Leaving the ferry point you follow the main road and pass the the Colossi of Memnon, you can collect your ticket to visit the tombs from the office at the side of the roundabout. Heading towards the Valley of the Queens you arrive in a narrow valley on the right hand side, and here tucked into the hills opposite to the worker’s village of Deir el-Medina on the West Bank of Luxor, you can find the delightful tomb of Sen-nejem, the village foreman, this tomb is stunning, and in vibrant colour.
Sen-nejem was an architect whose tomb was discovered discovered by a Egyptian workers from Quorna, After three thousand years of peaceful rest, on the 2nd of February, 1886 the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero opened the tomb, Sen-nejem and his sons were fortunate to live during a period of great prosperity for the Village they created two tombs in the valley of the Kings. Thankfully Sen-nejems own tomb had not been found by tomb robbers and so It contained grave household goods, along with shabti's, which are small figurines with a spell on them so that if the deceased needs help in the afterlife they wake from their slumbers and do all that the deceased requires them to do for him. There was nine sarcophagi and eleven mummies, they were very beautiful anthropoid, simple or double coffins, finely painted and varnished, and all belonged to members of Sen-nejems family.
Sen-nejem held the title, 'Servant in the Place of Truth,' a Servant was ’One who hears the call in the Place of Truth,' Sen-nejem lived during the reigns of Seti I and his son, Ramesses the Great of Egypt's 19th Dynasty, his tomb lies in the workers village, this was a secret village hidden away on the west bank and was created entirely for artisans who were responsible for creating the tombs of the Kings and Nobles, the artisans worked on their own tombs when they had free time from working in the Valley of the Kings ( the Great Place) and the Valley of the Queens, (the Place of Beauty), the artisans were cut off and not allowed to leave the village, supplies of food were delivered to them so that the secret of tombs of the Kings or Nobles tombs could not be discovered
The Artisans decorated their tomb walls with scenes of daily life, unlike the tombs of the nobles, who were prominent government officials and their walls showed their work of a vizier or a Judge, or in the tombs of the Kings, which showed the Kings being welcomed and helped through the underworld by the Gods. A very steep staircase leads to a small entrance chamber which originally had a decorated wooden door, On the walls of Sen-nejems tomb you can see Sen-nejem and his wife Iyneferty working together happily in the blessed afterworld where they sow, plough and reap flax or wheat in the mythical fields of Laru
Above ground Sen-nejems tomb has a courtyard inside which sits a small pyramidion, pyramids were considered to be a ladder to the heavens, the underground section of Sen-nejems tomb had a room with a vault ceiling Sen-nejem, shared this “house of eternity” with his wife Iyinofreti, their son Khonsu, daughter in-law Tamakhet, the lady Isis, who was the wife of their second son Khabekhnet (who had his own tomb built next to Sen-nejem’s), together with their grandchildren. Both Sen-nejem and his wife lived into old age. Sen-nejem and Iyneferty had thirteen sons, two foetuses contained in uninscribed yellow wooden boxes were also found in the tomb
Sen-nejem was highly skilled in tomb building, and together with the help of members of his own family and of other workers from the village, he was able to build and decorate his own house of eternity. The tomb is very simple, and very colourful with a narrow stairway leading into a small room followed by the burial chamber and a highly curved ceiling, on the left front wall the scene is of the mummy of sen-nejem in his sarcophagus lying on a funeral bed and protected on the left by Isis and on the right by Nephthys, both in the form of falcons. Under this in a lower register is a scene of the deceased sons bringing him offerings and purifying themselves before his parents while other relatives sit nearby. In the next scene on this wall, the deceased is shown with his wife and is holding a sekhem-scepter, a symbol of power.
The ancient Egyptians believed that the deceased would embark on a subterranean journey, tracing the route of Re, the sun god. After disappearing with the setting sun in the west, Re passed under the world in a boat to return to his starting point in the east. During this journey, the deceased, aboard Re’s boat, would have to confront ferocious creatures barring the way to their new life. The most formidable of these was Apep, a serpent intent on stopping Re’s boat and bringing chaos to the world.
The majority of the scenes in Sen-nejems tomb represent vignettes, which is a brief evocative description, of an episode from the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Dead is not an actual book in the manner that we would understand, its texts were spells—magic 'road maps' provided to the dead to navigate their way safely through the afterlife, to help ease the passage of the deceased through the underworld, offering them protection to face the ordeals and terrors lying in wait there, the spells were written on tomb walls, papyrus, and linen bandages, the spells convey the sequence of the journey that takes Sen-nejem through the Underworld until he reaches paradise. Osiris, the God of the underworld, gives life back to Sen-nejem mummy and makes his judgement in the hall of Justice, the scenes are painted on a yellow ochre background, which has the color of an aged papyrus. Sen-nerjem and his wife Iyneferty are shown in adoration of several gods, also shown are two jackals, these are the guardians of the gates to the West, the Kingdom of Osiris, and they are the openers of the road to eternity. There are three lines of inscription between the two rows of deities which appeals to several gods, Atum, Osiris, Khenty-Imentiu, and the Enead, to grant the deceased strength, greatness, power, and dignity. There is a banquet in honor of the deceased, and Sen-nejems son Bunakhtef, wearing a leopard skin performs the role of a Sem priest, and he is shown carrying out libation, pouring from a Qeb vessel for his father. Anubis is shown attending to Sen-nejem’s mummy
It is sad to think that Sen-nejem and all his family lay together for thousands of years in this little tomb, and now they have all been separated and can be found in different museums, along with all their possessions
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