Tomb DB320 - The Royal Cache of Hidden Mummies - The Discovery of the Great Kings of Egypt from the New Kingdom

During the summer of 1871 Ahmed Abd el Rassul who lived in a 'bab el haggar' - a dwelling in a New Kingdom tomb on the Theban hills with his family, in the Village of Shiek Abd-el-Qurna on the West Bank of Luxor, was wandering the mountain at the side of Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple at Dier El Bahari looking for one of his lost goats, he heard it bleating so he followed the sound and it lead him to a shaft that was 30ft deep. He fetched a rope and descended to retrieve his goat, once he arrived at the bottom of the shaft it lead him to a series of underground chambers and corridors and to his joy he found an extraordinary cache of mummified remains and funeral equipment of more than fifty kings, queens,royalty,and various nobility. Ahmed was ecstatic, so he retrieved his goat and climbed back up the rope and went in search of his brothers to tell them of his find. The brothers decided it was best to keep the tomb a secret incase any of the villagers became jealous of their new found wealth, and reported them to the moudir of the province or to the Director of Excavations.They threw a dead donkey down the shaft so that it would cause a stink, and put off any other local who might come across the hole. 

Then one night when it was dark the  brothers went back down the shaft to the tomb to steal some of the artifacts, they unwrapped some mummies so that they could remove the amulets that had been placed in the mummy wrappings during the mummification process, for the protection of the mummy in the afterlife. Over a period of ten years they went down the tomb three times to steal treasures. They obviously couldn't remove large objects so they satisfied themselves with stealing funerary figurines, canopic jars, papyri, and anything that was small enough to hide and every winter they would sell these treasures to visiting tourists and collectors. They even sold the mummy of Ramses 1 to a Canadian man who then sold it to a museum at Niagara falls.

In 1874, Gaston Maspero, the head of the Antiquities Service in Cairo, noticed that  figures bearing royal names from the 21st Dynasty, a wooden tablet inscribed in scribal ink, a papyrus belonging to Queen Nedjmet, and other artifacts were being sold. Other important objects like papyri, shabti-figurines, bronze vessels, inscribed wrapping, and perhaps even at least one mummy were also leaking out onto the Luxor antiquities market. Maspero knew these had not come from a licensed excavation, and so it must be an illegal find. He sent investigators to Luxor to try to discover where the artifacts were coming from, but they learned nothing for years, and yet antiquities continued to appear around the world. Finally in 1881 Maspero enlisted the aid of Charles Wilbour, a wealthy American collector, who was known to be willing to pay high prices for authentic antiquities. Within a few days of his arrival in Luxor, Wilbour made contact with a local guide who brought him to the village of Qurna and the house of Ahmed Abd el Rassul. Wilbour was shown a quantity of red leather, looking as fresh as if it had just been opened, and stamped with the titles of an 18th Dynasty king. Wilbour immediately telegraphed Maspero to inform him of the situation.

Maspero decided to send M. Émile Brugsch a German born Egyptologist who was the deputy curator of the Musée de Boulaq to Luxor to investigate. He used various tactics to find out more about Ahmed Abd el Rassul.  His investigations were extensive and led him to Ahmed's main buyer, Moustapha Agha Ayat, Consular Agent of England, Belgium, and Russia in Luxor, unfortunately he was covered by diplomatic immunity, and therefore he escaped all prosecution. Having no success here, Emile decided to relentlessly pursue the Rassoul brothers whom he had been told were selling the objects, and so on 1st April 1881 the Chief of Police at Luxor was sent over to the West Bank to the Village of Shiek Abd-el-Qurna to arrest Ahmed. He was  seized the moment he returned home, and was brought on board the boat that Emile was using for an initial interrogation in the hope that he would confess to selling artifacts. Ahmed denied all the facts presented to him and the testimonies of tourists which fall directly under the cut (le coupe) of Ottoman law: Clandestine excavation, unauthorised sale of papyrus and funerary statuettes, destruction of coffins and objects of art and curiosity belonging to the Egyptian State. 

Protesting his innocence Ahmed offered for them to search his house, Ahmed was then imprisoned for two months, and suffered interrogations and severe beatings to the soles of his feet, he told them that he was a servant of Moustapha Agha Ayat, the man that had managed to use his diplomatic immunity to save himself from prosecution.  Ahmed had sold the artifacts to Moustafa Agha Ayat who had led him to believe he would also be covered by diplomatic immunity, but once the Authorities were involved he purposely distanced himself from the investigation and left Ahmed to defend himself.

Ahmed managed to extract many people 
from his village that offered favourable testimonies on his behalf in this close-knit, Saidi community where the chiefs and notables of Qurna repeatedly affirmed under oath, that Ahmed Abd el Rassoul was a most loyal man, who never looted before and would never loot again, who was incapable of stealing the most insignificant object of antiquity, let alone violating a royal tomb, so consequently Ahmed was provisionally released, with the guarantee of two of his friends, Ahmed Serour and Ismail Sayid Nagib. He returned to his home around the middle of May, however his arrest, and the two months of imprisonment that he had suffered, and the vigour with which the investigation of Daoud Pacha had been conducted, had clearly shown the inability of Moustapha Agha Ayat to protect Ahmed with diplomatic immunity, as he had suggested to him when he was selling him the artifacts.

