Near the southwestern
corner of the Amun Temple are the royal tombs of the 21st and 22nd
dynasties ( Psusennes I, Osorkon II, Takelot II, Amenemope, Sheshonq II,
Sheshonq III ) discovered by Pierre Montet in 1939 .
Apart from the burial
of Tutankhamun, these temple tombs of Tanis remain the only royal Egyptian
burials ever discovered relatively intact .
Although the tombs
appear to have had no superstructures and consisted only of underground
mud-brick and stone chambers, they yielded a rich trove of royal burial
treasures – including the hawk-headed silver coffin of Sheshonq II – now on
display in the Egyptian Museum , Cairo .
The frequent reuse of
earlier materials seen in the Tanis temples is also apparent in these Third
Intermediate Period royal burials .
Of the six royal
interments, Psusennes utilized the massive 19th dynasty sarcophagus
of Merenptah taken from the Valley of the Kings, Takelot II's appropriated a
Middle Kingdom coffin, Amenemope's employed a sarcophagus lid made from a
reused block of the Old Kingdom, and Sheshonq III's contained a sarcophagus
made from an architrave of the 13th dynasty .
Outside the main
compound, at its southern corner, is a smaller enclosure where Mut, Khonsu and
the Asiatic goddess Astarte were worshipped .
This temple was built
by Siamun ( 21st dynasty ) and Apries ( 26th dynasty )
and restored by Ptolemy IV .
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