the president's papyrus table contents vol 6 no...weather was still and clear and 'ne...

Volume 6, Number 2November 2002

© 2002 The Amama ResearchFoundation

Robert Hanawalt, FounderPublication of The Akhetaten Sunis supported by a grant from The

Petty Foundation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Article/Author

The President's Papyrus 1• BillPetty.

EES Field Director's Report,Spring 2002 2

• Barry Kemp.

The Valley of the Kings:The Amarna RoyalTombs Project 10

• Geoffrey T. Martin.

The Identity of the AmarnaAge Tomb WV 25in the Western Valleyof the Kings 15

• Richard H. Wilkinson.

Financial Statements:

Revenues and ExpensesComparison 19

Balance Sheet 19Treasurer's Report 20

THE PRESIDENT'S PAPYRUSI am honored to have been selected as President of TheAmarna Research Foundation. In its few years ofexistence, TARF has gained a reputation for the grants ithas made in the furtherance of the research into thepreservation of Egypt's Amarna period. I intend tocontinue and build on the reputation we have thus fargained.

There are a couple of specific topics I would like toaddress at this time.

1) The Board of Trustees recently adopted a simple, butmore formal, application form to be used whenrequesting grants. To supplement this, I have asked thata local member work with each applicant, acting in thecapacity of facilitator and advocate, to assist in makingsure all the paperwork (including excavation reports) is inorder and help in reduce the burden on the applicant.

2) We have occasionally had members (and others)submit unsolicited articles for inclusion in the AkhetatenSun. We have not been able to honor these requestsbecause the Sun is the official publication of theorganization intended to provide excavation and relatedreports and was never envisioned as a general interestpublication. However, we always appreciate the thoughtsof our members. I have, therefore, decided to add aMembers Forum to our web site. Members areencouraged to submit information or original articlesconcerning the Amarna Period, which would be ofgeneral interest, for inclusion. Beginning in November,we will publish those that time and space permit.

I look forward to the next year and am confident it will bea productive and interesting one.

Bill Petty

The Akhetaten Sun - November 2002

EES FIELD DIRECTOR'S REPORT, SPRING 2002• BarryKemp.

I travelled to Minia with the first group on Thursday, February ze". The el-Miniainspectorate, under its new general director, Mr. Samir Anis, made us welcome, andlater that day 'Ne set foot on the Amarna desert and moved into the dig house. On theSaturday the magazines and the site itself were declared open to us, and all the littleroutines that make the season work got under way. Our inspector, as last year, was Mr.Helmi Hussein, whose home is the village of el-Till itself.

Desert SUiveyA few days later HelenFenwick the GPS surveyorarrived, armed with a new andmore compact model of thedifferential GPS logger, aspin-off, interestingly enough,of the involvement of the headof her department in a popularBritish television series aboutarchaeology called 'TimeTeam'. The main target forthis year's survey was the lowgravelled plateau that reachesout from the cliffs, across themiddle of the Amarna desertrather like a ragged sleevefrom the end of which protrudea set of fingers pointingtowards the city. Snugly setbetween some of the fingers(in reality rounded valleys withsandy bottoms) is theWorkmen's Village and itschapels. This is where I beganto excavate at Amarna, backin 1979. We have detailedplans of virtually everythingyou can see there, even downto lines of stones. There is nopoint in surveying it all again.But what is needed is a propercontour survey of the wholeplateau into which our existingdetail plans can be dropped, as it were. The combined result can then be joined up tothe areas surveyed last year. There was new material to add, as 'Nell. Last year Idescribed the ancient roadways that criss-cross the desert in front of the North Tombs.

Workmen's Village: The walled village itself. Two of theancient roads can be seen along the left edge of the picture(arrows).


Some of them head southwards, and are then lost where they have been swept awayby the floodwaters of desert wadis, only to reappear as they climb towards the plateauand the Workmen's Village. Once on top they join another intricate pattern, which inpart centres on the village.

The present desert surface around the base of the plateau has been much churned upby bulldozers in modern times. This makes the job of picking out the remains of theancient roads quite tricky. As last year, one of the team, Corinna Rossi scoured thedesert making sketch maps and numbering the fragments of roads as a way ofspeeding up Helen's work.

Having people up at the villageprovided us with an opportunity to doother useful things there. Although itlies only about half an hours walkaway from the dig house 'Ne do notoften get there, in part because of theneed to make prior arrangements withour police garrison. Over a number ofdays 'Ne transported the new balloonup to the village, using one of thelocal pickup trucks for part of the way,and then simply walking it the rest ofthe way to the top of the slope. Theweather was still and clear and 'Nemanaged a series of virtually trouble-

free runs, back and forth across the undulating landscape around the village, until allwas covered. Since being back, I have studied some of the pictures closely.

-.......

The aerial survey balloon. For taking it greaterdistances it can be towed by a small truck.

