KV36

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KV36
tomb of Maiherperi

place Valley of the Kings
Discovery date March 30, 1899
excavation Victor Loret
Previous
KV35 		The following
KV37
Valley of the Kings
Valley of the Kings
(Eastern Valley)
Isometric representation, floor plan and sectional drawing of the tomb

KV36 is the tomb of the ancient Egyptian civil servant Maiherperi from the 18th dynasty . It is located in the southwest of the eastern royal valley halfway between the graves KV35 and KV13 of Amenhotep II and Baja . The small undecorated shaft grave with chamber was discovered in 1899 by Victor Loret during his second excavation season and is considered the first find of a more or less untouched grave in the Valley of the Kings. The chamber was found largely intact. It is about 3.8 m long, 4 m wide and about 1.6 m high. The shaft is about 6 m deep.

The burial chamber and the finds

Book of the Dead (excerpt) by Maiherperi

The small chamber contained an outer box coffin and three human-shaped (anthropoid) coffins, one of which was found next to and not part of the coffin ensemble . The box coffin is about 2.80 m long, 1.02 m high and 0.92 m wide. On the outside there are inscriptions and depictions of various deities, including the four children of Horus ( Horus sons ), as well as Isis and Nephthys on the short pages. It is made of wood with gilded inscriptions. The two outer coffins are black and gold-plated, the innermost being completely gold-plated, but the coffin found next to the ensemble is unpainted and only partially gold-plated. In the coffins lay the mummy mask and mummy of Maiherperi, who is a young man who clearly has Nubian features and who bore the titles of frond bearer to the right of the king and child of the cape . Apart from the discovery of a chest in the Valley of the Kings, Maiherperi has not yet been recorded outside this tomb. The chest was probably part of the burial equipment.

At the foot of the box coffin stood the canopic box with four canopic vessels . The canopic box is made of wood and is partly gilded. He stands on runners. On the front you can see the goddesses Nephthys and Isis, on the back again Nephthys and Neith . On the sides you can see the four Horus children: Amset , Hapi , Kebechsenuef and Duamutef . The four canopic jugs were in the box. They are 37 to 39.5 cm high and made of alabaster . The canopies have the shape of a human head. On the front of the vessel there is an incised inscription, which is painted in turquoise. The inscriptions name the four children of Horus, but also Isis, Nephthys, Selket and Neith. These are the common sayings on canopic jars, which later appear in the Book of the Dead 151 verse. This is also where Maiherperi's book of the dead lay , which clearly shows him again as a black African. At the same place, numerous mummified meat additions were found in wooden boxes, which have the shape of these pieces of meat. To the left of the coffin was a game board and numerous pots were stacked at the head end. The other finds in the grave again include numerous vessels, some made of alabaster, glass or faience . An Osiris bed stood against one wall, and on the second coffin were arrows and quivers made of leather, which are richly decorated.

The finds from the tomb ended up in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo . Victor Loret was unable to publish his excavations during his lifetime, so that until recently the arrangement of the finds in the small burial chamber was only known from a brief description by Georg Schweinfurth , who briefly visited the grave shortly after it was found. It was not until the University of Milan bought Victor Loret's estate and published his excavation notes, which provide precise information on the location of the grave goods.

The dating of Maiherperi is controversial. The name of Hatshepsut appears on linen from the grave , so that it was initially assumed that he lived during her reign. However, his grave is located near the grave of Amenhotep II , so that more recent research regards him more as his contemporary, which would also suit the objects in the grave stylistically better.

Looting of the grave

The grave was robbed in ancient times, probably by necropolis workers during the 19th or 20th dynasty . During the research towards the end of the 19th century, hardly any jewelry or metal vessels were found, and traces of a violent opening were also found on the coffin lids. Bandages on the mummy's arms were hacked away with an ax. The grave robbers also took away fabrics and clothing that did not belong to the corpse, but vessels with behen oil were opened, but left behind because they were too old. After the looting, the tomb was quickly repaired and re-locked by guards who wanted to avoid an investigation and lengthy trial.

Problem of the additional coffin

When the grave was discovered, Maiherperi's mummy was in two nested anthropoid wooden coffins that were placed in an outer coffin box. Another small coffin lay next to it in the chamber. Presumably the third was intended as the innermost coffin. When the mummy was transported to the grave after the burial rituals, however, it turned out to be too big to be placed in the second. The mummy was hastily embedded in the innermost of the other two and the unused transport coffin was left behind. Konstantin C. Lakomy, on the other hand, suspects that the coffin was made at the beginning of Maiherperi's career, but the coffin type went out of fashion, so that when he died, a more modern coffin type was chosen. Others suspected that the coffin was used to hold remains of embalming materials. In fact, there are some parallel examples of this, such as the newly found coffins in grave KV63 .

See also

literature

  • Georges Daressy : Fouilles de la Vallée des Rois 1898–1899 (= Matḥaf al-Miṣrī: Catalog général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire ). Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, Cairo 1902, pp. 1–62.
  • Konstantin C. Lakomy: The lion on the battlefield, The grave KV 36 and the burial of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-95490-110-4 .
  • Christian Orsenigo: La tomba di Maiherperi (KV 36). In: Victor Loret, Patrizia Piacentini, Christian Orsenigo, Stephen Quirke u. a .: La Valle dei Re riscoperta. I giornali di scavo di Victor Loret (1898–1899) e altri inediti (= Le vetrine del sapere. Volume 1). Skira: Imprimeria della Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano 2004, ISBN 88-7624-201-5 , pp. 214-221, 271-281.
  • Nicholas Reeves , Richard H. Wilkinson : The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the pharaohs. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-0739-3 , pp. 179-81.
  • Georg Schweinfurth : New Theban grave finds. In: Sphinx. Volume III, 1900, pp. 103-107.

Web links

Commons : KV36  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nicholas Reeves , Richard H. Wilkinson: The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the pharaohs. Augsburg 2000, p. 179.
  2. ^ Atlas of the Valley of the Kings. (No longer available online.) Theban Mapping Project, archived from the original on May 6, 2014 ; accessed on November 14, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thebanmappingproject.com
  3. ↑ KC Lakomy: The lion on the battlefield, The grave KV 36 and the burial of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings. Wiesbaden 2016, pp. 101–117.
  4. ↑ Nicholas Reeves, Richard H. Wilkinson: The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the pharaohs. Augsburg 2000, p. 180.
  5. ↑ Inventory number of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo : Cairo CG 24005
  6. ↑ KC Lakomy: The lion on the battlefield, The grave KV 36 and the burial of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings. Wiesbaden 2016, pp. 146–155.
  7. ↑ KC Lakomy: The lion on the battlefield, The grave KV 36 and the burial of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings. Wiesbaden 2016, pp. 155–161.
  8. ↑ See e.g. B. on papyrus: Irmtraut Munro : Investigations on the Book of the Dead papyri of the 18th Dynasty. Criteria of their dating (= Studies in Egyptology .. ). Kegan Paul, London a. a. 1987, ISBN 0-7103-0288-6 , p. 51.
  9. ^ A b Nicholas Reeves, Richard H. Wilkinson: The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the pharaohs. Augsburg 2000, p. 181.
  10. ↑ KC Lakomy: The lion on the battlefield, The grave KV 36 and the burial of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings. Wiesbaden 2016, p. 134.

Coordinates: 25 ° 44 ′ 23 ″  N , 32 ° 36 ′ 1 ″  E