cemetery
3rd Upper Egyptian nome
25°18′ N
32°33′ E
Located on the west bank of the Nile, four kilometers to the north-west from Esna on the desert edge adjoining the cultivated land. The surface of the cemetery was almost flat, sloping slightly towards the west.
The necropolis of Esna was in use from the early 12th dynasty onwards.[1] Most tombs on the cemetery were plundered and the excavations made by John Garstang and his assistant E. Harold Jones took only two seasons with the result of more than 300 graves opened and checked. The documentation left by the excavators is not sufficient to reconstruct the exact shape of the cemetery and its history. Therefore, Dorothy Downes used the term 'groups' from one archaeological context, not interpreting them as tombs.[2] The lack of homogeneity of the material in some cases was caused by intrusions from other periods that were the consequence of reusing the tombs in later times.[3]
According to D. Downes' research, the earliest tombs were situated on the edge of the desert and the cemetery expanded towards the west.[4] On the basis of pottery seriation Barry Kemp supposed, however, that the tombs were located in two main groups: northern and southern ones and the latter was earlier.[5] The methodology of research conducted by B. Kemp was later rejected by L. Op de Beeck.[6]
D. Downes regarded thirty-seven tombs as dated to the early 18th dynasty,[7] but only seven of them were described by her in detail. In most of these tombs, scarabs from the early 18th dynasty were mixed with those from the Second Intermediate Period.[8] The equipment of the deceased was in general very modest: pottery, beads, scarabs, some tools and, more seldom, weapons.[9]
The activity on the necropolis during the reign of Hatshepsut is attested only by one cowroid with the prenomen of the queen found in the tomb no. 355.
Footnotes
- ^ Garstang, John, Excavations at Hierakonpolis, at Esna, and in Nubia, Annales du Service des antiquités de l'Égypte VIII, 1907 , 142; Downes, Dorothy, The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906, Warminster 1974, 3; Op de Beeck, Lies, Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna, Chronique d'Egypte LXXXI/161-162, 2006, 96, 109.
- ^ 288: The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906 - - 1974 - Downes, Dorothy; 302: Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna - - 2006 - Op de Beeck, Lies.
- ^ 302: Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna - - 2006 - Op de Beeck, Lies.
- ^ 288: The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906 - - 1974 - Downes, Dorothy.
- ^ 349: rev. D. DOWNES, The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906 - - 1978 - Kemp, Barry J..
- ^ 302: Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna - - 2006 - Op de Beeck, Lies.
- ^ 288: The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906 - - 1974 - Downes, Dorothy; 302: Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna - - 2006 - Op de Beeck, Lies.
- ^ 302: Shedding New Light on Old Excavations: Esna - - 2006 - Op de Beeck, Lies.
- ^ 288: The Excavations at Esna 1905-1906 - - 1974 - Downes, Dorothy.