Dodson - Ahmose Amenhotep I GM 238-Libre

Göttinger Miszellen 238 (2013): 19-24

On the burials and reburials of Ahmose I and Amenhotep I Aidan Dodson University of Bristol ABSTRACT In the light of Aston’s recent demonstration (GM 236: 7–20) that TT320 was most probably originally the tomb of Ahmes-Nefertiry, the long-standing equation of Dra Abu’l-Naga B with her place of burial falls. It is therefore proposed to revert to the earlier attribution of the tomb to Amenhotep I, but retaining the proposal (Dodson, Studies Weeks, 25–33) that the extension of the burial chamber should be linked with a re-burial of Ahmose I following an interim interment in his pyramid complex at Abydos.

he question of the burial place of Amenhotep I has been a subject of discussion since the first publication of the description of his tomb in pAbbott back in 1859.1 This located his tomb ‘mH 120 m mDwt m pAy.st aHay pA a-qAi xr.tw r.f mHt pr Imn-Htp a.w.s. n pA pA kAmw’.2 The problem with this is the lack of any unanimity over how aHay and pA a-qAi should be translated, although both seem to imply some form of elevated elements. For some years a leading candidate was a tomb behind Dra Abu’l-Naga (dubbed ‘AN B’ by Elizabeth Thomas – fig. 1, with location at fig. 2), investigated by Howard Carter in 1914.3 However, in more recent years AN B has become generally accepted as the sepulchre of Amenhotep’s

T

1

For an overview of the state of the debate down to the mid 1990s, see D. Polz, ‘The Location of the Tomb of Amenhotep I: A Reconsideration’, in R.H. Wilkinson (ed.), Valley of the Sun Kings: New Explorations in the Tombs of the Pharaohs (Tucson: The University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition), 8–21, with references. Excavation of KV39 (J. Rose, Tomb KV39 in the Valley of the Kings: A double archaeological enigma [Bristol, 2000]) has now shown that this was most likely a royal family tomb of the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty (cf. Dodson ‘The burial of members of the royal family during the Eighteenth Dynasty’, in Z. Hawass and L. Pinch Brock (eds), Egyptology at the dawn of the twenty-first century: proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists [Cairo, 2003], II, 188–89; D.A. Aston, ‘TT 320 and the qAy of Queen Inhapi – A Reconsideration Based on Ceramic Evidence’, GM 236 [2013], 16–17), and is thus no longer a candidate for the sepulchre of Amenhotep I. 2 pBM EA10221 recto 2.2–4. 3 B. Porter and R.L.B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, I: The Theban Necropolis. 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press/Griffith Institute, 1960–64), 599–600.

mother, Ahmes-Nefertiry,4 with Amenhotep I’s tomb to be sought elsewhere. The present writer accepted this attribution of AN B when he proposed that the mummy of Ahmose I5 might have been reburied there after its translation from an initial interment in Abydos.6 However, in a recent number of the present journal, David Aston presented a compelling case7 for equating the tomb of Ahmes-Nefertiry with TT320 – the future Royal Cache near Deir el-Bahari.8 In light of this, there is a need to look once again at the ownership of AN B.

FIG. 1 Plan and section of Dra Abu’l-Naga B (adapted from H. Carter, ‘Report on the tomb of Zeser-ka-Ra Amenhetep I, discovered by the Earl of Carnarvon in 1914’, JEA 3 [1916], pl. xx).

Cf. Porter and Moss, Top. Bib., I, 599. Although Nebpehtyre Ahmose has now been shown to be actually the second king of the name, priority belonging to Senakhtenre Ahmose (S. Biston-Moulin, ‘Le roi Sénakht-en-Rê Ahmès de la XVIIe dynastie’, Égypte nilotique et méditerranéenne 5 [2012], 61–71), for reasons of clarity it seems best to retain his ‘traditional’ ordinal, rather than re-number him (and Amasis of the 26th Dynasty). Following the model adopted with the ‘discovery’ of Akheperre Osorkon of the 21st Dynasty, Senakhtenre thus becomes ‘Ahmose the Elder’. 6 A. Dodson, ‘The Burials of Ahmose I’, in Z. Hawass and S. Ikram (eds), Thebes and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Kent R. Weeks (Cairo: Conseil Supréme des Antiquités, 2010), 25–33. 7 In particular correcting the dating of the pottery found in the tomb and the presence there of the queens canopic jars: no other 18th/19th Dynasty royalty cached in TT320 had anything of their funerary equipment brought with them. 8 Aston, GM 236, 7–20. I am most grateful to Dr Aston for an advance copy of this paper and discussing the issues with me. 4

5

2

FIG. 2 Map of Dra Abu’l-Naga (author).