The most intriguing series takes inthe tops of the plateau and valleysbehind the village to the east. Thenormally smooth surface of thedesert has been disturbed bypeople looking for tombs, probablyin the early part of last century. Onthe ground the result looks a mess,but the aerial photographs showthat these diggings follow a roughpattern. They look much more like areal cemetery and imply that moretombs were dug and so moreburials made than either lor anyoneelse realised. Once Helen's mapsare available it will be possible torescale the photographs, fit themover the maps, and transfer the newcemetery data to them.

Workmen's Village: cemetery to the south-east of thevillage. The circular pits are where tombs have beendug out in the past (1920's and before). The narrowtrenches are where the 1921-22 expedition looked formore tombs.


Tucked away in another of the littlesandy valleys is a second village,which looks directly towards thecleft in the hills, which leads to theRoyal Wadi. I first noted it back in1977 and dubbed it the StoneVillage, simply because it seems tohave been largely built fromrounded natural stones. We havenever been able to fit a properinvestigation into our plans, but atleast 'Ne now have a better surfacerecord. Helen plotted in theoutlines as part of her survey, and'Ne took the balloon over it. Fromthe air some of the interior looksmore regular than you would guessfrom the ground. One can start to discern the outlines of individual buildings. Will therebe time, one day, to undertake a proper investigation?

The Stone Village (March 2002) The site lies on amarked slope, fanning downwards from the lower left tothe top right comer.

House of RaneferEach year the Amarna team contains a group whose expertise lies in environmentalarchaeology, that is, the study of ancient plants, animal bones, and insects. Amarna isnow quite famous for the unusual degree to which the desert sands preserve suchfragile remains, and the group has been very productive in its scientific publications.Important for their work is careful comparison across different parts of the site. Wehave rich samples from the Workmen's Village and from Kom el-Nana, but the main cityhas so far yielded very little. It occurred to me last year that one good place to look fordeep, dry and undisturbed deposits of soil, which might be suited to organicpreservation is a series of soil layers underneath one of the houses dug back in 1921.This is the house of Ranefer (N49.18), towards the southern end of the main city. Theexcavator of that year, T.E. Peet, had dug two holes in the floor and discovered thatRaneter's house had been built over both an earlier house and an adjacent pit filledwith earth. So for two weeks Paul Buckland, an environmental specialist, and some ofhis colleagues had the house cleaned of its sand.

Ranefer's house has survived reasonably'Nell since 1921. There has been someloss of brickwork, stone column baseshave been rolled around, and some of thefloors have been turned over. But theunderlying debris seems more or less as itwas when Peet saw it. The soil layers arethere, and do indeed contain plant andinsect remains. An amazingly 'Nellpreserved 18th Dynasty locust was onesuch find. Moreover, there is more of the

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18th Dynasty Locust


underlying house to explore. It was smaller than Ranefer's and of course raises anintriguing question. Ranefer was an officer in Akhenaten's chariotry. Did he rebuild hishouse when times got better for him, or did he move into the city after it wasestablished and buy up a plot with a small house in order to replace it with a largerone?

By the end of the two weeks the house wasclean and 'Ne planned and photographed it.But the really detailed work of examiningwhat lies underneath, by looking beneaththe rest of Ranefer's floors and also outsidein his garden, is left until next year. This hasthe makings of an exciting small-scaleinvestigation. We already have oneintriguing find from Ranefer's foundations, aroughly spherical piece of hard limestonebearing a short hieratic inscription. One ofthe team, Egyptologist Dan Lines fromBirmingham University, reads the text as aname and title 'the guardian (?) of the abode(?) of Kener. Was Kener the name of theowner of the previous house?

Repairs to Ancient BuildingsSuresh our architect was also oneof the first at the dig house,travelling down with me fromCairo. He came armed with thelists of his workmen from theprevious year and, as far as 'Necould, 'Ne took on the same twoteams of men, one for the NorthPalace and one for the Small AtenTemple. An urgent task each yearis to open up the huge garagewhere 'Ne keep the heavieroutdoor equipment, the wheel-barrows, the oil drums for water,the shovels and so on; then tocheck it over, divide it into twopiles, and send it all off to the two I. he oi k k B ones.sites on t e pIC up truc. ecause

'Ne need to keep making new bricks, each of the two sites needs a separate watersupply and regular deliveries of materials. Suresh's tried and tested recipe for a goodbrick uses vegetation-enriched earth, pebbles, gravely sand, a bit of ash, a bit of animaldung and, most important, quicklime. This is mixed with water in the drums and soseethes and bubbles for a while, and then the earth and other ingredients are added

o 5 10

Small Atan Temple - Second pylon entrance. Originallythe doorway between the pylon towers was paved withlimestone blocks. The plan is to relay the floor with newlimestone blocks of a similar size to that of the ancient

The Akhetaten Sun - November 2002 PageS

and mixed and the whole is leftto soak for a day. We have ourlocal suppliers for all of thesethings. The water supplyremains a bit of a problem.Usually 'Ne rent a large bluetanker from the AntiquitiesInspectorate, which is regularlytowed off by a tractor to berefilled. This serves the NorthPalace. But there is only onetanker. For the Small AtenTemple two men spend the

Third pylon entrance. An experimental area of stone flooring working day carrying water, twowas laid in an previous season. It remains to extend it in other buckets each, from a hand-direction, to the front and rear lines of the pylon towers. pump beside the fields over toour brickyard beside the temple, a journey of about two hundred and fifty yards on themap but which always seems much further on the ground.

