Deux tombes de la XVIIIe dynastie a Deir el-Medina.

• Author: Strudwick, Nigel
• Position: Book review

Deux tombes de la XVIIIe dynastie a Deir el-Medina. By NADINE CHERPION. MIFAO, vol. 114. Cairo: INSTITUT FRANCAIS D'ARCHEOLOGIE ORIENTALE, 1999. Pp. 124, plates. FF 260 (paper).

The toponym Deir el-Medina is immediately recognizable to everyone interested in ancient Egypt. The village and its necropolis, near modern Luxor, are renowned for the wealth of material about the craftsmen who excavated and decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, most of it from the mass of ostraka and papyri which tell us about their duty rosters, legal disputes, and so on. The site itself is one of the better excavated ones in the region, being the subject of extensive systematic excavations by Bruyere for the Institut francais d'Archeologie Orientale (IFAO) between 1917 and 1947. Although Bruyere assiduously published preliminary reports, little has appeared in the way of fuller publications. One exception has been volumes on the tombs at the site, of which this is the most recent example.

Most is known about Deir el-Medina in the Ramesside period (19th-20th dynasties), but the community of workmen was actually founded early in the 18th dynasty, in the reign of Thutmose I or before. However, very little is known about the first two hundred years or so of the village's existence. Surviving evidence is almost entirely funerary--six painted chapels and a number of burials, including the wonderful assemblage of Kha now in Turin (all summarized here, p. 1). Thus publication of the last two of these chapels, TT340 (Amenemhat) and TT354 (anonymous), is a very important event.

Both are in the southern part of the necropolis (a sketch-plan of their position would have been extremely helpful). Each is described and discussed with sections on architecture, decoration, dating, and texts. Full documentation is provided in the form of line-drawings, and a mixture of color and halftone illustrations; a list of Munsell references, made by eye, is provided for the colors of the paintings. A possible location for the burial shaft of TT340 is mentioned, but only with reference to Bruyere's report--we are not told whether Bruyere's records in the IFAO in Cairo were consulted. TT354 appears to have no shaft.

Both chapels were constructed by lining a rock-cut chamber with bricks and then coating that with plaster to make a surface for decoration. TT340 is by far the better preserved and more interesting of the two. The tomb owner held the title sedjem ash, later to become the...