Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
parallel rows oriented east-west, each composed of three architraves in line. Exact
measurement confirms this reconstruction, which is also supported by the decoration
of the preserved architraves that could accord with the presented array.
Some doubts have also arisen about the idea for the roof structure of the hall’s
lower section as reconstructed by Lipińska. It should be mentioned however that due
to the lack of material for broader architectural research, the only additional data has
been obtained from the study of wall decoration. This will soon be presented by J.
WIERCIŃSKA. From her earlier research (cf. J. WIERCIŃSKA, ET XVI, 1992, 264-269)
we heard for the first time about the widening of the main doorway leading from the
Hypostyle to the Bark Hall. This could either be the result of changing the building
design or of later alterations. Other transformations of the structure in the area of the
hypostyle hall can also be demonstrated. These findings will also be presented by J.
WIERCIŃSKA. Here it suffices to underline that the suggested reconstruction supports
these changes.
The Valley of Amenemhat and the end of the Ramesside Period
John Coleman Darnell
During the final decades of the 2 nd millennium BCE, New Kingdom Egypt was falling
from her throne of glory. The expense of the successful repulse of foreign invasions
and the drain of several periods of administrative corruption had exhausted the coffers
of imperial Egypt. During the reign of Ramesses IX the weakness or apathy of the
central administration allowed incursions of desert tribes to prey on trade and disrupt
life in the Valley. Taking advantage of the turmoil, criminals looted many private
tombs, although the Medjoy still managed to protect, with a few lapses, the royal
necropoleis. Conflict between the Viceroy of Nubia and the High Priest of Amun
during a time of famine in the reign of Ramesses XI led to conflict throughout the
country, until Panehesy fled before the counterattack of the general Paiankh. In order
to prosecute the war in the south, the pharaonic state began the systematic looting of
the royal tombs of Thebes. Continuing through the Twentieth Dynasty, workmen
whose ancestors had buried the royal dead became government sponsored ghouls,
removing valuables, rewrapping and transferring bodies.
A previously unknown northern extension of the Theban necropolis, numerous
rock inscriptions of late Ramesside date within that necropolis, and archaeological
evidence from more distant sites in the Theban Western Desert, shed new light on the
activities and interrelationships of the people who removed the burials, and help
explain the seemingly rapid economic collapse in the Thebaid, the central event that
led ultimately to the official robbery of the royal tombs. Just south of the Alamat Tal
wadi, in two wadis within the northeastern corner of the Theban massif, the Theban
Desert Road Survey has discovered a previously unknown, northern necropolis for
Western Thebes, the undecorated shaft tombs dating to the Second Intermediate
Period through the early New Kingdom. The tombs are located behind a series of
criss-crossing, cleared tracks in the low desert to the east, and were guarded by
mounted patrolmen, who left their inscriptions—and self-portraits—at an outpost high
in one of the tomb wadis. The burials were cleared in antiquity, and several chambers
outside the tomb wadis preserve the remains of embalmers’ caches of late Ramesside
date. Within the wadis themselves are the rock inscriptions of late Ramesside
workmen, apparently those who emptied the tombs and reburied the dead.
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