Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
chamber. The author is the field director of this project supported by Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology, Japan. In the burial chamber, one can see ensemble of wall paintings on
the walls and on the pillars according to the cardinal points: 1) On the walls the Book
of Amduat is to be seen. A.F. SADEK pointed out the texts had some exceptional
spellings of words and played an important rule for its tradition after the New
Kingdom (SADEK 1985). 2) On each face of the six pillars is an image of the king face
to face with a god or a goddess, for example on the faces along the axis of the
chamber is the image of the king with Osiris; on the western side with Hathor and on
the eastern side with West Goddess.
The first hour of the Book of Amduat is situated in the middle of the south wall
and the following hours can be seen clockwise on the south, west, north and the east
wall. On the east wall near the south-east corner, to the right end of the 12th hour, the
résumé of the Book of Amduat, so called the short version, begins and continues
beyond the corner to the south wall and ends to the left of the first hour of the Book of
Amduat. The execution of the Book of Amduat was carefully planed on the walls of
the burial chamber adjusted to the cardinal points. The connection into the burial
chamber is situated in the south wall near the south-west corner. Usually such
connection is placed in the axis of the burial chamber of the royal tombs in the Valley
of the Kings. However, this is not the case in the tomb of Amenophis III. In all
probability, the decoration program with the Book of Amduat has a priority to the
architectural element. On the west wall, from which the burial chamber axis runs to
the east, the fourth and fifth hour were drawn. Only in each hour of this part, an
intersection of three registers can be seen. To keep this structure as a whole and avoid
a separation of the united registers with doorway, the connection into the burial
chamber was not laid out to the west wall.
The Book of Amduat has not been executed from the beginning of the Book
continuously, but it has been drawn separately on each wall. Such process of work has
an advantage to realize an ideal disposition of the hours.Because of the name of
Tuthmosis IV on the foundation deposits discovered by H. Carter in front of the tomb
of Amenophis III, we know Tuthmosis IV started to construct the royal tomb
(THOMAS 1966: 83). However, until now there is no reliable theory to explain why the
pharaoh needed the second royal tomb (cf. ROMER 1981: 240). It is probably because
that the decoration program in the burial chamber discussed here could not be realized
in his first royal tomb (KV 43) so that he launched to excavate another royal tomb
(KV 22).
References:
J. ROMER, Valley of the Kings (London, 1981).
A.F. SADEK, Contribution à l'étude de l’Amdouat, OBO 65 (Freiburg/Göttingen,
1985).
E. THOMAS, The Royal Nekropoleis of Thebes (Princeton, 1966).
S. YOSHIMURA and J. KONDO (eds.), Conservation of the Wall Paintings in the Royal
Tomb of Amenophis III. –First and Second Phases Report (Tokyo, 2004).
The (w)nwn (w)nwn funerary dance in the Old Kingdom and its relationship to
the dance of the Mww
Mww
Lesley Kinney
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