At the Small Aten Temple, there is always muchto do to define more sharply the various brickelements, particularly the pylon towers, the gatesbeside the pylons, and the towers that lined theenclosure wall on the outside. Our aim is thatvisitors will gain an early impression of the layoutwith a few sweeps of the eye. Originally the widegateways between all three of the pairs of brickpylons, and the side gates, too had been flooredwith limestone blocks. The blocks have longsince gone, but a bed of gypsum concrete markswhere they had been. I have often noticed thatthe replacement of even a small amount ofstonework, door thresholds, for example, has amarked effect on the eye, and in making the sitelook more cared for perhaps encouragespeople's respect for it. If all the main gates at thetemple were to be refloored the effect would bequite striking, not least in immediately definingthe riSing ground level from front to back as oneprogresses through the temple. I thereforepurchased several hundred limestone blocks ofroughly the correct ancient size, and these arenow stacked beside the gateways awaiting ourreturn in 2003.

Second pylon entrance. In the foreground isthe northern side gateway and newbrickwork recently completed.

At the North Palace our builders completed their work on the next set of rooms alongthe rear, repairing old eroded brickwork and replacing missing elements, including a set


of square brick roof-supports,which had eroded down almost tonothing. One builder also workedhis way along the outside of therear enclosure wall, filling in adeep horizontal groove causedby differential erosion. All thisbrings us to the suite thatoccupies the centre of the palace.It includes a small throne-room atthe rear, and a large hall in front.That hall is now an almost blanksquare of dusty ground. Two

North Palace - Rooms north of the central columned hall stone column bases stand in onedurino reoairs. MarchlAoril2002 corner, but 'Ne know from

previous excavation that they areall that survives of an original setof 26, which made up a veritablehypostyle hall. Here the policy ofreplacing missing stone itemswould make a dramatic dif-ference. The first step would beto have a rigid mould made inwhich new column bases couldbe cast in a white stony concrete.We have done this successfullybefore. Our existing moulds,however, are for bases of notquite the right size for this set. I

North Palace - Rooms north of the central columned hall I am therefore, at the time ofafter repairs to the brickwork. March/April 2002 'writing, investigating having a

new one made.Amama Statue FragmentsWhilst the work goes on outside, many members of the expedition spend their days instudy on the mass of material we have in store. Last year Kristin Thompson, one of theTARF Board Members, began the labour of cataloguing the many fragments of brokenhard-stone statues of the Amarna royal family, mostly retrieved from the dumps ofprevious excavators. Both Kristin and I wrote a bit about this project in last Septembersissue of the Sun. In that report, I mentioned that one group of fragments had beentransferred to the Cairo Museum in 1982. The idea had been growing steadily in mymind of .how nice it would be to get them back, so that they could join their fellowsfound in subsequent years. It is a great pleasure to report that the Director (Dr Mamduhel-Oamati) and staff of the Egyptian Museum Cairo acknowledged the desirability ofreturning the pieces, and enabled this to happen. Kristin and myself were allowed downinto the museum basement store where 'Ne located the big crates containing the 1982pieces (around two hundred). Late in the evening of the last day of work at Amarna(March 30th

) the trucks containing the crates arrived at the dig house and, with much

The Akhetaten Sun - November 2002 page 7

difficulty (they are massivelyheavy), were transferred to themagazine, where they awaitour arrival in March. We mustnow have by far the largestcollection of Amarna statue

• I fragments anywhere.

One source of the fragments isan area some way behind thesite of Pendlebury's oldnorthern dig house. Over theyears 'Ne have broughtcollections of them back to thehouse. This year Kristin wentout with a few workmen and

lots of plastic trays and made a thorough job of bringing back the remainder. She gotthe men to dig down a little way into the desert but it seems that the pieces had notbeen buried but just left strewn on the surface.

Old Excavation dump behind the EES house in the NorthCity. Collecting fragments of hard stone statue left shallowlyburied in the 1930's and now exposed on the desert surface.Kristen Thompson supervises the collection.

Are there still more to come? I have known for some time that the area beside thenortheast corner of our own expedition house had been used by the EES expeditions ofthe early 1920s as a place forsorting carved stones obtainedfrom Maru-Aten and also forburying surplus antiquities. Werecovered one cache in 1992.This year a start was made on amore methodical clearance.Many more pieces of carvedstone came to light, togetherwith a few smaller finds. Fromthe occasional excavators mark'Ne can deduce that it is amixture of material fromBorchardt's and early EESexcavations. The latest piecesderive .from 1924, when thesouthern house was abandonedin favour of the newly builthouse in the North City. Thestonework probably comes mainly from Maru-Aten but the few 1924 pieces come fromthe house of Panehsy, excavated by Griffith. By an attractive coincidence many brokenpieces from Ranefer's front doorframe also came up and I hope next year 'Ne canrestore them in-to vessels assembled in the early EES seasons. These are the vesselson which the drawn pottery corpus published in City of Akhenaten Volume I is based.Many bear clearly legible ink a large gap in the new pottery corpus being prepared byPamela Rose.

