The Temple of Deir el Bahari (XVIII Dynasty)

Senenmut, who was her architect, designed the temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It was set at the head of a valley overshadowed by the Peak of the Thebes, the "Lover of Silence". A tree lined avenue of sphinxes led up to the temple, and ramps led from terrace to terrace. The porticoes on the lowest terrace are out of proportion and coloring with the rest of the building. They were restored in 1906 to protect the celebrated reliefs depicting the transport of obelisks by barge to Karnak and the miraculous birth of Queen Hatshepsut. Reliefs on the south side of the middle terrace show the queen’s expedition by way of the Red Sea to Punt, the land of incense. Along the front of the upper terrace, a line of large, gently smiling Osirid statues of the queen looked out over the valley. In the shade of the colonnade behind, brightly painted reliefs decorated the walls. Throughout the temple, statues and sphinxes of the queen proliferated. Many of them have been reconstructed, with patience and ingenuity, from the thousands of smashed fragments found by the excavators.

Tel El-Amarna

Tel El-Amarna is a city located on a flat stretch of land beside the Nile Valley. It measures only 12 kilometers from north to south, however it is one of the most interesting and captivating areas in all of Egypt.

In 1887 a woman In Tel el-Amarna found some clay tablets covered in Akkadian cuneiform. When observed by Jules Oppert, a French assyriologist, he concluded that they were fake. However, that didn’t convince others. About 400 clay tablets were eventually found, and they realized that the artifacts were from the time of Akhenaten, a pharaoh that ruled 35 centuries earlier. In addition to the clay tablets found in Tel el-Amarna, there was also a sculptured head of queen Nefertiti, The Hymn of Aten, which Akhenaten wrote himself, and many depictions of Akhenaten and Nefertite worshiping the sun god. There was a dramatic difference in the art depicting Akhenaten with his wife, Nefertiti, and their children sitting together and enjoying themselves. This was completely different than the canon which always had the pharaoh looking straight ahead, with his left foot forward, and fists clenched to the side. The statues of Akhenaten were very unflattering to him.

To understand the history of Amarna, it is necessary to learn about the man who built it. Akhenaten was a most unusual Pharaoh in many ways. He promoted the Aten as chief deity of Egypt, possibly to lessen the authority of the priests. It is speculated that he was the predecessor of modern monotheism. As Pharaoh, he was the sole link between the people and the Aten. He also issued orders for the temples of "false" gods to be desecrated. As you might expect, this probably did not endear him to the priesthood or the populace, many of whom probably still worshipped Amun. To support the religion, he built a new capital which was devoted to Aten. He called the new city Akhetaten "the horizon of Aten." He had his city built in middle Egypt on a site not tainted by the worship of other gods. At around Year 6 in his reign he moved to Amarna, the ancient name being Akhenaten, with his court and family, including wife Nefertiti.

At the height of Akhenaten's reign, the city had a population of over 20,000. There is evidence that he was content to live in his well-guarded city with his family and ignore his other principalities. His co-regency with Smenhkhare might have allowed him the freedom to do this. The arts flourished under his reign. The new wave in art and the beautiful composition "Hymn to Aten" are testaments to this idea. The stylization in the surviving reliefs and sculptures is extremely unique and has spurred many discussions about Akhenaten himself.

How his reign ended is unknown. After Akhenaten died, the next pharaoh changed the religion back to polytheism, moved the capital back to Thebes, the original capital. Later Pharaohs attempted to erase all memories of Akhenaten, including dismantling his temples and city, and obliterating his name on reliefs.

The physical aspects of Tel El-Amarna are as interesting as the heretic king himself. The area is covered by sand and filled with ruins of temples, palaces and houses. There are more then 25 tombs at the base of the cliff front. Six are located on the north side and 19 on the south. The evidence found in Tel El-Amarna is very interesting. There was nothing there before Akhenaten built Akhetaten and, since the capital moved back to Thebes quickly after his death, the site can be dated specifically to a narrow period.

The name Amarna is also used to describe the period of time including Akhenaten and his kin, the most well known of which is Tutankhamun. Howard Carter and Flinders Petrie, two of the best-known archaeologists in history, have excavated at this site.

Amarna remains a source of disagreement with many scholars. It seems the controversy Akhenaten caused in life continues long after his death.

The Tomb of Menna

The tomb of Menna (TT 69) is a private tomb located on the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes). The tomb resides in the hill of Sheikh Abd el- Qurna, in the area known as the Tombs of the Nobles. The hill Sheikh Abd el-Qurna was named for a mythical Muslim sheikh. It has 146 numbered tombs, most of which are from the 18^th dynasty. It contains some of the most beautiful private tombs of the West Bank. These tombs are referred to as being T-shaped, where you find an entrance corridor that leads into a wide vestibule, then a short corridor that leads into the long chapel, with a small niche at its rear. Officials in this area occupied most of the Tombs of the Nobles.

The tomb of Menna is dated from the New Kingdoms 18^th dynasty. The approximate age of this tomb is 3,400 years old. It was constructed in approximately c.1400-1390 BC. This was the reign of Tuthmosis IV and his successor Amenhotep III which Menna worked below.

