Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh (34 page)

Senenmut selected a (then) little used area of the Theban necropolis for his first tomb, securing a highly desirable, and highly visible, location on the brow of the hill now known as the Sheikh Abd el-Gurna. His choice of site was to prove well judged. He was soon joined by two of his illustrious contemporaries, the steward Amenhotep (Tomb 73) and the royal tutor Senimen (Tomb 252), and several lesser-ranking officials quickly followed suit, making Gurna one of the most popular private cemeteries on the West Bank during the reigns of Hatchepsut and Tuthmosis III. Senenmut's own tomb ultimately served as a focal point for a number of less important burials, and clearance of the hillside below Tomb 71 in the 1930s revealed a scattering of subsidiary inhumations; an unknown woman in a cheap wooden coffin wearing a scarab inscribed for the ‘God's Wife Neferure’, an unknown male wrapped in reed matting, a boy named Amenhotep who may have been Senenmut's much younger brother, a male singer named Hormose who was buried with his lute beside him, two anonymous human bodies in anthropoid coffins and the bodies of a horse and an ape, each mummified and in its own coffin.

Fig. 7.5 Plan and reconstruction of the façade of Tomb 71

An ostracon fortuitously recovered from the forecourt of Tomb 71 fixes the exact date that work on the site commenced to ‘Year 7 [of Hatchepsut's reign], spring, day 2: the beginning of work in the tomb on this day’. The steep slope at the summit of the hill presented Senenmut's architect with an immediate technical problem. The front wall of the tomb could be cut directly into the rock face, but in order to provide the tomb with the traditional forecourt it was necessary to construct an artificial terrace; this problem was solved by working on the terrace and the tomb simultaneously, recycling the debris being excavated within the tomb and using it to build a buttressed terrace extending eastward over the descending slope of the hill. A long but narrow forecourt was then sited on top of the terrace, and two deep pits of unknown purpose were excavated, one on each edge of the forecourt. When the collapsed terrace was investigated in 1935–6 the intact burial chamber of Ramose and Hatnofer was discovered. Wine labels dated to Year 7 within this tomb confirm the date that construction started on Tomb 71 as, given its position beneath the artificial terrace, this chamber must have been excavated before the major building work commenced.

The plan of Tomb 71 is that of a simple inverted T-shape extending into the Sheikh Abd el-Gurna, topped by a rock-cut shrine which was originally intended to house a statue of Senenmut holding the Princess Neferure. The imposing façade, cut from the sloping rock and extended by the use of stone walls so that the tomb rose above the natural slope of the hill, has a central doorway and eight almost square windows which admit light into the transverse entrance hall. This hall, with its eight faceted columns, its row of statue-niches set into the western wall and its distinctive decorated ceiling, makes a suitably impressive entrance for visitors to the tomb.

A tall but narrow axial corridor extends at right-angles out of the hall, running westwards into the cliff for almost 24 m (78 ft) and ending in a wall which originally housed a red quartzite false-door stela inscribed with sections of Chapter 148 of the
Book of the Dead
‘… may you give to the steward Senenmut life, prosperity, joy and endurance’. Above the false door was a small stone-lined statue niche designed to hold a statue of the deceased.

The walls and ceiling of the hall and corridor were originally coated with fine plaster and lavishly decorated with colourful murals and
painted hieroglyphic texts. Unfortunately, very little of the original artwork now survives, although the colourful Hathor-headed frieze in the hall is still clearly visible. One particular scene, depicting the presentation of a tribute by six Aegean men (now sadly reduced to three) carrying a variety of distinctive vessels, is justly famous as a contemporary documentation of the links between Egypt and Minoan Crete during Hatchepsut's reign.