A few months later Emile received some new information from people that were prepared to denounce Ahmed and his brothers. Some of the villagers had received assistance from the Rassoul family, but the police continued harassing them and they became divided on how to deal with the problem, some of them  believed that the danger of prosecution was over, and that Museum would not be pursuing the case any further, whilst others thought that it would be safer to cooperate with the Museum and tell them the about the secret hoard that the Rassoul family had profited from for over ten years.

Meanwhile Ahmed was feeling confident that he was not going to be prosecuted, and thinking the case was dropped, Ahmed told the villagers that they owed him compensation for the months in prison that he endured, and he demanded the majority of the treasure for himself, he told them if they refused to grant his demand, he threatened to go immediately to the director of excavations. After a further month of harassment in the village from the police,  the eldest of the brothers, Mohammed Abd Rassoul, decided to inform on his brother Ahmed to stop the harassment of the Village by the authorities.  In secret on the 5th June he went to inform the Moudir that he knew the location of the Tomb where the artifacts and mummies could be found. Mohammed then took the officials of the Antiquities Society to Deir el Bahri. He led them the actual tomb chamber, which contained coffins of some of ancient Egypts greatest Kings of the New Kingdom. The funerary trappings had disappeared, the gold sarcophagi had been melted down, some of the mummies were on the floor, as the robbers had ripped the bandages apart to get the amulets inside. On descending into the tomb they found it is disarray with sarcophagi piled up one on top of another, but they were covered in inscriptions and had the images of serpents, so together with the ornaments they found, it also proved that it was in fact a royal burial place. 

The Kings that were found in this cache were Seqenenre-Taa, who had fought the Hyksos and bore a great head wound as apparent evidence, his son Ahmose I the founder of the New Kingdom, Amenhotep I,  Tuthmosis 1, 11 and 111, Seti I, Ramesses II, III and IX, and the empty coffin of Ramesses I. Queen Nefertari's sarcophagus was so heavy it took nine men to lift it. Within a matter of days, in great urgency, the tomb was emptied by the authorities.It was strange that all these kings had been removed from their own tombs, and placed in other tombs, and then to finally arrive in this undecorated tomb not fit for a beggar let alone a king. Gaston Maspero speculated that the kings had been moved from their own tombs to avoid the attention of tomb robbers at the end of the New Kingdom period. The last great Ruler of Egypt had been Ramses 111 and after his rule Egypt went into economic decline, then in the 25th dynasty I think it was the High Priest Pinudjem 11 that ordered the removal of the Kings from there original tombs and placed the Kings in his family vault so that he would have the wealth  of the Royal Tombs. 

For his assistance of leading the authorities to the tomb Mohammed el-Rassul was offered a job as foreman for the Antiquities Society. In 1891 he led an inspector to yet another site in Deir el Bahri, where bodies of almost 160 successive high priests from Karnak, lay at rest. Since it was suspected that Mohammed had known for quite a while about this cache, he was dismissed from the Society.

Today the descendants of Ahmed Rassoul own the Rammessium Restaurant & Coffee Shop at the Side of the Ramesseum Mortuary Temple of Ramses the Great, it was here that I met Mohamed Rassoul who showed me a tinted photograph of his great great grandfather Ahmed who was an old man of about 90  years of age when the photo was taken in 1907 and was probably taken by Robert de Rustafjaell a phtographer and author who wrote 'The Light of Egypt', and had known Ahmed Abd er Rassoul for many years. Ahmed's mother Fendia dominates the photograph, supporting herself with two strong sticks, they said that she was about 120 when the photograph was taken, she certainly looks old, which means she had been alive when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt bringing with him his army and a huge force of scholars, artists and mathematicians, who recorded all the history of the temples during their Graphic Exploration of Egypt.

I took a photograph of the  tinted photograph and when I came home I painted it. Magnifying and looking closely at the image, I realized that Fendia was wearing a pair of gold earrings and a pharaonic collar! And she had a proper pair of shoes on her feet when normally the villagers walked barefoot,and even some of the children walked around naked. Ahmed's Daughter also wears a beautiful shawl so compared to the rest of the village they were wealthy. 

Ramses 1 - A Story of Tomb Robbers & Saviours

Ramses 1 triumphant arrival at Luxor Museum followed an extraordinary tale of tomb robbers and eventual saviors.

Ramses was the Father of Seti 1, and the Grandfather of Ramses the Great, who was named after him. Ramses 1 was not of Royal birth, although he was born to a noble military family, he was the son of a Troop Commander named Seti.

Across the river at Dier El Bahari in 1888 the Rassul brothers, local tomb robbers, after severe beatings, and harassment of their village on the Westbank of Luxor, had eventually admitted that they had found the secret hiding place of forty great Kings, Queens and Royal Family. It is considered that Priests had removed the Kings from their own tombs to protect them from Tomb robbery when the High Priest of Karnack ruled, I think he probably moved them from their Tombs to use their treasures, as the days of Egypt's supremacy had died many years ago with the Loss of the Great Royal Kings

When the cache of forty Kings Queens and other Royalty was found at Dier El Bahari by Ahmed Rassul, The mummy of Ramses 1 was missing, although his sarcophagus was found with the rest of the kings. It appears that the Rassul brothers had sold Ramses 1 for seven pounds to a Canadian physician named James Douglas who had acquired the mummy for the owner of a museum at Niagra Falls.

