The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari .. - NYU | Digital Library ...

1. The Temi'lk.
Tin: Xltli Dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari
is tlie fiinei'aiy chapel of the king ^lentuhetep
IL, who boi'e tlie prenomeu ro^^^z^M, Neb-
hepet-Ra, which used to be read " Neb-klieru-
Ivfi," till the variant form CO ^37 "^ was found
at Deir cl-Bahari by us. M. Navillc has
stated in the previous chapter his opinion that
there wei'e two kings bearinfj the name of
Neh-hepet-Rd, perhaps fiither and son, who
spelt their prenomens differently, the elder as
To '^z:^ n, the younger as o ^^37 "^ . If this
is so, the temple was evidently the Avork of the
elder king, and the younger completed it,
probably adding tlie shrines of the princesses,
which, as we shall see, may have been after-
thoughts : it is on the walls of these that the
name o ^^z::^ yl occurs.
The Theban dead had always been buried on
the western bank of the river, under the shadow
of the Kiirn, the great stack mountain, saci'ed
to Hathor, which rises immediately above the
cliffs uf Deir el-Bahari. Here the benign cow
Hathor ruled the dead in her capacity as
^[istress of the Waste, sometimes appearing in
serpent-form as Jlersegret, " She who loveth
silence." Here, in Tjcsret or Ze.sret, " the
Huly," tlie necropolis of the Xlth Dynasty
Thebans was set, and here at least one, and
probably two, of their monarchs were buried.
The great myal tomb known as the liah el-
CiJ AFTER II.
THE TEMPLE AND ITS EXCAVATION.
Bv II. K. IIai.l.
Ilomn, discovered by ]\Ir. Howard Carter in
18!J8, is apparently the cenotaph* of a king of
this dynasty. Neb-hepet-llri 1. must himself
have been buried close by, probably in a
rock-cut tomb in the cliff's at the back of his
temple, though the great hah excavated in
l!jn7 is apparently a cenotaph or "tomb-
sanctuary " of the royal ka, rather than the
king's actual tomb (see p, 35). The royal
tombs were at that day not far sepai-ated
from their chapels ; this fact must be borne in
mind. It was not then, as it was in the days
of Thothmes and Rameses, that the monarchs
body Avas laid in his " August Habitation of
the West," which was constructed "no man
seeing, no man knowing,"' by the " Overseer
of the Works of the Place of Eternity,"
in the remote valley of the Tombs of the
Kings. The cha^jels of these later tombs Avere
' Though
the tomb had never been opened, nothing,
beyond the remains of the ofTerings, wiis found in it but
a seated statue of the king in the /leb-scd costume,
wrapped up, hke a mummy, in bandages, and a small
bos, of the same style as the model cofEns described on
pp. 49, 50 (CuiTEB, Ann. ii. 201). This was inscribed
with the name " Son of the Sun Mentuhetep," after
which is a gap, which originally contained either the signs
,
been O
" deceased," or the prenomcn, which cannot have
, but may iiave been
Newberry {P.S.B.A. xxii. 292) thought it was
"
T] .
Mr.
D'
but M. Naville has shown that this name is an
'ucorrect form, being due to a misreading of "Tj
(see p. 7 above).