3

The inscribed material from AN B comprises a mix of fragments of stone vessels naming Ahmose I, Amenhotep I and Ahmes-Nefertiry,9 making the date of the tomb’s original occupation seemingly clear.10 They, along with the scale of the tomb, also make its royal ownership difficult to doubt. However, the presence of a mid-point ‘protective’ shaft as part of the plan has led to doubts as to the tomb’s date, since such a shaft is not found in the Valley of the Kings until the reign of Thutmose III.11 On the other hand, a shaft is present in TT358, the sepulchre of Amenhotep I’s wife Meryetamun,12 a tomb that also shares with AN B a shaft entrance, as against the stairways found in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It may thus simply be that TT358 and AN B represent the work of different architects from those responsible for the first Valley of the Kings sepulchres, with their feature of a protective shaft only subsequently adopted for work in the Valley. Along with the aforementioned inscribed material, AN B’s location was a key aspect of its original identification with Amenhotep I’s tomb, certainly lying north of the temple of Amenhotep I and Ahmes-Nefertiry in front of Dra Abu’l-Naga – indeed almost on its north-south axis (see fig. 2). This would thus be the ‘House of Amenhotep-of-the-Garden’ of pAbbott – although all extant data gives this building the name Mn-is(w)t.13

9

H. Carter, ‘Report on the Tomb of Zeser-ka-ra Amenhetep I, discovered by the Earl of Carnarvon in 1914’, JEA 3 (1916), pl. xxi. 10 Cf. J. Romer, ‘Royal tombs of the early Eighteenth Dynasty’, MDAIK 32 (1976), 203–4 and Polz, Sun Kings, 11–12 on items of later date found in the tomb or alleged to come from it. 11 Romer, MDAIK 32, 204–5, suggests that the well was added (and the burial chamber enlarged) in the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty to allow for a joint reburial of Amenhotep I in with his mother, but given that this would surely have required the emptying of the tomb first (the quarrying required can hardly have been done while the queen still lay in the tomb in view of the dust generated and scope for damage and robbery) this seems unlikely. In any case, Romer made his proposal while TT358 was still misdated to the time of Amenhotep II (cf. ibid. 194–96). 12 Porter and Moss, Top. Bib., I, 421; on the tomb’s dating to the reign of Amenhotep I, rather than II, see Z. Wysocki, ‘The results of research, architectonic studies and of protective work over the North Portico of the Middle Courtyard in the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el Bahari’, MDAIK 40 (1984), 338. Reeves’s suggestion (Valley of the Kings: The decline of a royal necropolis [London: Kegan Paul International, 1990], 18–19) that the tomb might actually have been that of Thutmose II seems unlikely at best. 13 C.C. Van Siclen, III, ‘The Temple of Meniset at Thebes’, Serapis 6 (1980), 183– 207. It is worth noting, however, that this is the only one of the candidates for 4

