BIA

MARS 2015
dynasty of Abydos,” a small town near the
Upper Egyptian city of Suhâg. His tomb was
accidently found last year during excavation
work by an American-Egyptian archaeological
mission from the Penn Museum in South
Abydos. Although the tomb was robbed in
antiquity, it still bears witness to the political
and social history of Egypt’s Second
Intermediate Period and the lost Abydos
Dynasty.
According to tomb discoverer Josef WEGNER,
an associate curator at the Penn Museum, the
discovery of the tomb confirms the existence of
an independent “Abydos Dynasty.” According to
Danish Egyptologist Kim RYHOLT, this dynasty
was contemporary with both the Kingdom of
Thebes and the Hyksos Kingdom in the north
of Egypt.
The discovery also identifies the location of
the dynasty’s royal necropolis in South Abydos,
in an area called “Anubis-Mountain” in ancient
times. Royal burials were placed here adjacent
to the tombs of earlier Middle Kingdom
pharaohs.
“Senebkay’s name may have appeared in a
broken section of the famous Turin King List,”
said WEGNER. The Turin King List is a papyrus
document dating to the reign of Ramses II and
now at the Turin Museum in Italy. WEGNER
explained that two kings with the throne name
Woseribre, the first name of the pharaoh, are
recorded at the head of a group of more than
a dozen kings, most of whose names are
entirely lost.
The remains of the king were unearthed
amidst the debris of his fragmentary coffin,
funerary mask and canopic chests made of
cedar wood that had been reused from the
nearby tomb of Sobekhotep I and still bore the
name of the earlier king and were covered in
gilding.
“Using objects from the nearby Sobekhotep
tomb shows the limited resources and isolated
economic situation of the Abydos Kingdom,
which lay in the southern part of Middle Egypt
between the two larger Kingdoms of Thebes
and the Hyksos in northern Egypt,” said WEGNER.
He said that the pharaohs of the Abydos
Dynasty were largely forgotten by history and
their royal necropolis had been unknown until
the discovery of Senebkay’s tomb.
Ankle and skull of Senebkay
Research and forensic analysis was carried
out on the king’s skeleton after the discovery,
revealing details of his life, the Abydos Dynasty
and the Second Intermediate Period of which
he was a part. In a report published on the
Penn Museum website, WEGNER wrote that
analysis carried out by Maria ROSADO and Jane
HILL of Rowan University indicates that
Senebkay lived during the latter part of Egypt’s
Second Intermediate Period and died between
the age of 35 and 40 years during a vicious
assault by multiple assailants.
“The king’s skeleton has 18 wounds
penetrating to the bone, as well as vertical
major cuts in his feet, ankles, knees, hands
and lower back,” WEGNER said. Three major
blows were found on Senebkay’s skull, the
result of the use of battle-axes. “This evidence
indicates the king died violently during a
military confrontation, or in an ambush,” he
added.
The angle and direction of the wounds
suggest that Senebkay was in a higher position
than his assailants when they attacked him with
axes. “He was possibly mounted on horseback,
and blows to his back and legs caused him to
fall to the ground where he was brutally struck
on his head until death,” said WEGNER, who
added that the shape of the pharaoh’s pelvis
indicated that he was a skilled horse rider.
“Another king’s body discovered this year in
a tomb close to that of Senebkay also shows
evidence of horse riding, suggesting that these
Second Intermediate Period kings buried at
Abydos were accomplished horsemen,” WEGNER
wrote. The use of horses in battle was not
common until the Bronze Age.
Yûsuf Khalîfa, head of the Ancient Egyptian
Antiquities Department at the Ministry of
Culture, told the Weekly that it was not clear if
BIA LI — Janvier/Juin 2015 70