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From the depression, a stairway ramp leads up to the lower
terrace and from there another stairway leads to an upper corridor
along the north and west sides of the basin. At the bottom
of the stairs and in our excavation of the northern corridor we
found deposits of votive miniature ceramics, similar to those
archaeologists have found outside pyramid temples.
On the south, from the lower terrace a long north-south
ramp ascends along the face of the bedrock ledge to the threshold
of the queen’s causeway at the east edge of the town. Builders
later added a second ramp to the threshold from the north.
We need to investigate this structure further, but we can
suggest, based on its position, size, and layout, that it is the valley
complex and harbor for the funerary monument of Queen
Khentkawes. Below we summarize the excavations in KKT-E.
Tumble in the Temple:
Mud Mass of the Ruins
Daniel Jones and Kasia Olchowska
supervised the KKT-E excavations. At the
beginning, they faced a massive mudbrick
collapse sloping to the south and
east in the northwestern corner of the
bedrock ledge. The thick mudbrick walls
had collapsed down and into the southeast,
better preserving this corner against
forces of erosion that scoured the walls to
the south.
On the northern limit of the excavation
area, Kasia excavated the Northern
Corridor for a distance of 12.40 meters
(40.7 feet). The corridor is practically the
same width as the Khentkawes causeway
in its second phase. The builders may
have intended the northern corridor as a
continuation of the causeway passage.
The builders created the Southern
Lateral Ramp (SLR) between the eastern
edge of the KKT-E town terrace and
a parallel mudbrick wall. They filled the
north-south corridor with crushed limestone
to make a floor surface ascending
to the causeway at an 11° slope. At the top
of the ramp, just south of the causeway
threshold, a jamb projects from the corridor
wall to make a restriction, possibly
a doorway.
Sometime later the builders constructed the Northern
Lateral Ramp (NLR). Like its counterpart on the south, it slopes
up within a corridor, but its incline is half that of the SLR, rising
at around 4° over a length of 8.41 meters (27.6 feet).
At the northern end of the NLR corridor, a doorway opens
onto a stairway that descends to the lower terrace. Dan expertly
articulated six steps and exposed a little banister, one brick
wide, on the south along the uppermost two steps.
As we cleared the clean sand during our 2009 season we
realized that the builders extended the remains of a bedrock
quarry ledge with crushed limestone debris held in place by
mudbrick retaining walls. The lateral ramps, the northern corridor,
and the stairs rest on this lower terrace. From this level
the bedrock drops again down into a deeper depression.
0 5 10 meters
KKT-E 2009 operation. The Khentkawes Valley
Complex, phases 3, 4, and 5. The Northern Lateral
Ramp had not yet been built but its future
location is indicated.
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