Over a hundred years later In 1980 a German Egyptologist visited the museum and recognized the features of Ramses the great as he looked at this mummy, he was aware that the mummy of Ramses 1 had been missing from the cache, and also this mummy had its arms crossed and its hands appeared to have been grasping what could have been the symbols of royalty which indicated that it was a royal mummy.

In 1999 the Niagra Falls Museum closed and the mummy was sold to the Carlos Museum for two million pounds,. The museum arranged for cat scans and compared the details with the mummies of Seti 1 & Ramses 11 and were convinced that they had in their possession the mummy of Ramses 1, and with this knowledge they generously offered to return the ‘lost’ king to his homeland.

And so Ramses 1 arrived at Cairo airport, his sarcophagus was draped with the Egyptian flag, and he received a military escort even though he had been dead for thousands of years. Eventually plans were made to return him to the place of this throne and burial in ancient Waset, now modern Luxor,

A flotilla of boats escorted Ramses 1, along with Ahmose 1, 'The Warrior Kings', up the river Nile to a military celebration and welcome that waited for them on the Eastbank of Luxor. Their sarcophagus were then driven by horses through the town on a special white barque to a joyous reception held for them at Karnack Temple, from there they were driven to their new home and their final resting place within the new Military Wing that had been specially created for them at Luxor Museum the 'Warrior Kings' had arrived home to jubilation once more.

The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Dier El Bahari

The MORTUARY TEMPLE of HATSHEPSUT
       
Splendor of Splendors

 Riding my bike through a gorge of twisting pink rippled rock I noticed small caves occasionally where alabaster had been quarried from. It was not long before I saw facing me the stunning Temple of Hatshepsut. I stopped pedaling and slowly the bike cruised to a standstill, I wanted to let the experience of this really dramatic and impressive stage like temple with its gleaming white limestone colonnades seep into my bones. The Osiris statues of Hatshepsut smile down on the traveler in amused triumph holding the flail and whip, a symbol of power and fertility. It was incredible to stand and look at this hidden place of worship, admire it's breath taking simplicity of line and at the same time try and comprehend how such things could be accomplished thousands of years ago, a beautiful temple driven into and becoming part of the sheer pink and gold rock face that rises around it. This temple is the one thing above everything that testifies the strength and determination of a woman in a male dominated world.


Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple is dedicated to the Goddess Hathor (Het-Heru) 'Lady of Heaven' who was the daughter of Nut and Ra, the wife of Horus, and mother to Ihy, Hathor was also considered a mother Goddess and the Mother of the King. In her Human form Hathor unusually has the serene yet beautiful face of a woman yet her ears are those of a cow, one of the relief’s in the temple shows her in the form of a cow as the pharaoh suckles from her. Hathor was also honored as ' Lady of the Western mountain' this refers to the place of the setting sun and the realm of the dead, she was a Sky Goddess, a protector of cemeteries, a Goddess of the dead, a goddess of love, she presided over fate healing music and dance. Some of the columns on the highest level of the temple are made in the form of a sistrum; a musical instrument that is sacred to Hathor and was always used in temple rituals and celebrations. These columns are a representation of the sistrum handle and above this sits the head of Hathor which also has a representation of the metal loop of the sistrum.


Queen Hatshepsut Maatkare ‘Foremost of Noble Ladies, Truth is the soul of re' came to rule during the 18th dynasty, she was the favorite daughter of Tuthmosis 1, and was married to her half brother. When their father died her husband ascended the throne and became Tuthmosis 11 the 4th king of the 18th Dynasty. He married the courageous and energetic Hatshepsut to strengthen his right to the throne. Tuthmosis 11 only reigned for a year with Hatshepsut when he died, and so his son by a minor wife, Tuthmosis 111 was appointed heir.  Due to the young age of this boy king Hatshepsut became regent and reigned on behalf of the boy, who later grew up to become one of Egypt’s greatest military pharaohs, the French were so impressed by Tuthmosis 111 military skills that they gave him the name the 'Egyptian Napoleon' .

Hatshepsut was content  to reign as regent. In the early years.  During the reign of her father Tuthmosis 1 Hatshepsut had been allowed to be involved with the dealings of his government, which had obviously inspired her confidence and a strong will to get her own way in life, and so she initially used  the strength of her fathers favoritism to her benefit,  she  also held the strong position among the Theban priests as the mortal Gods wife of Amun,  this position alone offered her  a superior  power,  as to be the living wife of the God Amun Ra is higher than to be the wife of a king.,  with this power  and support of the priesthood of Amun, she was able to seize control, casting aside the young Tuthmosis whom she sent away to train as a priest and scribe and then later as a soldier. By the time of Hatshepsut’s death he had risen up the ranks of the army to the Rank of Commander in Chief. During his years away from Thebes Hatshepsut declared herself as Pharaoh and began to dress as a man, many statues represent her as a king with a false beard. On the mortuary temple walls her birth relief’s  portray that it was the divine intention of both her  earthly father Tuthmosis 1 and her heavenly father Amun that she would rule Egypt, In the birth Colonnade it declares: ‘Amen –Ra called for the god Khumn the creator and fashioner of the bodies of men.’ Fashion for me the body of my daughter and the body of her Ka, a great queen shall I make of her, and honor and power shall be worthy of her dignity and glory’  ‘Amun-Ra answered Khumn ‘It shall be done as you have said.  So Khumn fashioned the body of Amen-Ra’s daughter and the body of her Ka, the two forms exactly alike, and more beautiful than the daughters of men. He fashioned them with clay from the air of his potters wheel and Heqet goddess of birth with the frogs head, knelt by his side holding the sign of life towards the clay that the bodies of Hatshepsut and her Ka might be filled with life and breath, and so one of the greatest queens of Egypt was announced to the world.