Site of the 'south house dump' of buried artefacts fromearly excavations at Amama. The four red numbers markthe positions of most of the buried materials. Nos. 1 & 2contained most of the stonework. Nos. 3 & 4 containedmost of the pottery.

The Akhetaten Sun - November 2002 PageS

and so the helium, which we bringdown from Cairo in big heavycylinders, begins to leak out. Lastautumn the TARF board generouslyagreed to an emergency request for extra funding to cover the cost of a new envelope.I took it out in January, and in March, when our photographer Gwil Owen joined us; wemounted it in its frame, filled it, and took it on its maiden flight over the house ofRanefer. It is actually a bit longer than its predecessor and so gives us a little bit ofextra lift as 'Nell. I wish it a long life and many successful flights. And thank you, TARFmembers, for boosting our resources in this way, and for your continuing support of thefieldwork in general, which is run under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Societyand with a permit from the Supreme Council of Antiquities through your generous

The BalloonI mentioned earlier that, as the desertsurvey progressed, aerial photo-graphs taken from the expedition'sballoon accompanied it. This is awonderful TARF gift. Conditions onthe desert are, however, tough for athin plastic helium envelope (or skin).Ultra-violet rays from the sun,together with the dust and sand thatare everywhere, in time 'Near it thin

The aerial survey balloon. It is avaluable adjunct to GPS hinterlandsurvey. here above the StoneVillage (March 2002) withassistant. Hosni Osman Mohenni.

The North City: area around the north dig house.The red arrow marks the location of the 'north housedump' of stone fragments.

The aerial survey balloon. Filling the replacement balloonenvelope for the first time (March 2002). Lift is providedby helium gas.

grants.The current plan is that Suresh will spend a few'Neeks at the house in January seeing to urgentimprovements to the plumbing, and the mainexpedition will descend on Amarna at the end ofFebruary. As last year I hope to set up our email


connection at the house and so be in a position to send out the news as it happens.

The Akhetaten Sun - November 2002 Page 9

THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS:THE AMARNA ROYAL TOMBS PROJECT

• Geoffrey T. Martin.

The Valley of the Kings! A magical name, conjuring up a picture of lavishly decoratedpharonic royal tombs, buried treasure, spectacular terrain, ancient plunderers, andmodern explorers and archaeologists. It is all of this of course, but there is more to itthan that.

The Amarna Royal Tombs Project came into being five years ago, mainly as thebrainchild of Dr. Nicholas Reeves, whose books on the Valley of the Kings and thetomb of Tutankhamun will be 'Nell knows to most readers. The present writer, who hasworked on archaeological expeditions in the Sudan and Egypt each year since 1963,came on board as joint Field Director with Nicholas Reeves in the Valley in 1998. Myown interests in Egyptology are wide-ranging, but I have a special interest in Amarnastudies, having recorded and published the tomb of Akhenaten and the minor tombs inthe royal necropolis there.

The Amarna Royal Tombs The Valleyof the KingsProject has a strong NAmarna focus, since our tbelief is that the burials ofAkhenaten, Nefertiti, mostof their daughters andother members of the royalfamily, including QueenTiye, were decanted fromtheir tombs at Amarnaonce the court quitted theHorizon of the Aten duringthe reign of Tutankhamun, IIand were reburied inspecially prepared cachetombs in the ancestral

• I14T~burial grounds at Thebes -the Valley of the Kings.You may 'Nell ask why thisshould have occurred.The reason must be thatthe Royal Tomb and othertombs in the Amarna Map of the Valley of the Kings showing areas worked by ARTP.equivalent of the Valley of C Thames & Hudson. with additionsthe Kings were too remote to guard adequately once the administrative officials leftAmarna to return to Memphis and other cities. With little doubt the royal tombs in theAmarna cemeteries would have been plundered, and it is conceivable that they 'Nere infact partly disturbed, even before the transfer was undertaken.

311 TuIImaoiI'

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Amarna studies are inevitably Akhetaten-oriented. This is not surprising, since the bulkof the archaeological and inscriptional evidence derives from that site, the onlycomparable source being the Aten temple area at East Karnak. The Amarna Period isfull of controversies, which remain to be resolved. Each scholar and every 'enthusiast'has his or her own opinion on the history, chronology, religion and private funerary cult,art, daily life, etc. with regard to this period. Some of the conundrums will doubtless beresolved, and new ones created, by archaeological excavations at the town site. Butthere are other places also to investigate, and the ARTP believes the Valley of theKings is a prime one, even though it is not automatically associated with Akhenatenand his family.