The clearance of the tomb in 1930 led to the discovery of Senenmut's once magnificent red-brown quartzite sarcophagus, now smashed into over a thousand pieces and spread all over the interior of the tomb and the surrounding hillside. Two fragments were recovered from the tomb of the 11th Dynasty Vizier Dagi, more than 100 m (328 ft) to the north of Senenmut's tomb, while some of the more substantial pieces were found to have been re-cycled into grinding stones and other useful objects by enterprising locals. Larger fragments of the sarcophagus had already been collected and sold by antiquities traders, and some had even made their way into private European collections. It is perhaps not surprising, given these circumstances, that less than half of the sarcophagus and lid have yet been recovered.
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Painstaking reconstruction has shown that the sarcophagus was originally an oblong box with rounded corners giving it a cartouche-shaped plan-form. It measured 236 X 88 × 89 cm (7 ft 9 in x 2 ft 10 in × 2 ft 10 in). The kneeling figures of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys were carved on the head and foot ends, while the four sons of Horus and two manifestations of Anubis decorated the sides. Inside the sarcophagus was carved the standing figure of Nut, her arms stretched wide and extending up the sides of the box. Funerary texts taken from the
Book of the Dead
were inscribed on both the inside and the outside walls. The exterior walls were originally polished and painted a dark red in an attempt to enhance the natural colour of the stone, and touches of yellow and blue paint were added to highlight details such as wigs, bracelets and collars. In marked contrast, the lid was left plain and unfinished.

The undamaged sarcophagus must have appeared highly similar to the sarcophagus prepared for Hatchepsut in her role as king (see
Chapter 4
). Many of the measurements are identical, although Senenmut's sarcophagus is slightly shorter and has two rounded ends
rather than a rounded head end and a flat foot end. This similarity in plan-form is perhaps not surprising, given that Senenmut was responsible for commissioning and perhaps even designing Hatchepsut's funerary equipment, and given that there are only a limited number of practical variations on the basic sarcophagus theme. What is surprising is that Senenmut was able to acquire any form of hard stone sarcophagus. During the 18th Dynasty, burial for most wealthy private Egyptians involved placing the mummified body inside an anthropoid wooden coffin which was in turn placed within a large shrine-shaped wooden coffin. Multiple coffins were occasionally used in more elaborate interments, but even the multiple coffins of Yuya and Thuyu, the non-royal parents of Queen Tiy, were only of gilded wood. As has already been noted, Queens Ahhotep and Ahmose Nefertari were interred in wooden sarcophagi, and it is possible that the body of Tuthmosis I was also originally housed in a wooden shrine. A quartzite sarcophagus would have been a very valuable asset and, in theory at least, must have been the gift of the queen. It may even be that a rejected prototype royal sarcophagus was adapted for Senenmut's private use, with or without the permission of its official owner; this would explain why a few word-endings in the carved text have a feminine rather than a masculine form, suggesting that the text had originally been intended for a woman.

Quartzite, a compacted sandstone which was both far more precious and far harder to work than granite, occurs naturally at several sites in Egypt: at Gebel Ahmar, just outside modern Cairo, between Cairo and Suez, in the Wadi Natrun, in Sinai, at Gebelein, Edfu and Aswan. Unfortunately, it is not possible to pinpoint the exact source of the quartzite used in Senenmut's sarcophagus, but it is likely to have come from the Gebel Ahmar as this was the major quartzite quarry, and we know that blocks from this site were transported to Thebes during the 18th Dynasty. The pharaoh had a monopoly over the quarrying of all hard stone and, in the cashless economy of ancient Egypt, it was simply not possible – in theory at least – for a private individual to turn up at the quarry and purchase a block of stone for his own use. All stone was quarried on the order of the monarch and all the quarried stone belonged to the monarch, although Senenmut, in his role as overseer, would have been in a better position than most to commission his own
work. However, it is hard to see how the commissioning and transporting of such a costly, heavy and labour-intensive object could ever have been kept secret from the queen. The sarcophagus must have been roughed out at the quarry before being transported up river by barge to Thebes, a far more difficult task than the transport of granite down river from Aswan as, if the quartzite originated at Gebel Ahmar, it had to be moved against the flow of the river. On arrival at Thebes the sarcophagus must have been dragged overland to Sheikh Abd el-Gurna and hoisted up the steep slope to the tomb where, the unfinished state of the lid suggests, the final carving was performed.