Hatshepsut had a peaceful reign, she concentrated on trade rather than conquest, the walls of her temple shows her famous trading expedition to the Land of Punt, now known as Somalia. To indicate their willingness to submit to an Egyptian sovereign the people of Punt showered the Egyptians with gifts for Hatshepsut. Their gifts included gold and ivory, great heaps of precious balsams and incense for the temples, animals plants and trees for transplantation on the Egyptian soil,  this is recorded on the punt colonnade, where small African houses are shown standing on wooden stilts, beautiful tropical birds are carved flying across the sky and lots of varieties of fish are recorded

Hatshepsut’s name had reached as far as the circuit of heaven and encompassed the great circle (the sea) the best of myrrh was upon her limbs and her fragrance was of divine dew, whilst her odour was mingled with the land of Punt. Her skin was gilded with electrum that shone like the stars at night
Foreign lands were regarded as the personal property of The Goddess Hathor, and the goods that the Egyptians obtained from these countries were considered to be gifts from Hathor, so the return to Thebes with all the treasures from Punt would have been the cause for great celebrations. Now that her reign was strengthened and successful, Hatshepsut made plans with her architect Senemut to build herself a Mortuary Temple fit for a King, and so her unusual three storied columned temple rose up the side of the Theban Mountains of El Dier El Bahari. When looking at a map I realized that the temple with its entrance ramps is in direct line with Karnack Temple the House of Amun on the East Bank, Sheshat the goddess of the Cosmos guided the priests with her skills of the stars and heavens, to achieve such an accurate invisible line from Hatshepsut’s temple to Karnack temple. Originally Myrrh trees lined the entrance ramps and its lower terrace up into the temple; these were trees that had been sent from the expedition to punt and are shown being transported in large baskets on the reliefs in the temple. Polish Archaeologists have restored much of Hatshepsut’s Temple to its former glory.

Having brought prosperity and peace to Egypt Hatshepsut disappeared from all records as to her death or whereabouts leaving us with a mystery. Tuthmosis 111 was now a grown man and he claimed the supreme power that he had been denied for so many years, systematically he ordered Hatshepsut’s cartouches and monuments to be defaced or destroyed to curse her with permanent death, by doing this he was satisfying the ancient belief that whilst a person’s name existed or was still spoken, immortality would be gained so by defacing her cartouches he was denying her eternal life.  It was believed that Hatshepsut’s mummy had been buried with that of her father's Tuthmosis 1 in KV20, but when Howard Carter found their tomb on 1903 both their mummies were missing. Thirty years earlier  Ahmed Rassul was searching the hillside for a lost goat, he could hear it bleating and so he followed the sounds until he found himself stood at the edge of a shaft that the goat had obviously fallen into,  Ahmed climbed down a rope into the shaft, once inside the tomb he realized he had found a great collection of mummies, so he retrieved the goat and went in search of his brothers to tell them of his discovery, together the brothers decided that they needed a plan to  keep people away from the tomb and protect their discovery ensuring their wealth to come. They returned to the tomb and threw a dead donkey inside the shaft, the stench of the donkey as it decayed would erase any further curiosity from others, and possibly convincing any suspicious minds that a demon had woken in the tomb. Over the next ten years the tomb robbers prospered with their treasure trove that gradually made its way to the hands of collectors and auction houses. Eventually The Antiquities service realized that a tomb must have been found, and so Sir Gaston Maspero sent one of the museum staff Emil Brugsch to discover where the artifacts were coming from. Emile presented himself as a wealthy buyer which gained the trust of the traders, and finally led him to the Abd Rasul Brothers. The brothers were arrested and tortured and despite a severe beating on the soles of the feet they would not give their discovery away, eventually after a month they were released, but then the police harassed their family and the villagers at Quarna continuously until eventually one of the brothers confessed to the police where the tomb was to avoid any further harassment of themselves or the rest of the villagers.

Once the Rassul brothers confessed to knowing the whereabouts of the tomb they begrudgingly led Emile Brugsch to the cliffs at the side of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Dier El Bahari and he was guided down a rope into a tomb where to his amazement he found not one mummy case but the remains of over forty mummies. The tomb is known as DB320 it had originally been the family vault of Pinedjem 1 a High Priest of Amun during the 21st dynasty who had declared himself a king. During his rule He had removed some of the kings from their own tombs, possibly to acquire some of their wealth,  after his death further kings moved them again and amidst all the confusion the kings all finally were found in this one vault, Some of the mummy cases held the bodies of the greatest pharaohs of all time, including Seti 1 whose empty sarcophagus had originally been found in his tomb by Giovanni Belzoni, Ramses 11 ‘The Great’, Tuthmosis 1, the father of Hatshepsut, who had also been the first King to be buried in The Valley of The Kings. His burial had been carried out in great secrecy and entrusted to a High Court Official named Ineni, Tuthmosis 11 and his son Tuthmosis 111 princes, princesses, court officials and royal grandchildren. Queen Nefatari’s mummy case was also found in the cache and took sixteen men to lift its weight and move it alone. The Coffin of Ramses 1 was found in this vault but his mummy was missing, it has since been discovered that the robbers had sold Ramses 1 to a Canadian man for seven pounds

After 3,000 years of seclusion the Royal mummies left Dier El Bahari  and were carried by donkeys and mules to the banks of the Nile where they were transported to Cairo. Women came to the riverbank and wailed in mourning for the deceased kings and their kin. Never in the history of any nation has there been such an awesome entourage of deceased royalty, the glory of Ancient Egypt rose again as their pharaohs traveled to safety in Cairo, their final resting place, where modern scientists now continue the work of some of the ancient priests to protect and preserve the mummies of their kings.

