Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 9
CONDITION REPORT OF THE TOMB OF A NOBLEMAN (TT 65) IN THEBES1 Eszter Harsányi-Zsófia Kurovszky-Erika Vadnai-László Kriston THEBES AND LUXOR Egypt was the first state in Africa that controlled a huge territory. Nevertheless, the only regions where agriculture was possible and appropriate circumstances could be found for survival were the valley of the Nile, which crossed the country and some oases. The Nile divides Thebes, the religious centre of the country in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC), about 900 km south of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, into two parts. The present town of Luxor with Karnak, the magnificent main temple of the god Amun, is on the eastern river side, and is connected with Luxor temple, the other pearl of the town, by a processional road flanked by sphinxes. The river separates two significantly different worlds. The narrow, green strip of arable land along the western bank is bordered by the grey, stony desert with barren mountains, which gave home to the “realm of the dead”, the burial places of the New Kingdom. The Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens can be found here and the Tombs of the Nobles, where high ranking Egyptians were laid into graves carved into the rock (Fig. 1). The el-Korn peak dominates the region. The Sheik Abd el-Gurna hill lies below it with a village of the same name, composed of a cluster of houses built of adobe, at the foot of the hill. The smaller, round Khokha mound rises next to the village.2 The Theban cemetery is located on these two hills and in their environs. The approximately 800 tombs of the members of the nobility are of various sizes, some are decorated, others are plain. Climbing along Khokha, among several closed or already restored tombs opened to the public, we tread on littered pottery fragments of different periods until we arrive at the tomb which is the object of the present study (TT 65). It is the burial place of Imiseba, a high-ranking priest of Karnak, who was the chief of the temple archives of Amun, and the chief of the altar-chamber at Karnak in pharaoh Ramses IX’s time (1123-1105). 1. The western side of ancient Thebes - the Realm of the Dead - with the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, the royal burial temples and the Tombs of the Nobles 9