Concrete evidence at our disposal includes the contents of the notorious Tomb KV55,excavated (if that is the right word) in 1907 under the auspices of Theodore Davis, andthe evidence from the neighbouring tomb of Tutankhamun (who was after all a memberof Akhenaten's family, probably his son). We feel that somewhere in the roughlytriangular area of terrain in the middle of the Valley there remains to be located crucialevidence concerning the reburials, and of the ultimate fate of the Amarna royal family.Theodore Davis' discovery showed conclusively that KV55 was destined to receive thereburials of Akhenaten and his mother Queen Tiye. Interestingly, they 'Nere likewisetogether in the Royal Tomb at el-Amarna. The question is: where are all the others?

It is of course conceivable that the reburials themselves were relocated by plunderersduring the course of the Valley's history. However, if this had been so one would haveexpected a sprinkling of objects, broken or otherwise, to have emerged duringexcavations in the Valley from the time of Belzoni in the early nineteenth century downto the time of Howard Carter. Yet there is virtually nothing. Plenty of objects namingAkhenaten, Neferneferuaten and other members of their family 'Nere found in the tombof Tutankhamun, having been commandeered and sometimes reinscribed by theofficials responsible for the interring, at short notice, of the youthful king. Some ofthese objects were doubtless once in tombs in the royal necropolis at el-Amarna. Butthat is another story.

Members of the ARTP team with sponsor Barbara Mertzand Dennis Forbes C Georae Johnson

If our team, which is international inmakeup, with members from theUSA, Egypt and Japan, as 'Nell asGreat Britain, is fortunate enough tolocate even one of the 'missing'cache tombs, imagine how muchknowledge would accrue, withcareful excavation, about theAmarna Period and the royal family.And if that tomb turned out to bethat of Queen Nefertiti ('King'Neferneferuaten/Smenkhkare?) ... !


Beneath several feet of modern 'landscaping'debris, excavators' spoil and ancient chippings

Photogrammetry of Ramessid work- I from the cutting of tombs lie the remains of amen's houses on site 1. C ARTP . .workmen's settlement. This IS a counterpart of thevillage of Deir el-Medina just over the mountain to the east, though our hutments are farsimpler than the Deir el-Medina houses, which after all were permanent living quarters.In the hutments no doubt squatted the necropolis guards who protected the royal valleyby night, and the foremen and gangs of workmen - masons, plasterers, draughtsmen,artists - who were in the Valley daily to carry out work on a newly commissioned royaltomb. It seems practically certain that such houses cover the floor of most of the Valley.Howard Carter, in looking for Tutankhamun, encountered just such houses (they adjoinour excavation site), and when he excavated beneath them ... ! Our difficulty at themoment is that, because of therestricted nature of the area in which'Ne are working, vee have not beenable to go deep enough without risk tolife and limb. The acquisition anderection of a metal bridge in 2002 (agenerous loan from a Japaneseconstruction company working inKajima, Egypt) means that 'Ne havemanaged at last to penetrate deeperwithout hindering tourist access to theinner part of the Valley and thespectacular tombs there: Tuthmosis III,Amenophis II, Horemheb and theothers.

In the meantime 'Ne have more prosaic but stillfascinating material to record for science. Ourexcavation area is 'sensitive', and it is virtuallycertain it has not hitherto been excavated tobedrock. It is in the most congested part of theValley from the touristic point of view, withthousands of visitors trudging past our trenchesevery day during the excavating season and most,understandably, want a view of what is going on.Thus 'Ne can only work slowly and painstakingly,which is how it should be. But in the small areaso far partially cleared, betW'een the tombs ofRamesses III and Ramesses VI, 'Ne haverecovered material of extraordinary interest,throwing entirely new light on the history of theValley.


I have already mentioned both ancient andmodern debris, and even the latter is filled withpieces of royal tomb equipment overlooked byprevious researchers. Much of this is a realaddition to our knowledge of this corpus ofartifacts, even though it is fragmentary. It wasnice to be able to rejoin a portion (found in oneof our early seasons) of the sarcophagus ofHoremheb to the sarcophagus itself, which isstill situated in his magnificent tomb adjacent toour concession. A fragment of his alabastercanopic chest in Cairo emerged soon after. Inthe settlement levels as 'Nell 'Ne are findingevidence revealing more of the daily life of theValley workforce. These finds included: in situhearths, pottery, food remains and the like, as'Nell as plenty of evidence of their 'extra-curricular activities in the form of drawings and

Large limestone ostracon in Amama style I sketches ~n fragments of li~esto~e (ostraca),from ARTP site 1. C> ARTP r one of which was rendered In obVIOUSAmarna

style. Other ostraca turn out to beadministrative in nature. In the houses too 'Ne encounter artifacts called byEgyptologists 'jeux de nature', pieces of natural flint and limestone resembling eitherthe voluptuous female form (often embellished in paint by ancient artists in the Valley)or the omnipresent Sun rising over the horizon. These objects are very probably culticin nature, and relate to the beliefs of the people living in Deir el-Medina and working inthe Valley of the Kings. These are just some of the classes of objects 'Ne haveuncovered in our first four shortish seasons of excavation. There is still much to do.

