Saturday, February 25, 2006

A bit more on Assassif tomb

A number of people have now asked me about the Francisco Tiradritti find of a new tomb near the excavation of the tomb of Hawra in the vicinity of Deir el Bahri. I haven't seen any new information. However, here here are some bullet points that summarize the main points of the original Italian article - or at least the bits I could piece together. I don't speak a word of Italian - after failing with the online translation engines, I've done this using my very rusty Spanish, and an Italian dictionary which doesn't really cater for Egyptology. Anyone who can provide something rather better than the following hatchett job would be very welcome indeed!!
  • The new tomb was found near the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut and in the immediate vicinity of the tomb of Harwa, which is itself the focal point of a funerary complex
  • The team that found the tomb was headed by Francisco Tiradritti, in the course of excavating the tomb of Harwa who was an important official of the 25th Dynasty
  • The new tomb, which had not been explored previously by archaeologists, contained one interment
  • The tomb was robbed in antiquity
  • The tomb was behind a wall that sealed the interment, which had already been partially removed by the above-mentioned tomb robbers
  • A short corridor leads to a wall, which is unique in being shared with the well known tomb of Kheruef.
  • On the inside of the tomb there are the remains of decoration, including the complete figure of a sacred year-old calf and the posterior part of a bovine
  • The exploration of the entire funerary complex also revealed two funerary masks in decorated wood dating back to the Ptolemaic period (IV-III century to C.)

There are many other references which I simply couldn't decipher, including one to a ceiling with lotus and papyrus depictions - but I couldn't work out if this was the new tomb or the tomb of Harwa.

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