehuty (TT 11). and that of Sobekemsaf should have stood the pyramid of King Sekhemra-Wepmaat Intef-aa.115 A pyramidion fragment of the latter was found by the German Archaeological Institute a few metres south-east of Nubkheperra Intef’s pyramid in 2003.116 According to Polz, both pyramids had a similar angle of inclination, an average of 67.81º, and Fig. 28. Scarab of the ‘son of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt’, found in shaft UE 1005. 115The rishi-coffin of Sekhemra-Wepmaat Intef-aa was found resting inside the burial chamber of a pit in the central area of Dra Abu el-Naga before 1848, and was then bought by the Louvre (E. 3019); Winlock, JEA 10, 234–7; Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches, 133–8; pl. 6–7, 17, 19–20; Polz, in Marée (ed.), The Second Intermediate Period, 341–5; Miniaci, Rishi Coffins, 71, 208– 9. See Note 39 of this article. 116Polz and Seiler, Pyramidenanlage, 22–4; Polz, in Marée (ed.), The Second Intermediate Period, 345–9. 201 Galán must have been similar in size, about 9.9 m tall above their centre. Therefore, it is plausible that right above TT 11 stood the pyramid of King Sekhemra-Wepmaat Intef-aa. Note that the two abovementioned Intefs are said to be brothers, both offspring of Sobekemsaf. Moreover, the king’s son Intefmose is associated with King Sobekemsaf on a large limestone shabti now in the British Museum (EA 13329);117 and the rishi-coffin of Neb found by the Spanish mission in 2014 has similar decorative motifs to the rishicoffin of King Nubkheperra Intef.118 Therefore, evidence appears to indicate that members of the Sobekemsaf-Intef family and high officials of that period were buried at the feet of their royal pyramids, part of which has been under excavation by the Spanish mission since 2011. Between the mud-brick chapels of the king’s son Intefmose and Ahmose, a huge pottery deposit comprising over 2000 vessels was found, dating to the Seventeenth or/ and early Eighteenth Dynasty.119 The fact that it seems to be connected to ritual funerary activity or votive offerings (different from the pottery thrown away by robbers), some vessels still in situ, deposited in rows and on top of each other, some of them containing plant remains, attests to the religious significance of the area at that time and the probable existence of one or more cult places associated with funerary monuments perceived as being particularly sacred.120 The sacred character of the area might also explain why two coffins were left on the ground unprotected and without funerary equipment.121 The fact that they belonged to two infants could be related to the proximity of a young prince’s tomb chapel, but for now this remains speculative. The area identified as Sector 10 within the Spanish concession, of less than 400 sq m, was densely occupied 117The fragment is 18.2 cm in height and would have been about 35 cm high when complete, Borrego, in Rosati and Guidotti, Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists, 54–55. A small sandstone fragment bearing the cartouche of King Sobekemsaf was found by the Spanish mission in 2016 behind the mud-brick chapel assigned to the king’s son Intefmose. 118Galán and Jiménez, in Grajetzki and Miniaci (eds), The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt, 101–13. 119E. de Gregorio, ‘Votive pottery deposits found by the Spanish Mission at Dra Abu el-Naga’, in G. Rosati, M. C. Guidotti (eds), Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists (Archaeopress Egyptology 19, Oxford, 2017), 166–71. 120Two fragmentary inscriptions bearing the cartouche of King (Montuhotep) Nebhepetra and a third showing King Senwosret I burning incense before Anubis have been found in the area around the mud-brick chapel and shaft assigned to the king’s son Intefmose. See K. el-Enany, ‘Le saint thébain Montouhotep-Nebhépetrê’, BIFAO 103 (2003), 167–90. 121Galán and Jiménez, in Grajetzki and Miniaci (eds), The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt, 113–16; see Note 33 of this article. by burials of high-ranking individuals: a king’s son Intefmose, a king’s son Ahmose and/or Ahmose-Sapair, a mouth-piece of Nekhen called Ahhotep, and a man called Neb buried in a well-finished rishi-coffin. Future excavations in the area will bring to light new information on these individuals and other members of the royal family and courtiers of the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasties. It is hoped that some of the more complex and inconsistent data referenced here, and the uncertainties surrounding the figure of Prince Ahmose-Sapair, will become increasingly clear. Acknowledgements I am grateful to A. Garnett for revising my English, to R. Demarée for improving the hieratic readings and to L. Díaz-Iglesias, A. Jiménez-Higueras, V. Boschloss and F. Borrego for reading through the manuscript and providing most valuable comments. Funding This article is part of the research project HAR2014-52323-P within the Spanish National Programme for Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation. Author biography José M. Galán is Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, and Director of the Spanish archaeological mission working in Dra Abu el-Naga, Luxor, which he started back in 2001 (see www.excavacionegipto.com). He got his PhD at The Johns Hopkins University in 1993. His research focuses mainly in the New Kingdom and in Thebes.