Rock inscriptions adjacent to our sitemay furnish another piece ofevidence about the possibleexistence of undiscovered caches inor near our present work. Anecropolis scribe called Wanenneferhas scratched his name severaltimes nearby. No doubt he was oneof those responsible for the securityof the royal tombs. It transpires thathis name also occurs adjacent to thetomb entrances of Amenophis II,Horemheb, KV58, and KV56 justalong the way from our excavationarea. Can it be that he was mainlyresponsible for the area included inour excavation concession, and that under his feet he knew that there 'Nere otherhidden tombs or cached burials? Only time will tell.

Rock cut shrine on ARTP site 4 as discovered. C ARTP


In the meantime 'Ne have much to assimilate andmasses of material of all kinds to record andanalyze. We have in fact enough for a preliminarypublication. I have only touched on some of theaspects of our work. A bonus at the very end ofthe 2002 season in late February was thediscovery of a small niche or rock-cut shrine not farfrom the entrance of the tomb of Ramesses III.Only one other such shrine is known in the Valley,in an inaccessible spot below the tomb ofTuthmosis III. The walls of our niche aredecorated and a votive stela was still inside.

Searching for cached burials and investigating thesettlement pattern of the Valley of the Kings arenow our two main objectives. We are alsoconcerned about the protection of the monumentsin the Valley from flash floods (hence the total I Interior of rock cut shrine with stelaremoval or partial redistribution of flood-borne and to Meretseger in situ. C ARTPexcavators' debris is crucial), and the pressingneed for the re-excavation and recording of tombs that were somewhat hurriedly dealtwith in the past. These concerns prompted our work in KV56, which was originallycleared by Theodore Davis, who found a magnificent cache of gold jewellery there.The tomb turns out to be a large and impressive chamber approached by a deep shaft.

Aside from the find plan and sections 'Ne now haveat our disposal, 'Ne also excavated copious sherdmaterial there, and more pieces of gold jewellery stillremained to be discovered, the first to have beenexcavated in the Valley since the discovery ofTutankhamun. The jewellery elements, discoveredby Theodore Davis, are part of the Ramessideparure now in the Cairo Museum. The tomb couldhave been one of the 'cache' tombs I have alreadymentioned more than once.

Gold plaque with cartouches ofSethos II from KV56 - part of thesusoension. C ARTP

Readers will doubtless see from these few briefwords that 'Ne have a unique chance to advance theknowledge of many aspects of the Valley of theKings over the coming years. We have the generousapproval and logistical and administrative support ofour friends and colleagues on the Supreme Councilof Antiquities, in Cairo and in Luxor.


[Perhaps of interest to our general readership is this description of the jewetlery fromKV56 mentioned above. "The finds recovered from within K56 included a circlet,earrings, several finger-rings, bracelets, a series of necklace ornaments and amulets, apair of silver 'gloves' and a silver sandal." C.N. Reeves, Valley of the Kings. KeganPaul, 1990. pg.131. DAHl

Page 14

The Identity of the Amarna Age Tomb WV 25in the Western Valley of the Kings

.Richard H. Wilkinson.

The University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition has worked in the Valley of the Kingssince 1989 and has excavated and studied a number of royal tombs there over thecourse of the past 13 years. During that time the Expedition has spent several seasonsworking in the Western branch of the royal necropolis 0 the so-called West Valley 0

studying the tombs of the Amarna age kings found there. Although both the earliest andlatest of these tombs, those of Amenhotep III (WV 22, referring to tomb number 22 inthe West Valley) and Ay (WV 23), were decorated and inscribed for their occupants,the uninscribed tomb known only as WV 25 which lies between them has long been anenigma.

The First Tomb of Akhenaten?It is usually thought that WV 25 may be the first tomb begun by AmenhotepIV/Akhenaten before that king moved to his new city of Akhetaten and built his famousroyal tomb there. This presumed identity of the uninscribed tomb is based on itsgeneral position in the West Valley and on the size and design of its architectural

features, all of which wouldseem to place the monumentchronologically between thoseof Amenhotep III and Ay. Thetomb was discovered byGiovanni Belzoni in hisexplorations of 1816-17 alongwith the tomb of Ay and theshaft tomb known as WV 24which lies betW'een Ay's tomband WV 25 (and which mayhave been cut originally as astorage annex for WV 25 in thesame way that Amenhotep Ill'stomb had a similar storage

Map of the end of the westem branch of the Valley of the I annex "tomb" known as WV A).Kings shOwing the locations of tombs WV 23, 24, and 25.