Eight anonymous mummies were also found in another cache in 1881.  I had wondered initially if one of the mummies from this cache was a tomb robber. He must have committed some form of sacrilege to the royal mummies to have been subjected to such  a heinous death, his coffin was  found abandoned in the  corridor alone, whilst the remainder of the  mummies were in the burial chamber, there were no  inscriptions on the coffin  to indicate the man's name and the coffin had also been sealed down to prevent escape, he was probably a noble as his ears had been pierced which is a sign of high birth or priesthood, yet his body was wrapped in a sheepskin, this is a ritually unclean burial, perhaps it was Pertwere, the son of Ramses 111  whose mother had instigated the harem plot,  his hands and feet were bound together,  his face was distorted showing him screaming in terror , and his genitals had been sliced off.  The High Priests would be satisfied  that this man would die in lingering torment   whilst his soul  would be cast into the chaos of eternal death instead of the eternal life that  Egyptians craved,  it would be considered a just punishment  for trying to usurp his fathers throne . 
The mummy of King Seqenere Tao 11 who had lived 300 years before Ramses The Great and had ruled Egypt under the Hyksos period of invasion was also found in the cache at Dier El Bahari, he had died of a violent death, blows from a battle axe had left a gaping hole in his skull, it has been suggested that he was betrayed by the un-named mummy whom the priests had condemned to the horrendous death in the un-named coffin. His son Ahmose 1 was also found in the cache, and his mummy now lies in the Warrior section of Luxor museum.

A second cache of mummies were discovered by Victor Loret in 1898, one of the mummies was given the title 'Elder Lady' as their were no means of identifying her, many years passed before her body was finally identified. When Tutankhamen’s tomb was cleared of all its wealth and finery, they came across a small box that held a lock of his grandmother’s hair. Tests were concluded in the 1970's on a piece of the hair and it confirmed that the 'Elder Lady' was the grandmother of Tutankhamun, the mother of Akhenaton, and the Great Wife of Amenophis 111- Queen Tiye, who was the daughter of a chariot officer and therefore a commoner so it was unusual that she was the Great Wife of a King. Amenophis obviously loved and respected his wife because he also had her depicted on statues with him, she embraces his leg on the colossi of Memnon
Once the excitement of finding the cache of the most famous of the New Kingdom Kings had dissipated, people then began to ask, ‘where is the mummy of Hatshepsut?’ In 1903 Howard Carter found an undecorated tomb that had been pillaged in antiquity, inside the tomb laid the mummies of two women, this tomb was not of much interest to Howard carter as it did not contain treasure that it was his ambition to find, so he resealed the tomb and wrote a few notes of its condition and whereabouts. Three years later Edward Ayrton entered the tomb that had been registered as KV60 to collect one of the women who was laid in a coffin so that she could be shipped to Cairo; the inscriptions identified her as Sitre, who was the nurse of Hatshepsut. The tomb was then sealed again leaving the remaining woman alone to the silence of more years in an empty tomb,  its whereabouts were then lost and the lady forgotten about until another eighty years had passed, and then in June 1989 an archaeologist named Donald P Ryan rediscovered the tomb again, rubble and sand were cleared away until he was able to climb down a staircase leading into the depths of the tomb where fragments of pottery wooden coffin pieces and mummy wrappings littered the floor. Arriving at the burial chamber he found the mummy of the abandoned lady lying in the middle of the room.  Although no inscriptions were found that could help identify the lady she was obviously of importance and high ranking as she had been buried in the Valley of the Kings, although the tomb she was found in was undecorated I began to wonder could Tuthmosis 111 have wished to deny Hatshepsut the pleasure and magical words with the prayers of a decorated tomb? That would assist her journey to an eternal life. In a niche Dr.Ryan also discovered a small piece of a face from a coffin, thieves had removed the gold foil covering, but this fragment had a notch at the chin which could have been used to hold a false beard,   Hatshepsut wore a false beard to represent herself as a pharaoh. The evidence found within this tomb suggests that one of these ladies could have been Queen Hatshepsut herself. I have always admired Hatshepsut, and I do believe that you can’t keep a good woman down, she deserves the best, and I wonder if that is also why her Osiris statues smile as they survey the land from the terrace of her mortuary temple, this queen has risen again and will take her rightful place.

In 2007 Dr. Hawas investigated four mummies that had been taken to the Cairo museum, two from KV60 and two from DB320, he also had a wooden box that bore the cartouches of Hatshepsut, which contained the liver of the queen, and also a tooth that had fallen from the mummy during preparations for burial, so the embalmers put the tooth into the box.  With modern technology cat scans and close dental inspection of the mummies, they found that the lady from KV60 was missing a tooth, but the hole left behind and the type of tooth that was missing was an exact match for the loose one in the box from DB320 Which therefore offers the proof that this is the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut. And so finally this Amazing Queen will take her place with other royalty in the Cairo Museum once more.

