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Building an 18th Dynasty Tomb at Thebes. Construction records from Mery’s funerary complex (TT 95) in context

par Gnirs Loprieno, Andrea;Bavay, Laurent
Référence CReA-Patrimoine, Bruxelles
Publication A Paraître, 2026

Ouvrage en collaboration

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Résumé :

Stone-built and rock-cut architecture ranks among the major achievements of ancient Egyptian culture and have always been an important field of research, in Egyptology as well as in global historical studies on architecture and construction. Compared with the rich built evidence from the Nile Valley and its surrounding desert regions, written information on operational aspects of ancient Egyptian construction is rather limited although isolated clusters of records have sporadically survived the millennia, with a higher concentration at New Kingdom sites. Most instructive are in this respect hieratic accounts penned on papyri or ostraca. Records concerning the work progress in rock-cut tombs during the 18th Dynasty are noticeably underrepresented when compared with accounts from contemporary temple building sites or from Ramesside royal construction projects. In this book, new relevant material on tomb excavation at Western Thebes during the mid-18th Dynasty is published: seven hieratic ostraca with eight individual texts discovered by the Université libre de Bruxelles during excavations at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. Though uncovered inside the tomb of the Vizier Amenemope, TT 29, these accounts witness ongoing construction work in the funerary complex of the High Priest of Amun Mery, TT 95, located close to the vizier’s tomb. In the first part, the volume presents a comprehensive philological edition of the hieratic ostraca and a thorough material analysis of their media and handwritings. These studies not only advance our knowledge of a poorly documented professional vocabulary and its community but also provide new information on the modalities and practice of formal record keeping at a mid-18th Dynasty tomb building site. Delving into additional, contemporary construction records to put the conveyed information into a broader socio-economic context, the second part of the volume explores various stages of tomb excavation and other building operations in TT 95, richly illustrated in photographs, plans and maps, many of which are published here for the first time. The analysis of these archaeological findings focuses on work locations, procedures, achievements and workforce capacities in the ostraca related to the specific geoarchaeological environment of TT 95.