Although Egyptology is indebtedto Belzoni's persistent and profitable work of search and discovery, it is also hamperedby the fact that, in the mode of his day, the Italian strongman sought artifacts ratherthan archaeological features, and the latter were sometimes jeopardized or destroyedin the frenzied effort to find the former. This is particularly clear in Belzoni's famous useof a battering ram to open WV 25, a procedure that accomplished its goals but withlittle regard for the tomb itself. Belzoni's damage to the architectural record of WV 25did not begin with the ram, however, and the intrepid explorer may 'Nell haveunintentionally destroyed some key evidence for this tomb.


A Way to Solve the EnigmaEvidence from within the tomb that could be used to ascertain the owner or builder ofWV 25 is entirely lacking. The tomb is unfinished and undecorated. It appears that, forsome reason, the construction of the tomb was halted abruptly and the workmen neverreturned. One way in which the enigma of WV 25's origin might be solved would be thediscovery of a foundation deposit pit 0 or pits 0 containing inscribed objects providingclear identification of the tomb's owner. Such pits were constructed for a number ofNew Kingdom royal tombs, including the tomb of Amenhotep III in the same valley. Ifthe supposition that WV 25 represents the very next royal tomb cut in the West Valleyis correct, which it would be if it is indeed the first tomb begun for Akhenaten, then itseems likely that foundation deposit pits could exist for that tomb also. While earlierexcavations conducted in front of the tomb and cursory examinations of the surfacelevels at the sides of the tomb did not uncover any such pits, the University of ArizonaEgyptian Expedition decided that the area should be searched thoroughly in order tomake an archaeological determination of this situation.

Part 9f the University of Arizona team excavating thewestem side of Tomb WV2S.

Richard Wilkinson pointing out stratigraphic levels inone of the few areas where they were clear on theheavilv disturbed western side of the tomb.

In the spring of 2000, the Expeditionrequested and was grantedpermission by the Supreme Councilof Antiquities to conduct a thoroughsearch of the areas around this tombin the hope of finding foundationdeposit pits. This work was fundedby a number of gifts of supportincluding a generous grant from TheAmarna Research Foundation(TARF). Unfortunately, however,work conducted in the summer of2000 provided only a testament toBelzoni's probing of the slopes to the'Nest of WV 25.

The stratigraphic sequence of thisarea, or what is left of it, begins witha layer of surface debris consistingmainly of dirt and rocks of varioussizes (Level 1) deposited bynumerous floods over the centuries.Beneath this surface layer was alayer of clean white limestone chipsof various sizes (Level 2), whichrepresented the stone that wasremoved and dumped in the courseof the construction of tomb 25. Belowthe layer of tomb chips was a layer ofundisturbed dirt, which would have


been the level of the surface at the time the tomb, was constructed (Level 3). This thirdlevel ended at the hard packed level of rock and taf/ that represents the upper surfaceof the bedrock limestone gebel (Level 4).

But in most of the area excavated to the 'Nestof the tomb, these stratigraphic levels hadbeen churned in the past, almost certainly by Belzoni in the course of his discovery oftomb 25. Our excavations turned up only small fragments of artifacts in this disturbedarea and no sign of a foundation pit was discovered, although given the degree of thearea's disturbance, this was hardly surprising.

Major Stratigraphie Levels Common to Excavated Areas Around Tomb WV-25

Level 1: Post-New Kingdom level 0 Loose packed surface debris

Level 2: Tomb construction level 0 Limestone chips cut from tomb

Level 3: Pre-tomb ground level 0 Mostly similar to Level 1 above

Level 4: Underlying gebel 0 Hard-packed rock and limestone beds

Foundation PitOur summer 2001 season's work on this project, again supported in part by TARF,therefore involved searching the remaining unexplored area to the eastern side of theentrance to tomb WV 25. This area exhibited the same stratigraphic sequence, but incontrast to our excavation of the heavily disturbed areas to the 'Nestof the tomb, only asmall amount of disturbance was evident.

In the course of excavating this area, Nubie Abd el-Basset, our Expedition's reis,discovered a feature that 'Ne soon realized represented the remains of a foundationdeposit pit. This feature was located 2.7 meters from the axis line at the center of thetomb entrance in exactly the area one would expect a pit to have been dug.

The pit, which was cut into theNew Kingdom surface layer andunderlying hard pack at the baseof the limestone chip level, wasjust over 30 cm deep on itsnorthern edge, although it hadbeen dug through on its southernhalf at some point. The edges ofthat half of the pit were,therefore, less distinct, but it wasclear that the feature had beennearly circular in plan 0 about45 cm across on its east-westaxis.

The remains of the foundation deposit pit discovered on theeast side of the entrance to WV 25.


The surface level around the lip of the pit had been carefully smoothed and exhibitednumerous cut marks where harder areas had been leveled. Small stones and hard packon the sides and base of the pit also exhibited cut surfaces. Most of the pit was linedwith fine, clean, yellowish-grey river sand 0 totally unlike the surrounding soil type 0

and not mixed with any other substance although the pit itself was filled with intrusivelimestone chips from the layer above.