Finally I feel that I cannot ride away from this momentous cul-de-sac of strength without relating to you the story of loyalty and honor that I have been told of that once lay in the tombs  near to the ruins of Mentuhotep’s Mortuary temple at the side of Hatshepsut’s temple. In 2040 BC Mentuhotep fought and won a battle against the leaders of the North of Egypt. Many of his soldiers died on the battlefield for him, and so to honor them he had sixty of their bodies collected and buried in the tombs facing his mortuary temple. It was their courage and sacrifice that had elevated him to ruler of all Egypt, and united the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, he became the founder of the Middle Kingdom and his Mortuary Temple was the first to be built at Dier El Bahari until the architect Senemut raised the  larger Temple of Hatshepsut at it's side.

Luxor Museum

LUXOR MUSEUM
Discovering Akhenaten

Having  spent the morning at the mummification museum I decided to use the evening to go in search of  Akhenaten, this can be rather difficult as his works were systematically destroyed after his death, no statues of this heretic pharaoh can be found in any temples in Luxor, although the tomb of Ramose offers a glimpse of Armarna art with the king practicing his vision of one god the Aten before he left Weset (luxor) to create his new Kingdom in a completely barren and deserted place that he named Akhetaten, the horizon of the Aten, now known as Armarna, this was also raised to the ground after his death, so unless you are an archaeologist there is only one definite place to find Akhenaten whilst on holiday and that is at Luxor Museum. Akhenaton had been a pharaoh like no other, his whole concept of life and spirituality was on a completely different level from any king that has ever ruled Ancient Egypt, he believed in one god two thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ, and so I wanted to look on the form of Egypt’s most unusual and revolutionary pharaoh, to achieve this I knew there was only one place that I would be able to gaze on this metamorphous of a mortal,
so I jumped in one of the many caliches that were parked up at the back of Luxor temple and asked the driver to take me to Luxor Museum. Once the driver had negotiated the busy road crossing, I relaxed into my seat and enjoyed the slight breeze that enlivened my senses as the unusual white horse pulling my caleache trotted confidently down the Corniche,  its vibrant mane and tail of  outrageous flaming orange  flew with the breeze, the owner had radically  drawn attention to his horse by dyeing its white hair with henna, this  had to be the most noticeable horse in Luxor, and something about this striking horse   stirred memories from my childhood. I smiled as the memories surfaced again and I remembered scenes from the  film  ‘The wizard of Oz’  where  the  white horse had  triumphantly taken Dorothy  into the Emerald City, and  like a  chameleon the horse had constantly and vibrantly changed  its colour .

As we passed the side of Luxor Temple I was inspired by its vision of radiance and light, its pale golden columns of the Festival Hall of Amenhotep 111  glowed against the early evening deep blue  sky, the floodlights seemed to increase the size of the columns almost helping them to touch the heavens, and then  I remembered an evening walk I had taken through the Temple with Hamde ,  who had worked in the temple for seventeen years, he told me of the ancient beliefs that the stones of the temple had a soul, and that when darkness falls the light of the stars illuminates them again, and they are  filled with the luminous Ka’s of the Pharaohs, then like Nut the god of the sky who comes to meet her husband Geb the god of the earth each evening, the stars came down to earth to fill the ancient containers in the temple with incense and myrrh. The columns had a stream of light reflected through them, and Hamdes beautiful story seemed so real, I looked at the Columns and I felt the magic of the temple and I was so grateful to be alive and experience my emotions that had become so entwined with this ancient culture.

The glow of the temple fell behind us as my horse confidently trotted down the Corniche and I knew that I was experiencing my own special piece of magic that night. Progressing down the Corniche the driver rattled the bells of the  caleache,  cars hooted and tour buses shunted and shuffled, they dropped weary but exuberant tourists off from their  excursions, deftly my little caleache weaved its way through all the bustle of traffic and I observed a migration of people disappear down the steps  leading them to cross the longest river in the world, the river that gave life to Egypt and its amazing ancient civilization,  whilst modern Luxorians jostled their way onto the  crowded ferry they lived their ordinary lives untouched by the splendor around them and their boats continued to cross  in a never ending flow over this awesome river  of life. 

My caleache passed several elegant cream colonial buildings containing memories of yesterday from archeologists and the history they had woken up, we passed the Mummification museum that was discretely hidden from view like a tomb itself, its staircase descended underneath the depths of the Corniche; from this point the road gradually became quieter, and shortly after the horse pulled up outside Luxor museum. To my surprise the museum looked completely out of place, it was an expanse of modern looking embossed concrete, and it suddenly reminded my brain of what century I was actually living in, the driver wanted to wait for me but firmly I told him no as I wanted to relax in the museum and take my time, and I had no idea how long I would be. It is never a problem trying to find a taxi or caleache in Luxor, the problem is more of how to loose one, they want to stick to you like glue. Climbing down from the caleache I surveyed this large modern building with a plain strip of grass before it, and a small black granite striding statue of Tuthmosis. I collected my ticket and passed through the security entrance where I was guided into a small cinema to watch a short film  that described the return to Luxor of two warrior kings, Ramses 1 and Ahmose 1, their mummies were on special display in the new military wing that has been created within the museum. Having watched the video I couldn’t wait to see them. I humbly regret to say that most of my visit from that point was a blur until I stood outside the room of the first warrior king, and so I skipped a lot of the initial collection, deciding I would go round again after I had satisfied my curiosity of visiting the kings.

