Finding Butehamun Scribe of Deir el-Medina

MA thesis Uppsala University, 2020

This is a biography of the scribe Butehamun. A member of a well-known family who had long lived in the village of Deir el-Medina working on the tombs in the Valley of Kings, Butehamun’s coming of age saw invasion and civil war in Thebes, and the end to the making of new tombs in the Valley, as the New Kingdom came to an end. Instead he was given the task by the High Priests of Amun to remove and rewrap royal mummies and rebury them in secret caches, while plundering them of their gold and other valuables for the coffers of the priestly rulers of Thebes. In many respects Butehamun was a tomb raider in the service of the High Priests of Amun. That project seems to have been successful: The mummy of every single king from the 18th through 21st Dynasties that has been identified and was found in a tomb was found in the two caches KV 35 or TT 320 (with the sole exception of Tutankhamun). Butehamun is unusually well-documented, leaving behind many letters, labels on coffins he worked with, graffiti, and highly unusual imagery on his own coffins. Two houses he lived in have been excavated, one with inscriptions about his family. This paper seeks to create a biography of Butehamun through the study of these things he left behind. One seems to reflect he may have suffered a crisis of faith, others may display instead a deep piety for Amun and pride in the royal mummy reburial project he carried out in the service of the god.

Middle Kingdom Studies 1, 2015

Table of Contents Masahiro Baba, Ken Yazawa: Burial Assemblages of the Late Middle Kingdom, Shaft-tombs in Dahshur North Bettina Bader: Stone Objects from the Late Middle Kingdom Settlement at Tell el-Daba Helmut Brandl: Late Middle Kingdom or Late Period? Re-Considering the “Realistic” Statue Head, Munich ÄS 1622 Simon Connor: The Statue of the Steward Nemtyhotep ( Berlin ÄM 15700) and some Considerations about Royal and Private Portrait under Amenemhat III Biri Fay: Thoughts on the Sculpture of Sesostris I and Amenemhat II, Inspired by the Meket-re Study Day Biri Fay: London BM EA 288 (1237) - a Cloaked Individual Biri Fay, Rita E. Freed, Thomas Schelper, Friederike Seyfried: Neferusobek Project (I) Rita E. Freed: A Torso gets a Name: an Additional Statue of the Vizier Mentuhotep? José M. Galán, Ángeles Jiménez-Higueras: Three Burials of the Seventeenth Dynasty in Dra Abu El-Naga Wolfram Grajetzki: A Middle Kingdom Stela from Koptos (Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove HA282043) Zoltán Horváth: Hathor and her Festivals at Lahun Alexander Ilin-Tomich: King Seankhibra and the Middle Kingdom Appeal to the Living Alejandro Jiménez Serrano: A unique Funerary Complex in Qubbet el-Hawa for Two Governors of the Late Twelfth Dynasty Renata Landgráfová: In the Realm of Reputation: Private Life in Middle Kingdom Auto/biographies Eva Lange: The So-called Governors' Cemetery at Bubastis and Provincial Elite, Tombs in the Nile Delta: State and Perspectives of Research David Lorand: The Archetype of Kingship Who Senwosret I claimed to be, How and Why? Antonio J. Morales: Tracing Middle Kingdom Pyramid Texts Traditions at Dahshur Miriam Müller: New Approaches to the Study of Households in Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Egypt Melinda G. Nelson-Hurst: The (social) House of Khnumhotep Rune Nyord: Scribes of the Gods in the Coffin Texts Mohamed Gamal Rashed: The Significance of the Hieroglyph ‘The Egg with the Young Bird Inside Patricia Rigault: The Canopic Chest of Khakheperreseneb/Iy - Louvre E 17108 Danijela Stefanovic, Helmut Satzinger: I am a Nbt-pr, and I am Independent Angela M. J. Tooley: Garstang's El Arabah Tomb E.1

Middle Kingdom Studies 2, 2016

Marilina Betrò, Tombs in transition: MIDAN.05 and windows in the early Eighteenth Dynasty Anna Consonni, Precious finds from an early Middle Kingdom tomb in Thebes: reconstructing connections between the dead and their goods John Coleman Darnell, Colleen Manassa Darnell, Umm-Mawagir in Kharga Oasis: an Industrial Landscapeof the Late Middle Kingdom/Second Intermediate Period Vivian Davies, The tomb of a Governor of Elkab of the Second Intermediate Period Marleen De Meyer, An Isolated Middle Kingdom Tomb At Dayr Al-Barsha Nathalie Favry, The Transmission of Offices in the Middle Kingdom Wolfram Grajetzki, Gianluca Miniaci, The stela of the Thirteenth Dynasty treasurer Senebsumai, Turin Cat. S. 1303 Karin Kopetzky, Some Remarks on the Relations between Egypt and the Levant during the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Ingrid Melandri, Female Burials in the Funerary Complexes of the Twelfth Dynasty: an Architectonic Approach Stephen Quirke, Diachronic questions of form and function: falcon-head utensils in Middle Kingdom contexts Mohammed Gamal Rashed, The Egg as a Metaphor for Isis: A Coffin Text Imagery Gloria Rosati, ‘Writing-Board Stelae’ with Sokar-Formula: A Preliminary Account with a note on the Archaeological Context of Tomb C 37, Asasif, by Gianluca Miniaci Ashraf Senussi, Said Abd Alhafeez Abd Allah Kheder, Two Blocks of Sobekhotep from Hawara Julien Siesse, An Unpublished Scarab of Queen Tjan (Thirteenth Dynasty) from the Louvre Museum (AF 6755) Pascal Vernus, Literary exploitation of a craftman’s device: the sandal-maker biting leather (Teaching of Chety, pSallier VIII, 12). When philology, iconography and archaeology overlap Fred Vink, Boundaries of Protection. Function and significance of the framing (lines) on Middle Kingdom apotropaia, in particular magic wands Paul Whelan, On the Context and Conception of Two ‘Trademark’ Styles from Late Middle Kingdom Abydos