The horizontal and vertical loci, size, shape, and river sand lining of this feature clearlyindicated that it represented the remains of a foundation deposit pit dug through (anddoubtless emptied of its artifactual contents) at some time, and almost certainly byBelzoni's workmen in the course of their probing of the area at the time of WV 25'sdiscovery.

Empty - But Not Without ValueThis discovery leads us to believe that, just like the tomb of Amenhotep III which lies alittle distance away, foundation pits may 'Nell have been placed around WV 25,probably directly in front of the tomb on the axis of the tomb entrance and on each sideof the entrance itself. The first of these could have been destroyed by Belzoni'sdigging or even placed in the area in which New Kingdom workmen's huts 'Nere laterbuilt, if those structures 'Nere built after WV 25 was constructed. Any pit directly on the'Nest side of the tomb entrance was doubtless destroyed in the course of Belzoni'sthorough probing, as revealed by our excavation of that area. The damaged pit that'Ne discovered on the east side of the entrance was most likely the only survivingexample of such pits for this particular tomb.

Although the remains of the one surviving pit were clear enough, the tomb which wasprobably Akhenaten's first funerary monument remains, like Akhenaten himself, asmysterious and enigmatic as ever. On the other hand, despite the fact that the pit hadbeen emptied, depriving us of conclusive evidence of the ownership of WV 25, ourexcavation nevertheless established the existence of a deposit pit or pits for thisintriguing monument and provided another link in the history of foundation depositsassociated with New Kingdom royal tombs.

Certainly the knowledge that WV 25 did originally have one or more foundation depositpits was worth the time spent carefully excavating the area around the tomb. TheAmarna Research Foundation's support of this project was therefore both worthwhileand of great help in achieving this understanding.

Dr. Richard H. Wilkinson is a professor at the University of Arizona and is the Director ofthe University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition.


MOTIF AUGNMENT PROJECTIn addition to its excavation work, the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition alsoconducts another ongoing project in the Valley of the Kings: the Motif AlignmentProject, which aims to understand the underlying symbolism of the way in which thedecoration of the royal tombs was organized. This orientational symbolism of NewKingdom royal tombs has been little studied until recent years and the project is findingmany aspects of royal tomb decoration that have not been noted or understood before.While it is known that as early as the 18th dynasty, the ancient Egyptians consideredthe entrance to the royal tomb to be symbolically located in the south (despite actualcardinal directions), a good deal of evidence indicates that during the 19th dynastyanother symbolic orientation was utilized in which the royal tomb was considered to lieon an east-west axis.

The Motif Alignment Project is collecting and studying the evidence for this symbolic re-alignment and its influence on the decoration of the Ramesside tombs and alsoapplying what is learned to the tombs of the Amarna Period. For the past few years, theExpedition has conducted seasons of photography and recording in various NewKingdom royal tombs and is producing a CD-ROM, which will allow full study of motifalignment in the Valley of the Kings.

Comparison of Three Years Revenue and Expenses forThe Amama Research Foundation

Fiscal Year2000

Beginning balanceDonations receivedExpensesGrantsE.,~ing balance

$ 70313,099(3,091)(7,816)

$ 2,895

Fiscal Year2001

Fiscal Year2002

$ 2,89518,225(1,880)

(10,912)$ 8,328

$ 8,32815,446(2,382)(1,308)

$ 20,084

Balance Sheet forThe Amama Research Foulldation

As of September 30, 2002

AssetsTotal assets

$ 20,084.64$ 20,084.64

LiabilitiesTotal liabilities -0-

Fund balanceFrom previous years operationsFor current year

Fund balance

~ -0-

~

$ 23,774.98(3,690.34)

$ 20,Q84£4

Note: This balance sheet reflects cash items only and does not incluRWnon-items suchas amortization and depreciation. This balance sheet has not been ~\.I(:tited.


Treasurer's ReportFor the Period Ending September 30, 2002

To: Board of TrusteesThe Amarna Research Foundation

From: Evan H. Mitchell

Date: September 30, 2002

At the close of the fiscal year which ended on September 30, 2002, The AmarnaResearch Foundation had cash in the amount of $20,084.64. Donations receivedduring the year 'Nere $15,446.40 with expenses of $2,382.59 an grants made totalling$1,307.75.

The expenses for the year by category were:Foundation publications, including postageAdvertising for new membersOther (Bi-annual state fee)

$ 1,417.59940.0025.00

There was no compensation made to any trustee. All served in a voluntary capacity.

Grants made this year were:

·American Friends of Cambridge UniversityEquipment purchased by TARF and shipped to

the EES directly from the dealer

$ 543.00

764.75

A further grant to the American Friends of Cambridge University in the amount of$9,000.00 was approved in September 2002. When paid, this grant will reduce thefund balance by an additional $9,000.00.

Money donated to the American Friends of Cambridge University was earmarked forthe McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research with the request that such funds beallocated to the Amarna Project under the direction of Barry Kemp.

Evan H. MitchellTreasurer, The Amarna Research Foundation


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