Climbing up a step and passing through the entrance I arrived in a small room where every visible surface was painted black and the ceiling was so high it was a reminder of the vastness of eternity; modern artists had not needed to impress the gods, but to simply remind us that we are standing in the presence of a King. To my surprise the frail body of Ahmose 1 laid within a glass case in the middle of this small room, and it was hard to imagine him as a warrior, but then I remembered how small David was and yet he had slain goliath in the bible, and so I decided it wasn’t sensible to let the small frame of this king influence my first impression. As I walked around his glass coffin I was drawn to his amazing battle axe displayed behind a glass recess in the wall, the power of this axe convinced me that it could imbue any man with an indomitable strength of will both in life and battles, and I believe Ahmose had those qualities. His father king Seqenenre Taa had been killed with horrific blows to his head fighting the Hyskos, who had been driven from western Asia into Africa by instability and famine; they had settled at the delta and ruled northern Egypt.  After the slaughter of Seqenenre Taa in battle, Khamose the eldest brother of Ahmose became king and led his army to face the hyskos, he was also killed in battle, and so the title of King descended onto the shoulders of a young ten year old boy who became Ahmose 1, ‘The Moon is born’. After the death of her husband and eldest son, Queen Ahmose Nefertari guided her youngest and only son Ahmose 1 to become a great king, a king that united Egypt’s two thrones once more.
                                                                                   

I do believe that a man can become great with the influence of a strong woman; Eleven years after the slaughter of his father and brother Ahmose also went to battle to seek his revenge for their deaths, he marched his army into Avaris and finally defeated the Hyskos driving them out of Egypt, He then traveled south with his army and defeated the Nubian king, where he seized all the gold mines and reasserted Egyptian power and laid the foundations of the New Kingdom. Ahmose became known as the Glorious liberator, the Avenger of five wounds, the Unifier of Egypt and Great Conqueror, he presented his ceremonial battle axe to his mother Queen Ahmose Nefertari to celebrate the victory. Ahmose 1 ruled for twenty five years and his mummy was found in the cache at Dier El Bahari along with his father and many other great Kings of the New kingdom era. Leaving the sanctuary of Ahmose I then went into the next room to meet Ramses 1, who was not actually of a Royal bloodline when he became king. His official titles before becoming king were Master of Horse, Commander of the Fortress, and Controller of the Nile Mouth, Charioteer of His Majesty, and King’s Envoy to Every Foreign Land, Royal Scribe, Colonel, and General of the Lord of the Two Lands.  Ramses became one of the later kings after all the turmoil that Akhenatens reign had created within Egypt. After Akhenatens death Smenkaare ruled for a year then the boy child Tutenhaten grew up as a king, and under the guidance of his Vizier and chief advisor Aye he returned to Waset changing his name to Tutenkhamun and reinstated the temples of Amun, after a  ten year rule, Tutenkhamun died leaving no heir to the throne, and Aye took control , probably Aye  wanted to feel assured that Egypt would retain its strength and position again after years of turmoil so on his death he transferred power to the Army, and General Horemheb became king, who obliterated any traces of Akhenaten and the Armarna period that had damaged the strength and prestige of Egypt, a position he had been trained to create. When Horemheb died he transferred the throne to his general Paramessu who became Ramses 1. With this turn of events Egypt was now in safe hands once more, the Black land was settled and stable once again, and although Ramses only ruled for two years his son Seti 1 and especially his Grandson Ramses 11 held long and secure reigns that created a memorable era for ancient Egypt. Ramses 1 arrival at Luxor museum followed an extraordinary tale of tomb robbers and eventual saviors.

Across the river at Dier El Bahari in 1888 the Rassul brothers, local tomb robbers had eventually admitted that they had found the secret hiding place of many great kings. It is considered that Priests removed the Kings from their own tombs to protect them from Tomb robbery many centuries ago. When the cache was found at Dier El Bahari The mummy of Ramses 1 was missing although his coffin was found with the rest of the kings. It appears that the Rassul brothers had sold Ramses1 for seven pounds to a Canadian physician named James Douglas who had acquired the mummy for the owner of a museum at Niagra Falls. Over a hundred years later In 1980 a German Egyptologist visited the museum and recognized the features of Ramses the great as he looked at this mummy, he was aware that the mummy of Ramses 1 had been missing from the cache, and also this mummy had its arms crossed and its hands appeared to have been grasping what could have been the symbols of royalty which indicated that it was a royal mummy. In 1999 the Niagra falls museum closed and the mummy was sold to the Carlos Museum for two million pounds, the museum arranged for cat scans and compared the details with the mummies of Seti 1 & Ramses 11 and were convinced that they had in their possession the mummy of Ramses 1, and with this knowledge they generously offered to return the ‘lost’ king to his homeland, and so Ramses arrived at Cairo airport, his coffin was draped with the Egyptian flag, and received a military escort, eventually plans were made to return him to the place of this throne and burial in ancient Waset, now modern Luxor, from Cairo a flotilla of boats escorted him along with Ahmose 1, up the river Nile to a military celebration and welcome that waited for them on the east bank of Luxor, where their coffins were then driven by horse through the town on a special white barque to a reception at Karnack Temple and then their final resting place within the new wing specially created for them at Luxor Museum the kings had arrived home to jubilation once more.


