Friday, March 10, 2017

KV38 – Tomb of Tuthmosis I .. Part ( 20 )

From the point of view of history, this tomb is the most important in the valley, as it was the one which set the fashion of such interments . It lies on the west side of the valley close to the tomb of Tausert and Setnakht ( KV14 ) and between it and that of Seti II ( KV15 ) .
In appearance, however, it is insignificant, as the object of Tuthmosis was not conspicuousness, but the opposite . The tomb was discovered in 1899 by Victor Loret, and also, he made excavation in the same year .



The entrance was more of a rabbit-hole than such a façade as suited the taste of the Ramesside Pharaohs ; and the tomb itself is a comparatively small affair . This tomb is difficult to accessible at present, which is a pity, not because of its intrinsic beauty ( for it has none ), but because of its historical importance as the earliest tomb in the valley and the king Tuthmosis I, is the first king who was buried in The Valley of the Kings . The entrance of the tomb is almost towards to the west .



Recently appeared doubts about the date of origin of KV38 based on the architectural features of the tomb between The tomb of Tuthmosis I and The tomb of Tuthmosis III . John Romer and others believed that the tomb was constructed by Tuthmosis III to re-buried his grandfather Tuthmosis I depends on the similarity of plans between the two tomb ( KV34 and KV 38 ), although there is a different opinion in the meantime .



A rough flight of steps leads into an irregular, and this in turn into a more or less square room, from the middle of which another flight of steps descends into the burial-hall, cartouche-shaped and roughly hewn and it is in a generally poor state of preservation .



The roof of the burial chamber was supported by a single pillar in the middle of the chamber, and the walls were originally covered with the stucco of which, and of his experiments in the making of which, the architect Ineni ( Anena ) was so proud . It has not justified his pride, having fallen off the walls as a result of the rain water, only a colorful parts at the upper end of the walls are partly preserved ; but, after all, 3400 years is a long time for even the most tenacious stucco to stand . Ineni was the great architect the 18th Dynasty, especially, Amenhotep I, Tuthmosis I, Tuthmosis II, and the joint reigns of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III . The floor is flat with one level .



In 1899, and during the excavation of the burial chamber, a small broken parts of limestone slabs and fragments of the wall covering, inscribed with texts from the Amduat, were found, now, are in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo . The burial chamber once had decorations, but today, the plaster pieces with remains of kheker frieze of the ceiling are only faded under the ceiling .



There are two sarcophaguses of Tuthmosis I of yellow quartzite . One was found in the tomb of Hatshepsut ( KV20 ) by Howard Carter in 1903-4 ( conducted for Mr. Theodore Monroe Davis ), it is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston ( Nos. 04.278.1 for the box, and 04.278.2 for the lid ) . In 1904, Mr. Davis gave the sarcophagus to the Museum of Fine Arts as a gift by the Egyptian government . And the other one, was found in his tomb ( KV38 ) by Victor Loret in 1899 ( conducted for the Service des Antiquités ), it is now in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo ( No. JE 52344 ) .



The fragments of a sarcophagus of crystalline sandstone were found here perhaps the results of an early robbery which may have been the determining factor in Hatshepsut's removal of her father's body to the tomb which she was preparing for herself in the valley ( KV20 ) .



The sarcophagus ( box and lid ) of yellow crystalline sandstone ( Quartzite ) bearing the name of Tuthmosis I which was found with that of Queen Hatshepsut in her tomb is so remarkably like that of the queen as to suggest that the two were made at the same time and by the same artist . In any case, the king was not allowed to rest in it, for his body ( mummy ) was transferred to El-Deir el-Bahari, now in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo with his original wooden coffin ( JE 26217, CG 61065 ) where it was duly found in 1881 .



Hatshepsut made the sarcophagus for her beloved father ( Tuthmosis I ), and she records her hospitality towards his father with text in the outer side of his sarcophagus : " The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, the son of Re, Hatshepsut-Khnemet-Amun . She [ Hatshepsut ] made it as her monument for her beloved father, the good god, lord of the Two Lands, king of Upper and Lower Egypt Aakheperkara, the son of Re, Thutmose, vindicated " .



The decorations of the sarcophagus were inscribed in a sunken relief for the king . The decorations on the exterior of the tub and the edges of the lid was removed and redesigned, also the inner sides of the tub and the bottom of the lid were decorated . However, it was probably foreseen that the outer anthropoid wooden body of Tuthmosis I did not fit into the coffin tub, so the interior of the sarcophagus tub had to be enlarged by a maximum of 6 cm . The reliefs of the head and foot end were partly destroyed .



The outer and inner decorations of the box of the sarcophagus contains a representations of the goddess Isis ( on the foot ), and the goddess Nephthys ( on the head ), the both goddesses kneeling on the symbols of gold . The images of the goddesses were destroyed due to the expansion of the interior of the sarcophagus and re-carved again .



On the left exterior side of the sarcophagus, there are Wadjet-eyes . To the right of it can see Hapi ( right ), and to the left are Anubis and Qebehsenuef . And on the another exterior side ( right ), are Anubis between Imsety on the left edge and Duamutef on the right edge . The lid have inscriptions of the goddess Nut with outspread arms, also, on the floor of the sarcophagus, we see Nut with her outspread arms embracing the dead king .



A small annexe opens off the burial-hall . This chamber have a destroyed walls and ceiling that caused by a flooding .





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