Menna held the title, Scribe of the Fields of the Lord of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypts, as well as field overseer of Amun. He is thought to have worked for the Temple of Amun at Karnak, supervising the measuring of fields, inspected the work on the land, prosecuted defaulters and recorded the crop yield. This was of great importance because the grains that were being harvested were for the entire state. Being a scriber (someone that can read and write in heiroglphes) was a trait that not many people had. The fact that so few people could read and write gave Menna very high prestige in this ancient Egyptian society. It was, in fact, one of the most important occupations in ancient Egypt. His wife, called Henut-Tawy (the lady of the two lands), held the function of Chantress of Arnun and the couple had at least three daughters and several sons.

The reason for the importance of this tomb resides in the sophisticated paintings which are one of the most complete in the Theban necropolis. The paintings depict Mennas everyday lifestyle, with an emphasis on his family (mainly his wife) and agriculture. The artist of the paintings depicts Menna's closeness with his family very definably. The artist does this by making the people that were most valued (wife and children) the same size as Menna in the paintings, showing that their status was similar. Many of the painting had scenes of life in the marsh, which were depicted in many New Kingdom tombs, but had a deeper meaning. The Nile marshes were growing out of the fertile mud of the river and the abundant wildlife supported by the environment symbolized rejuvenation and eternal life.

The original discoverer of the Tomb of Menna is unknown. But between 1914 and 1916 Robert L. Mond and Ernest J.H. Mackay started to conduct a photographic survey of the Theban private tombs at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. The First World War interrupted their work.Their survey is made up of around 3300 black and white photographs covering 18 tombs, one of which was Menna. Mond used several small photographs and pieced them together to form a mosaic showing an image of the whole wall.He used photographic techniques to make the prints 3 dimensional like they would appear in the tomb.

The Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep

The Tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep was discovered by Mounir Basta in 1964 in Saqqara. Basta found the tomb by crawling through a series of passages in the escarpment facing the causeway to the pyramid of Unas.The tomb has been a curiosity, areas of it have been reconstructed and the tomb has been studied, however very little has been written about it. Mr. Greg Reeder, contributing editor to the Egyptology journal KMT, is hoping to remedy this soon (personal communication).

When the mastaba was reconstructed the archaeologists found two hieroglyphic inscriptions, one for each of the men who shared the tomb. Each inscription was the same, though each was addressed to one of the men- the right for Niankhkhnum and the left for Khnumhotep. These men also shared titles in the palace of King Niuserre of the Fifth Dynasty. The shared titles were "Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of the King, King's Acquaintance and Royal Confidant."

Throughout the tomb there are scenes of the men embracing each other. It has long been debated as to what their relationship was; brothers, twins, close friends, lovers, or all of the above. Whatever their relationship was, it is obvious from the scenes that they were close. Even their names show their closeness. It is unclear when they changed their names, however the names they took have been translated. Niankhkhnum means "joined to life" and Khnumhotep means "joined to 'the blessed state of the dead'" and together the names can be translated as "joined in life and joined in death"

They were so close, in fact, that there is a scene showing them in the most intimate embrace possible in Ancient Egyptian art. Niankhkhnum holding Khnumhotep's right forearm and with Khnumhotep's hand on Niankhkhum's left shoulder; the tips of their noses touching. One of the interesting aspects of this picture is that the waist ties of their kilts appear to be tied together, perhaps symbolizing their unity.

From some of the other pictures in the tomb it is known that Niankhkhnum had been married in life, and had children. It is believed that the pictures of the wife were scratched out so the men could be the main guests of honor in the tomb.

Thebes

Thebes is probably the richest archeological site in the world and at just over two square miles, one of the largest. It lies about 500 miles south of Cairo on the West Bank of the Nile. Thebes can be divided into three areas: the cultivated land lying between the Nile and the desert, the low-lying desert, and the barren desert cliffs and mountains.

Few traces of archeological evidence can be found near the cultivated land, due to the silt deposited by the annual flooding of the Nile River. Any important sites would be buried under several meters of mud. This area is now very important to the modern economy.

The low-lying desert is where New Kingdom Egyptians built mortuary temples near the edge of the desert. They buried their court officials in the limestone hills. Now, mud-brick houses are there. About a century ago, the villagers that lived there, to make a living plundered the Tombs of the Nobles. Today, they help archeological expeditions.

The Barren desert cliffs and mountains are home to over 60 tombs. Inside these deep valleys are tombs that range from huge underground complexes in the Valley of the Kings, to less elaborate tombs in the Valley of Queens.

The earliest known visitors from modern Europe to the Valley of Kings was in the 18th century. The earliest maps indicate that about twenty-five tombs were accessible prior to this century. In the 19th century, John Gardner Wilkinson was able to see twenty-one tombs and numbered them in geographical order from the entrance of the Valley southward, then to the east. Since then, they have been numbered in order of their discovery. KV 62 is the most recent of these.

One of the first people to dig in the Valley of the Kings was Giovanni Belzoni. From 1816-1817, he discovered eight tombs. KV 17, the tomb of Sety I, was the most amazing. Victor Loret uncovered sixteen tombs, in the late 19th century. These tombs included the collection of royal mummies in KV 35 and the tomb of Amenhetep II. In the early 20th century Theodore Davis sponsored thirteen years of work. During this time thirty-five tombs were cleared or discovered. Howard Carter was one of his excavators. Carter began working with Earl Carnavon in 1907. Their work led to the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb (KV 62) in 1922.

Today, there are four major archeological expeditions working in the Valley. Otto Schaden is clearing KV 10. Edwin Brook is studying KV 8. Christian LeBlanc is clearing KV 7, and the Theban Mapping project is excavating KV 5.