I left the room of Ramses and headed towards the highest level of the museum to see Akhenaten. I wondered who was this king that had created so much turmoil within a society that had been dominated by their beliefs of many gods and the Priests of Amun for thousands of years?
 Akhenaten was one of the sons of Amenhotep III, the pharaoh who had created the largest festival hall at Luxor Temple and whose colossal statues are known as the Colossi of Memnon, they sit alone abandoned at the side of the fields of the western shore, now only the foundations of Amenophis’ mortuary temple remain behind the lonely statues, and in the desert the scattered remnants of his palace can still be found, this huge palace was possibly where Akhenaten grew up. The palace area today is known to the local s as Malquata, which means the ‘place of debris’, Amenophis had named it ‘The Palace of the Dazzling Aten’, he created a harbor in front of the palace that from its place in the desert it still gave access to river Nile, so that he could sail straight from the palace in his golden Barque that was called ‘Aten Sparkles, obviously during the reign of Amenophis the Aten was beginning to rise in importance.
During his childhood Akhenaten was known as Amenhotep, he was never included in any festivals or ceremonies along with his family, he was a hidden child, excluded from the royal circle, rejected, possibly because of obvious signs of an illness that royalty would not accept, but yet his mother Queen Tiy showered him with her love regardless of the reason for his exclusion. His older brother Tuthmosis was the heir to the throne, but when he died suddenly, a new heir was needed and Amenophis was finally exposed to the people as the new successor to the throne.


I stood beneath his statue and was drawn by the hypnotic stare from  his elongated Asian eyes that viewed me from above , his  face was long with unusually broad cheekbones and a high forehead, a strong masculine jaw  fought against the supremacy of his wide and sensuous mouth that pouted somewhat, I felt that he would have known my innermost thoughts in life, I was un- nerved by his steadfast probe of my soul, never had a pharaoh been portrayed in such an unusual  manner before, his deep sensuous lips reminded me of the African race, his long face with highly pronounced cheek bones suggested European and his eyes suggested Asian, his face was a confusion and seemed to portray a man  possessing the features from all the four corners of the earth within one race, his athletic  arms and long slender fingers grasped the crook and flail firmly, but there was no impression of the raw brutality strength or power from  within his body that previous pharaohs had amplified, he was an enigma, a man whose body portrayed both male and female characteristics with his sweeping wide female child bearing hips,  his mind held the key to his power and his strength, the wealth of his position and centuries of belief that the pharaoh was a living god fueled his defiance of the priests of Amun to eradicate their powers and install  his chosen God the Aten to rule supreme, like a despot he blindly pursued his belief and forced his will over others, but his will  was only as strong as his own mortal life and his beliefs and suppression of the priests of Amun then ended with his mortal  life.

I left his steadfast gaze and followed the small pieces of talatat across the wall, Akhenaten had initially created a temple at Karnack that he dedicated to the Aten, and to fulfill his usual rapid need for renewal he used these small slabs of talatat to decorate his temple. Pharaoh Horemheb had been an army general during the reign of Akhenaten, after his death he destroyed the remains of Akhenaten's Sun temple and used its remains to fill his 10th pylon.

All the pieces of talatat that could be found to match, like a jigsaw have been pieced together again to create a small scene from within one of the Sun Temples that Akhenaten had created outside the eastern gate of Karnack Temple. He named his main temple Gempaaten which means “The Sun Disc is found in the Estate of the God Aten",  there’s defiance for you and a snub to authority, his temple had no roof and was created in the same style that his father Amenophis 111 had made the  festival hall at luxor temple, its offering tables were exposed to the warmth of the rays of the Sun,  the opposite  of  the dark secretive and covered chambers that had been created for centuries of worship in the temples of Amun. A special house within the precincts of Karnack contains the remains of the small pieces of the talatat .It is  almost like a  library for  the privileged where only the chosen few are allowed to have a glimpse of all the broken remains of Akhenaten's rule. In time someone will come that can put all the pieces together and recreate Akhenaten's dreams once more. Many layers of history have tried to destroy and eradicate this most unusual pharaoh, a man of peace, a man who made his own rules and defied the priests of Amun, a king not interested in following the traditions of dominance,  a man  that was eventually  broken by the overwhelming forces against him, enemies on his frontiers and a plague within his Capital that took the life of two of his beloved young daughters, his hopes were diminished and after his death his religion and the sanctuary he had created at Akhetaten was abandoned by his people,  the lonely life he had lead as a child, and his vision of one god, the Aten was rejected, he had brought Egypt to the brink of economic disaster with his non violent policy and his life of seclusion, his only interests in life had been the love of his wife Nefertiti his children and the worship of the Aten. Regardless of his faults   I admired him for his determination to stand up for his own beliefs and for the obvious love of his wife and daughters; he had tried to create a haven of peace within a country that needed the wars and suppression of its neighbors to survive. Akhenaten was a rare pharaoh indeed and was not afraid to be shown in the tender embrace of his family something that no other pharaoh has ever been portrayed for, a man of the family, a child that had begun life as an outcast he blindly soared to the heights to live his dreams. Sadly his dream had broken him; he tried to change too much too soon. I sat and stared at his face for a long time, was this really him? Had he been as honest in his strange portrayal as he had been as open in is love for his wife and daughters? I sat and reflected for a long while, and then I left with the memory of his unusual face in my mind, as nothing else in the museum could compare to this enigma of a pharaoh.