Beneath the public rooms of Tomb 71, two uneven passageways run at an oblique angle, eventually uniting to form a chamber which in turn leads into the tomb of Anen (Tomb 120). Anen, Second Prophet of Amen and brother of Queen Tiy, built his tomb to the north of Tomb 71 approximately one century after all work had stopped on Senenmut's tomb. It was originally accepted that these subterranean passageways must represent the corridors leading to Senenmut's burial chamber, an interpretation which was based more upon the current belief that Senenmut had fully intended to be buried within his tomb – but where? – than on strict archaeological evidence. There is now considerable doubt that these corridors were ever deliberately linked to Tomb 71; the possibility that they represent tunnelling from the tomb of Anen which has weakened the floor of the older tomb, causing it to collapse, is worthy of serious consideration. It is certainly difficult to see how the passageways could have been entered from Tomb 71, and there is now no trace of an entrance or vertical pit in the surviving floor of the axial corridor. Unfortunately, the passages cannot now be fully explored as they have been completely blocked with debris.
²⁵

If the subterranean corridors are to be excluded from our consideration, where then should we look for the burial chamber? The fact that Senenmut was prepared to go to a great deal of trouble to have his precious sarcophagus delivered to Tomb 71 indicates that he was, at the time the sarcophagus was commissioned, fully intending to be interred there. Therefore we may conclude that he must have planned a burial chamber within the tomb. The two deep pits excavated into the tomb forecourt may possibly represent unfinished burial shafts but, given their size and position, this seems unlikely. The northern pit is now
inaccessible and the southern pit, which is 7 m (22 ft 11 in) deep, shows no trace of a burial chamber. A pit cut into the south-east corner of the transverse hall is, however, worthy of further consideration.
²⁶
The pit descends for 1.9 m (6 ft 2 in) and then opens into a small room measuring 3.5 x 1 x 1.05 m (11 ft 5 in x 3 ft 3 in x 3 ft 5 in). At first sight it may be felt that the cramped size of this chamber makes it a very unlikely final resting place for the great Senenmut, and more likely that it was intended for the subsidiary burial of a member of his family. However, it was not customary to inter 18th Dynasty private individuals with large numbers of grave goods, and a burial chamber only needed to be large enough to house the deceased's sarcophagus or coffin plus his canopic jars. Traditionally it was the upper, public, part of the tomb which needed to be both spacious and imposing; the actual burial chamber was relatively unimportant and could be as small as was practically possible. In the absence of any more obvious burial shafts, we must conclude that this small chamber was Senenmut's intended final resting place.

Senenmut's tomb was substantially complete when all building work ceased; only the burial chamber and the rock-cut shrine above the tomb were obviously unfinished, and the latter may well already have been abandoned due to flaws in the natural rock. At some point following its completion, however, Tomb 71 suffered a great deal of damage. Some of this, such as the collapse of the ceiling in the transverse hall and the extensive damage to the painted plaster walls, is a natural result of the poor quality of the rock on the Sheikh Abd el-Gurna. Other damage appears to have been entirely deliberate – a determined if somewhat ineffective attempt to physically remove the name and image of Senenmut from the tomb. For a long time it was accepted that this desecration had occurred soon after Senenmut's death, instigated by either Hatchepsut or Tuthmosis III. However, the archaeological evidence is not entirely consistent with this theory. While it is true that a deliberate attempt has been made to erase the names of both Senenmut and Hatchepsut, the names ‘Amen’, ‘Mut’ and ‘gods’ have also been excised from sections of the ceiling, implying that at least some of the damage may have occurred during the Amarna period. Further odd spots of random vandalism – such as attacks on the face of Hathor included in the wall frieze – remain undated, but probably occurred during the Christian era.