cemetery
The main cemetery of the elite of Elkab is located in a freestanding rocky hill approximately 50m high, at a distance of 450m north-east of the city walls. The hill is separated from the rock massif by a narrow ravine. Over 300 tombs were discovered there. Among them, there is a row of tombs situated in the south slope of the hill, facing the river. Two of these tombs cut in the rock can surely be dated to the reign of Hatshepsut.
The tombs were entirely hewn in the sandstone cliff on a slope of the hill and faced the Nile. The location of the cemetery and the general shape of the tombs are characteristic for the elite tombs of the turn of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the 18th dynasty in the province[1] and, although situated in similar way, they differ in plan from those located in necropolei of Thebes. Their plans are similar and contain a single room with a niche in the rear wall and a burial pit in front of the tomb. In the case of the tomb of Pa-heri, the sloping ramp leads to the courtyard.
Footnotes
- ^ Cf. tombs in Hierakonpolis, 482: Preliminary Report on Field Work at Hierakonpolis: 1996-1998 - - 1999 - Friedman, Renée F., Maish, Amy, Fahmy, Ahmed G., Darnell, John C., Johnson, Edward D..
Bibliography:
- Naville, Edouard, Griffith, Francis Llewellyn, Tylor, Joseph John, Ahnas el Medineh (Herakleopolis Magna) with Chapters on Mendes, the Nome of Thoth, and Leontopolis. The Tomb of Paheri at el Kab, Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund XI, London 1894
- Tylor, Joseph John, Wall drawings and monuments of El Kab. The tomb of Paheri, London 1895
- Davies, W. Vivian, A View from Elkab: The Tomb and Statues of Ahmose-Pennekhbet, in: Dorman, Peter F., Bryan, Betsy M., Galán, José M., Occasional Proceedings of the Theban Workshop. Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut. Papers from the Theban Workshop 2010, Chicago 2014, 381-401
- O'Connell, Elisabeth R., Davies, W. Vivian, British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu, 2010, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 16, 2010, 102-104
- O'Connell, Elisabeth R., Davies, W. Vivian, British Museum Expedition to Elkab and Hagr Edfu, 2011, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 17, 2011, 2-4
- Porter, Bertha, Moss, Rosalind L.B., Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings V. Upper Egypt: Sites (Deir Rîfa to Aswân, Excluding Thebes and the Temples of Abydos, Dendera, Esna, Edfu, Kôm Ombo and Philae), 2nd ed., Oxford 1962, 176-181
- Limme, Luc, Elkab, 1937-2007: seventy years of Belgian archaeological research, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 9, 2008, 19-23