The burial (no. 1407) contained five vaulted coffins, one re-used Third Intermediate Period coffin and two mummies, 948 and those responsible for the burial evidently considered the village to be a sacred place. 946 Much later, other tombs at Deir el-Medina were reopened and used to deposit numerous bodies by a group of Ptolemaic mortuary workers known as ‘choachytes.’ 947 An elite Roman family (‘the Pebos family burials’) were interred in the cellar of a house at the site. Nigel Strudwick suggests that family connections and commemoration were the motivating factors behind New Kingdom tomb reuse within a short time of their original occupation, 944 and there is evidence that Theban tombs were reopened to permit the burial of several family members within them: 945 Sennedjem’s burial chamber, for instance, contained 20 individuals. 941 Tombs were sometimes used as depositories for important documents, 942 and ruined tombs were investigated and sealed after inventories of their contents had been made. 939 David Jeffreys rejects the term ‘usurpation’ on the grounds that it implies unlawful acquisition 940 it is indeed clear that at least some tombs were officially re-assigned many years after the original owner’s burial. It may be that those buried in ‘usurped’ tombs hoped to benefit from the sanctity such buildings were thought to possess. 936 Hans Goedicke 937 also proposed that reuse was not necessarily an act of disrespect, while Longden, 938 argues that, at least in terms of artefacts, reuse can forge a link between the present and the past, could be motivated by the apotropaic functions that old objects were thought to possess, and may not necessarily have carried negative connotations. John Mack suggests that in some cases tomb reuse in Egypt was not necessarily an act of usurpation, but rather a means of ‘recharging the cult with a new association’, and thus indirectly benefiting the deceased former owner. 934 The 18th Dynasty tomb of Nebamun (TT 65) also bears evidence of at least two phases of reuse, as a tomb in the 20th Dynasty and as part of the Coptic Monastery of Cyriacus. Other examples of reuse include TT 81 (Ineni), which began as an 11th Dynasty saff-tomb but was appropriated and extended by Ineni in the 18th Dynasty, the multi-period Cemetery Y at Diospolis Parva, and Roman adaptations in the Theban necropolis, for example TT 32 (Djehutymose). TT 188, Parennefer), 933 or in places where plaster has fallen away to reveal the earlier decoration beneath. 932 At Sheikh Abd el-Qurna a number of tombs exhibit evidence of reuse with the later reworking of reliefs (e. 930 The expansion of the village of Deir el-Medina saw tombs used as cellars, 931 while cemeteries in the late Hyksos period at Tell el-Daba were covered by houses as the town expanded, the tombs being incorporated into the courtyards of houses or within the houses themselves. 928 Saqqara exhibits a cycle of reuse that may have been paralleled at other multi-period sites: Old Kingdom blocks were incorporated into 18th and 19th Dynasty tombs (such as Horemheb, Maya, Tia and Tia), 929 Ramesside temples were built with old royal and non-royal masonry, and these temples in turn were dismantled for use in Medieval Cairo. Hope 927 notes a similar phenomenon in Rome, where gravestones were frequently salvaged as building material and at Karnak New Kingdom private temple statues were re-carved for subsequent owners. The colourful Qurna houses have since been demolished.ĭespite admonitions such as this, which acknowledge the trend of reusing old monuments to create new ones, tomb-reuse was common. The hill of Qurnet Mourrai (Eastern Necropolis) is on the right.įigure 53: View across the Theban necropolis towards the village and the cemetery of Deir el-Medina with the tombs of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna in the foreground and Qurnet Mourrai to the right. k) from ruins (shnyt), For what is done will be what will be done.įigure 52: View across the village from the western tombs towards the Theban necropolis. The Instruction for King Merikare, which dates to the Middle Kingdom, states clearly that tombs should not be constructed from the ruins of others: 926ĭo not build your tomb-chamber (is.
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