KV11 – Tomb of Ramses III .. Part ( 9 )

Setnakht and Ramses III had both had luck with their first tomb . Setnakht, as we have just seen, abandoned his on finding that he had pierced the wall of that of Amenmesses .

Ramses III began tomb No. 3,but abandoned it owing to the poor quality at the rock . Each solved his difficulty in his own fashion, Setnakht, by usurping No. 14, the tomb of Tausret ; Ramses by taking up again his father's abandoned tomb, and changing its course, so that it should not interfere with the tomb of Amenmesses (*) . He was buried here ; but his body was carried off by the priests and was found in the cache at El-Deir el-Bahari .

The red granite lid of his sarcophagus, 10 feet long by about 5 feet wide, is now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge . It bears the figure of the dead Pharaoh in high relief, with Isis ( almost completely destroyed ) on one side of him, and Nephthys on the other, and is a good example of the huge sarcophagus-lids of the Later Empire . The body of the sarcophagus is in the Louvre, Paris .

The tomb is often called " Bruce's Tomb " after Bruce the Abyssinian traveller, who was the first to reopen it ( 1769 ), and who made, under great difficulties from his native guides, copies of the two famous figures of harpers, from which the tomb derives its other name of " The Harpers Tomb " .

The work of the tomb is much inferior to that of the earlier period ; but it is striking, all the same, and the colour is well preserved . It is lit with electric light, so far as the first seven chambers are concerned .

The entrance is conspicuous, and marks the new idea of the royal tomb which is henceforth adhered to, concealment being no longer considered essential . The tomb is entered by the common flight of steps with an inclined plane in the middle to render easier the sliding-down of the great sarcophagus .

Illustration of the tomb of Ramses III .

Standards with bull heads are carved in the rock as pilasters on either side of the doorway . The lintel has the usual triple emblem of the sun-god, the disk, with Khepri and Atûm standing within it . Isis and Nephthys worship it . The first corridor has to right and left of its entrance kneeling figures of Maet, with sheltering wings . The walls have the text of the Litanies of Rê with a scene of the Pharaoh before Harakhte (1), and another of the sun passing between the two horizons .

From this corridor open off, to right and left, two small chambers, the first two of a series of ten . In the one to the left are scenes of the cooking of provisions for the royal tomb (2) ; on the right are two rows of scenes representing the funeral procession across the Nile ( or the voyage to Abydos ), the boats in the upper row under sail, those in the lower with sails furled .

Corridor two continues the scenes from the Litanies of Rê, with figures of the sun-god, and of Isis and Nephthys .

The side-chambers three to ten extend along both sides of the corridor, and contain scenes of interest . Chamber C ( left ) has figures of the gods of the harvest and fertility, with ears of corn upon their heads . The two Nile-gods, of Upper and Lower Egypt, figure prominently, and also the serpent-headed corn-goddess Nepret .

Chamber D ( right ) has military standards, arrows, bows, and the four tribal standards, which from time immemorial were borne before the Pharaoh on great occasions .

Chamber E ( left ) has Nile-gods and field-gods bringing offerings of fruit, flowers and birds .

Chamber F ( right ) has vessels of all kinds, including some " false-necked " ( stirrup ) vases of Mycenaean ( Greek ) origin, together with furniture of all sorts, couches, chairs, necklaces, elephants' tusks, etc. . Here we have an exception to the rule mentioned at the beginning of this account, that the Pharaoh, being a god, did not need such representations of material things for his welfare in the other world ; but, in fact, it is now seen that the rule is by no means invariable, and Ramses III evidently believed in making sure, however much he may have believed in his own godhead .

Chamber G ( left ) has representations of sacred animals and symbols, and also of the Pharaoh's guardian genius, who bears a wand topped with a king's head .

Chamber H ( right ) shows the canals of the underworld, upon which the king floats in his canoe through the Elysian Fields, where ploughing, sowing, and reaping are in progress .

Chamber I, the last on the left, is the one with the famous scene of the harpers, who have given the tomb one of its names . The harper to the left ( the better preserved figure ) plays before Anhur ( or Anhuret, a God of War and Sky Bearer ) and Harakhte ; he to the right, before Atûm and Shu .

Chamber J, the last on the right, has twelve representations or figures of seated Osiris .

The corridor from this point runs out into an apsidal termination, which represents the point at which Setnakht found that he was running into the tomb of Amenmesses (3), and abandoned his work . Ramses III made a deviation at right-angles to the original axis of the tomb, making a rectangular addition to the corridor which converted it into a kind of extra chamber, and enabled the work to continue parallel to its former line, but sufficiently distant from the earlier tomb to avoid any further risk .

In the interrupted corridor (4) are scenes of Isis with Anubis ( left ) , Nephthys with Anubis ( right ) and the Pharaoh before Atûm and Ptah .

In the deviation-chamber we have ( right ) Ramses offering before Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, who is guarded by Isis with her wings (5) .

On the right-wall, as we resume our original direction, is the king before Osiris and Anubis (6) .

We now enter the fourth corridor (7), which is illustrated with scenes from The Book of that which is in the Underworld, the scenes to the left representing the fourth hour and those to the right the fifth hour of the journey .

The room into which this corridor opens has figures of the gods (8) .

The large room following, which has four pillars, has a sloping passage through the middle of its floor, leading to the remaining rooms of the tomb .

On the left-hand side of the room are scenes from The Book of Gates, giving the sun's journey through the fourth section of the underworld (9) ; and on the right similar scenes from the fifth section . Notice on the bottom of the left-hand wall the representations of the four races of mankind recognized by the Egyptians .

Another chamber leads off to the right from this hall (10) . It has much blackened scenes of the king in the presence of Osiris, and being introduced to Osiris by Thoth and Harakhte, and also scenes from The Book of the Underworld .

The great burial-hall (11) has eight pillars, and four little annexes at its angles ; and a triple corridor continues beyond it ; but all these are scarcely worth the trouble of a visit .

(*) KV10 – Tomb of Amenmesses

This Pharaoh succeeded Merneptah, 1215 B.C., but only reigned for a short time, and was not recognized later as having been in the regular line . The inscriptions and figures of his tomb were erased after his death, perhaps by Siptah, who succeeded him in virtue of his marriage with Queen Tausret .

The tomb lies immediately opposite the southern end of that of Tutankhamun . It was unwittingly broken into by Setnakht, the founder of the 20^th Dynasty, who in the making of his own tomb drove his gallery into the earlier tomb, not knowing it was there a fact which shows that concealment, in this case at least, had been a reality . Setnakht in consequence abandoned his newly begun tomb, which was afterwards continued and used by his son, Ramses III .

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