The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt III: Contributions on Archaeology, Art, Religion, and Written Sources, 2022

Cristina Alù, Some Remarks on the sx.tjw and their Overseers: The Multiple Meanings of sx.t and the Social Identity of the Marsh-dwellers Daphna Ben-Tor, James M. Weinstein, Scarabs from a Late Middle Kingdom Workshop at Tell el-Dab‘a Edward Brovarski, A Hitherto Unpublished Middle Kingdom Stela in the Field Museum of Natural History – Chicago Arkadiy E. Demidchik, Some Remarks on Neha’s Spell for Gaining Power over his Servant Statuettes Micòl Di Teodoro, The Preservation of Monuments in the Written Sources of Dynastic Egypt between 2000 and 1550 BC Gudelia García Fernández, Angela M.J. Tooley, Paddle Dolls from the Spanish Mission to Dra Abu el-Naga: Images and Contexts Wolfram Grajetzki, Middle Kingdom Coffins and Coffin Fragments in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Ali Hassan Eid, The Journey from Authenticity to Forgery: A Case-study on an Adzeblade (Egyptian Museum Cairo JE 67944) of the Thirteenth Dynasty Khaled Hassan, Middle Kingdom Wooden Board with Hieratic Inscriptions from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 30442/CG 25369/SR 920) Dinara Hereikhanova, Not only for a King: Nms-headdresses on the Objects of the Twelfth to Eighteenth Dynasties Lubica Hudáková, The Acquisition of a Coffin – Tracing the (Art) History of the Coffin of Neby (MFA 04.2058): From Dayr al-Barsha to Beni Hassan to Boston Alexander Ilin-Tomich, Minor contributions to Middle Kingdom prosopography Esmeralda Lundius, Processing Sites in the Funerary Landscape: Observations on Ancient Egyptian Offering Trays and ‘Soul houses’ Ahmed M. Mekawy Ouda, Seven Oyster Shells at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 12825-12829, JE 28320 and JE 91753) Ahmed M. Mekawy Ouda, Khaled Hassan, Wooden Kohl Tube with Hieratic Inscriptions at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 44703/JE 18553) Gianluca Miniaci, Cornelius von Pilgrim, An Unusual Mutilation of the Crocodile Hieroglyphic Sign in an Early Middle Kingdom Stela from the Sanctuary II of Heqaib at Elephantine Stephen Quirke, Three Types of inscribed Middle Kingdom objects in the Purchases by Flinders Petrie Patricia Rigault, A new Occurrence of CT 398 on two Coffin Fragments in the Louvre Museum Julien Siesse, The Late Middle Kingdom Stela Louvre N 196 = C 42 from the Louvre Museum Uta Siffert, ‘Death ends a Life, not a Relationship’. Some Thoughts on Designatin the Deceased Ax and Wsir NN in the Middle Kingdom Danijela Stefanović, The Administration of the Middle Kingdom Weaving Workshops: a Note on the Textual and Iconographic Data Mohamed Youssef Ali, The Statue of Ameny from his Tomb at Lisht