As for AN B’s position vis à vis that of Amenhotep’s sepulchre in the order of tombs Abbott itinerary, as Winlock long ago put it:14 The tomb of Amenophis I was that of the most prominent king and was also the most inaccessible. The inspection was made in September, and we may quite safely assume that the eleven officials, many of whom may well have been old and corpulent, would prefer to puff their way up the desolate little valley to the [a-qAi] before the sun shone down upon it in the fierceness of full mid-day heat. The first tomb examined and the findings dictated to the scribes, the commissioners and their accompanying police scrambled down the hill to the second tomb, nearly a mile away. With these two outlying tombs disposed of, [the Seventeenth Dynasty royal tombs] lay on their direct path to Dêr elBaḥrî, fully two miles distant. Therefore the party crossed its own tracks and followed along the foot of the Dirâ‘ Abu'l-Nagâ, visiting the little pyramids in their list until they reached the great avenues leading to the temples of Zeseret, where lay the last remaining tomb which they had to examine. In this, AN B scores over most of the other candidates, all of which require the itinerary to be subverted to some greater or lesser degree. On the other hand, the unlikelihood of Carter’s attempt to make the pAbbott ‘120 cubits below the a-qAi’ notation relate to the interior dimensions of the tomb, rather than its position in the landscape, has often been used to condemn the tomb as a candidate for Amenhotep I’s. However, as Nicholas Reeves has pointed out,15 there are various cairns extant on the vicinity of the tomb, one of which, or one now lost, could have been the point of reference for the pAbbott commissioners in locating the tomb of Amenhotep I.16 Also on the same north-south axis from the Amenhotep I/AhmesNefertiry temple is the rock-cut tomb-chapel K93.11 at the top of Dra Abu’l-Naga, Daniel Polz’s favoured candidate for Amenhotep I’s tomb.17 the pAbbott ‘house’ both definitely belonging to Amenhotep I and demonstrably likely to have still been extant during the late New Kingdom. 14 H.E. Winlock, ‘The Tombs of the Kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty at Thebes’, JEA 10 (1924), 223–24. 15 Valley of the Kings, 5. 16 Polz’s objections (Sun Kings, 12–13) do not allow for changes in the landscape since the New Kingdom, nor the possibility that a system of markers did indeed exist to allow navigation by the necropolis authorities. 17 Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches: zur Vorgeschichte einer Zeitenwende (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 172–97. 5

However, no material contemporary with the king appears to have been recovered from the tomb, while the extensive building-work at the tomb and the adjacent K93.12 by the high priests of Amun Ramesesnakhte and Amenhotep G and the God’s Wife of Amun Iset E18 – all active during the reign of Rameses IX – sits uneasily with it being the sepulchre of Amenhotep I reported by pAbbott as being ‘intact’ in Year 16 of the ninth Rameses. While one could argue that the rebuilding was not intended as a private usurpation, but rather as a new memorialisation of Amenhotep I, since the inner rooms seem to have been untouched by the reconstruction, the extant fragments of the latter do not seem to support such a conclusion. Accordingly, it seems most likely that AN B was indeed the tomb of Amenhotep I. An interesting feature is that the burial chamber was apparently constructed in two phases, to judge from the discontinuity in the walls in line with the further pillar, which is also smaller than the nearer example (fig. 2). The present writer had previously suggested, in the context of the tomb being that of Ahmes-Nefertiry, that this might have been done to make space for a reburial of Ahmose I from his tomb at Abydos.19 The reasoning behind this proposal remains valid in spite of the changed suggested ownership of AN B and, in view of the unlikelihood that renewed quarrying would have taken place subsequent to the interment of Amenhotep I, it would place the putative translation of Ahmose I’s body from Abydos within the reign of Amenhotep I, perhaps with a view to his re-interment at the time of the younger king’s own funeral.

18

Polz, ‘The Ramsesnakht Dynasty and the Fall of the New Kingdom: A New Monument in Thebes’, SAK 25 (1998.), 257–93; U. Rummel, ‘Grab oder Tempel? Die funeräre Anlage des Hohenpriesters des Amun Amenophis in Dra‘ Abu elNaga (Theben–West)’ in D. Kessler (ed.) Texte—Theben—Tonfragmente: Festschrift für Günter Burkard, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 348–60; id. ‘Two Re-Used Blocks of the God’s Wife Isis at Deir el-Bakhit/Dra‘ Abu el-Naga (Western Thebes)’, in M. Collier and S. Snape (eds), Ramesside Studies in Honour of K.A. Kitchen (Bolton: Rutherford Press, 2010), 423–31; id. ‘Ramesside tomb-temples at Dra Abu el-Naga’, Egyptian Archaeology 42 (2013), 14–17. 19 Dodson, Studies Weeks. 6