The Tombs of Ptahemwia and Sethnakht at Saqqara.

• Superior document: Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities Series ; v.22
• Author: Raven, M J.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Sidestone Press,, 2020.; ©2020.
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (432 pages)

The two tombs dealt with in this book were discovered in 2007 and 2010 by the Leiden Expedition in the New Kingdom necropolis of Saqqara. Both date to the transition period between the reign of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and the return to orthodoxy under his successor Tutankhamun. They are valuable additions to the growing corpus of funerary architecture from the Memphite cemeteries, yet they are quite different.Ptahemwia was a royal butler, presumably in the Memphite palace. The wall-reliefs and inscriptions of his tomb illustrate aspects of his professional life. Yet the career of the tomb-owner preserves some mysteries, such as the assumed change of his name, his potential foreign origins, and the reason why his tomb could not be finished according to plan. Sethnakht is an even more elusive person. This simple scribe of the temple of Ptah can hardly have been the main owner of the tomb next to Ptahemwia's, which was started in the same lavish style and then remained undecorated. There are reasons to assume that Sethnakht was just one of the relatives of the owner, who - like Ptahemwia - seems to have suffered from the political vicissitudes of the period. This publication presents the results of the recent excavations, with an introduction on the biographical data of the tomb owners followed by detailed discussions of the tomb architecture and wall decorations, as well as the objects, pottery, and skeletal material found in the area. Thus it is aimed at an audience of professional readers with an interest in funerary archaeology.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Preface -- Staff of the expedition, 2007-2010, 2013, 2015‑2017 -- The site and its history -- Maarten J. Raven -- 1. The excavations -- 2. History of the site -- 3. Restoration -- The family and career of Ptahemwia and Sethnakht -- Maarten J. Raven -- 1. Ptahemwia -- 2. Sethnakht -- The architecture -- Maarten J. Raven -- 1. Introduction -- 2. General remarks on the tomb of Ptahemwia -- 3. The superstructure of Ptahemwia's tomb -- 4. The substructure of Ptahemwia's tomb -- 5. The tomb of Sethnakht -- 6. Adjacent structures -- 7. The survey -- The reliefs and inscriptions -- Maarten J. Raven and Harold M. Hays† -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The courtyard of Ptahemwia [1‑16] -- 3. The central chapel of Ptahemwia [17‑27] -- 4. Ptahemwia blocks and fragments of unknown location [28‑59] -- 5. Blocks and fragments not belonging to the tomb [60‑153] -- 6. Iconography and style (M.J. Raven) -- The graffiti -- W. Paul van Pelt and Nico Staring -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Graffiti types -- 3. Catalogue -- Objects -- Maarten J. Raven -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Old Kingdom (Cat. 1) -- 3. New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Cat. 2‑129) -- 4. Late Period (Cat. 130‑198) -- 5. Coptic Period (Cat. 199‑285) -- 6. Islamic Period (Cat. 286‑291) -- 7. Date unknown (Cat. 292‑302) -- The pottery -- Barbara G. Aston -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Fabrics -- 3. Shape terms -- 4. Ptahemwia substructure -- 5. Rim of Ptahemwia shaft -- 6. Ptahemwia chapels -- 7. Ptahemwia courtyard floor -- 8. Sethnakht substructure -- 9. Sethnakht courtyard and chapels -- 10. Feature 2010/3 -- 11. Chapel 2007/10 -- 12. Shaft 2007/6 -- 13. Surface debris -- 14. Corrections to 'The tomb of Iniuia' -- Human skeletal remains -- Ladislava Horáčková -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Material and methods -- 3. The tomb of Ptahemwia, north chapel -- 4. The tomb of Ptahemwia, central chapel.

5. The tomb of Ptahemwia, south chapel -- 6. The tomb of Ptahemwia, Chamber F -- 7. Burial 2003/13 -- 8. Coptic burials -- 9. The tomb of Sethnakht -- 10. Paleopathology -- 11. General conclusion -- Concordance of excavation numbers and catalogue numbers -- 1. Sculpture, reliefs, and inscriptions (Chapter IV) -- 2. Objects (Chapter VI) -- 3. Pottery (Chapter VII) -- Spatial distribution of reliefs and objects -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Blank Page -- Blank Page.