Acta Archaeologica, 2005

Qurna and Qurnet Marai in the Theban necropolis runs a valley that meets the floodplain at the site of the mortuary temple of Rameses II, the Ramesseum (Figures i, 2). The valley is a counterpart to the valley of Deir el-Bahri, where the temples of Mentuhotep II Nebhepetra and Hatshepsut are situated. But unlike the Deir el-Bahri valley, this valley does not contain famous standing monuments. Today, the valley presents a wild, almost desolate, appearance (Figures 3, 5, 21). A closer look, however, reveals features that indicate major landscaping efforts were undertaken in ancient times. Figures 2 and 3 show two separate places where quarrymen cut trenches into the rock preparatory to removing the entire rock face at the southwestern side of the valley.2 And at the western end of the valley where the limestone rock surrounds a natural bay, a considerable part of the ground was leveled to form an even plateau (Figure 3). Herbert E. Winlock in 1914 was the first to recognize that the plateau and trenches were traces of building activities.3 The discovery was important enough for him to record it in the opening paragraphs of The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes (1947). It is a memorable description of archaeological intuition: One day just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the groom and I were exercising my horses behind Sheikh Abd el Kurneh Hill. The light was exactly right, and as I came to the highest bit of path, with the towering cliffs to the right and the lower hill to the left, I noticed below me for the first time a ? The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1991 Metropolitan Museum Journal 26 flat platform and the upper part of a sloping causeway ascending from the cultivation. In a flash I was spurring down the hill and up onto the level place to look down the line of the ancient roadway to the point where it disappeared behind the Ramesseum. I realized that in the flat terrace under the cliffs we had the grading for a temple like the one built in the Eleventh Dynasty at Deir el-Bahrijust to the north. In 1920-21 Winlock cleared the platform under the cliffs of later debris.4 In the course of this work, he recleared an underground passage and burial chamber (Figure 4) that had first been excavated by Robert Mond in the winter of 1903-4.5 Winlock rightly connected this burial chamber of royal proportions with the landscaping efforts described above, and he identified the ensemble as an unfinished royal funerary monument. At first, it seemed a simple matter to identify the individual for whom this monument had been intended. The similarities in the plan of the burial chamber-as well as in the general shape of the causeway and funerary temple-to the great funeral monument of Mentuhotep II Nebhepetra in the neighboring valley of Deir el-Bahri6 pointed to a successor of that king as the owner (Figure 1, nos. 1 and 5). Further indications of a late Eleventh Dynasty date for the structure were thought to exist because of the large tomb of the chancellor Meketra, situated at the northern side of the valley (Figure 5). This official was known to have served Mentuhotep II Nebhepetra as "overseer of the six great law-courts" around year 39 of that king's reign.7 During the last years of Nebhepetra's reign, Meketra was "chancellor" (imy-r' htmt) and was depicted or mentioned in this capacity several times in the relief decoration of Nebhepetra's funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri.8 The fact that Meketra's tomb was not sit-The notes for this article begin on page 41. 5 The Metropolitan Museum of Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Metropolitan Museum Journal www.jstor.org ® uated among the tombs of the other officials of Nebhepetra's court, on the slopes around the valley of Deir el-Bahri (Figure i, nos. 6 and 7),9 suggested to Winlock and others that Meketra outlived Nebhepetra and went on to serve his successor, Mentuhotep III Seankhkara. It was therefore logical to assume that the unfinished royal tomb in the valley, situated below the tomb of Meketra, belonged to King Mentuhotep III Seankhkara. (See Appendix I.) A group of inscriptions on nearby rocks seemed to corroborate the identification of the unfinished monument as the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep III. Between the valley, or rock bay, of Deir el-Bahri and the bay in which the unfinished royal funerary monument is situated lies yet another, smaller bay surrounded by limestone cliffs (Figure i, no. 4).1' In this smaller bay numerous graffiti of Middle Kingdom date are incised in the rock cliffs high above the valley floor. Winlock recognized that various groups of priests had incised their names here." Among these names, the greatest number were

Kings of the Sun. Studies, 2020

The modern interdisciplinary exploration of ancient Egyptian burial sites represents one of the major trends of contemporary archaeological research in Egyptology. Cooperation among representatives of the natural, technical and social sciences is imperative if we are to understand the information collected during the excavation process. The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife similar to the life they had lived on earth, and their tombs – in terms of their location, architecture, decoration, inscriptions, and burial equipment – reflected many aspects of their world, including the administration of the state, the social standing of tomb owners and their families, the realities of everyday life, religious ideas, the anthropology of the population of that time, and the state of (and changes in) the environment. Over time, four royal complexes of Fifth-Dynasty kings were built in the Abusir pyramid field during the Old Kingdom. In addition, members of the royal family and the state’s high officials constructed their tombs here. In their shadow, lower-ranking officials, along with their wives and children, would be buried. All of these monuments tell thousands of multifaceted stories, from which we can reconstruct the history of the world’s oldest territorial state. As the Abusir burial ground is so vast, it comes as no surprise that several different non-royal burial sites gradually arose independently of each other in this widespread area over the course of the third millennium BCE. While the factors influencing their position, nature and time of origin varied, key considerations would undoubtedly have been the location of the Old Kingdom’s capital, White Walls, the evolution of the network of settlements, the local cult topography, and the main communications connecting the necropolis with the Nile valley. Although much of the site remains unexplored, current knowledge and archaeological research offer a relatively detailed awareness and description of how it developed in time and space. Each of the burial sites tells, in its own specific way, the story of its time and of the owners of the individual tombs. These monuments reflect the dynamics and transformations of ancient Egyptian society. The following text provides a very limited description of some of these sites, drawing on the enormous wealth of sources known to date .

2009

In 1860 at Dra Abu al-Naga, Antiquities Service excavators discovered an accounts papyrus from the visit of a 13th dynasty king to Thebes. Mariette published this as Papyrus Boulaq 18 in 1872 with notes on items found with it; most of these items are preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, from which we present here the first illustrated publication of the find-group, assessing differences between objects in the museum and its registers, and the Mariette 1872 edition. As one of few documented late Middle Kingdom tomb-groups to be published, the finds provide a basis for reconsidering burial equipment as an index of dominant conceptions of the tomb, both within the period, and over time from early Middle Kingdom to early New Kingdom.