Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

ROSALIE DAVID: The Riqqeh Pectoral in the Manchaster Museum

The necropolis guardians undoubtedly attended the funerals and played a part in preparing the tombs prior to burial, so they would have had detailed information to help them decide which tombs, or parts of tombs, were worth disturbing. Engelbach also noted that, in some cases, the bricks had been replaced in the entrances to the shaft or chambers after the robbery, so that the crime was concealed from the tomb-owner's family who might visit the grave or even request burial there, alongside earlier interments. Again, the necropolis guardians were undoubtedly implicated in this deception. In addition to this initial plundering, however, many of the graves had also been entered in later times, and Engelbach was disappointed to discover that almost all of them had been denuded of their treasure. However, in Tomb 124 in Cemetery A, he made a significant find. Having excavated the deep tomb shaft, Engelbach reached the entrance to a chamber on the south side of the shaft. This entrance had been bricked up in antiquity: from each of the first four courses of bricks, the four middle bricks had been removed and subsequently replaced. When Engelbach took these bricks out, he was able to ascertain that the ceiling had collapsed inside the chamber, and that there were about 12 tons of marl on the floor. The coffin lay in the centre of the chamber; the fall of the ceiling had crushed it flat and made it collapse inwards. Across the place where the foot of the coffin had originally stood, there lay the remains of a skeleton (probably male), and on top of this, the archaeologist could identify the arm bones of another body. The remainder of the bones belonging to this second skeleton were found in a heap just north of the chest of the first body. Engelbach removed the arm bones of the second body, and beneath these, in the chest wrappings of the first body, he discovered a fine set of funerary jewelry which is now in the Manchester Museum. The two royal names found on pieces in the set indicate that the burial probably dates to the reign of Senusret III (1878-1843 BC) or shortly afterwards. To explain the survival of such treasure in a plundered tomb, Engelbach used the archaeological evidence he found at the site in order to reconstruct the probable events which had surrounded the burial and robbery. He suggested that, as soon as the body and funerary goods had been interred, the necropolis guardians waited for a chance to enter the tomb. By removing just a few bricks from the entrance, it was possible for one robber to crawl inside the chamber and open up the coffin, probably placing the lid on the floor at the side.