Progress Report - Theban Mapping Project

Report of Work in the Valley of the Kings Spring, 2012 Field Season Our work began on 6 February and continued until 7 March 2012. This was a short season for financial reasons but it accomplished important work nonetheless. Our Inspector of Antiquities was Mohammed Beabesh Abu el Wafaa. We undertook two principal operations this season. The first was the completion of a lengthy process, checking and collating descriptions of the several thousand KV tomb photographs we have taken over the past ten years. Working with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the Theban Mapping Project (TMP) has made a comprehensive survey of the decorated walls in all accessible KV tombs (except KV 17 and 62) using digital color photography. The carved and painted texts and scenes on KV tomb walls are masterpieces of New Kingdom Egyptian art, important records of the culture’s religious and mortuary beliefs. Unfortunately, environmental factors and, especially in recent years, increasing tourism, have put serious pressure on these tombs and threatened the future existence of their decorated walls. Our project’s goal was to establish a baseline of current tomb conditions against which future changing conditions of paints, pigments, and plasters could be monitored so that conservators and SCA on‐site inspectors can more quickly and accurately identify problem areas and better‐protect these fragile monuments. To that end, we have taken over 10,000 photographs, recording in detail all accessible KV tombs. The images have been color corrected, proper overlap assured, and checked to insure completeness of coverage. Dina Bakhoum evaluating the condition of a tomb TMP photo archive now documents in detail the condition of KV tomb paintings and allows Egyptologists to study the techniques of the ancient artists This season, we returned to several open tombs (KV 1, 2, 6, 9, 11, 15, and 16) to recheck and, where necessary, correct the data accompanying each photograph. That work is now completed, and copies of all images and their catalogue entries have been supplied to the appropriate SCA offices in Cairo and in Luxor. A complete set of images will shortly be added to the TMP’s online archive, at www.thebanmappingproject.com. When the images are completely online, they will be accompanied by searchable indices allowing users to locate photographs of specific tombs, chambers, walls, and registers, to search for specific types of motifs, texts, scenes, deities and rulers, and to trace such elements chronologically through the Valley of the Kings’ New Kingdom history. Second, we continued our work in KV 5, the tomb of sons of Rameses II. This season, we concentrated on cleaning several side‐chambers off Chamber 14, one of the deepest parts of the tomb. Chamber 14 lies 14.2 m. below the level of the road in front of KV 5. The complex of chambers, 12 through 19, of which Chamber 14 is the largest, is almost a mirror image of another complex, chambers 20 through 27, that also lies beneath the road, which we cleaned two seasons ago. But there are enough differences between them that we needed to determine by clearing whether the gates cut in the walls of Chamber 14 led to single chambers, multiple chambers, or corridors in patterns similar to chambers 20‐27. As part of our work in earlier seasons, we had cleared a part of Chamber 14; cleared Chamber 15; determined that Gate 16 was actually the entrance to a corridor, Corridor 16, with at least twelve side‐
chambers, a‐l; and cleared Chamber 17. This season, we cleaned the double chamber 18 and 18a, which was cut in the rear wall of Chamber 14, and were able to show that no additional chambers or corridors had been cut beyond these rooms. (This was an interesting point to establish, since Chamber 18a is closer to KV 7, the tomb of Rameses II, than any other part of KV 5‐‐they are separated by about 60 m.) Gate 19 was also of potential interest since its position off Chamber 14 is similar to the position of Gate 25 off Chamber 22. In the latter case, Gate 25 led to a corridor with numerous side‐chambers extending eastward below Chambers 3 and 5. Gate 19, however, leads to only another chamber, of about the same depth as Chamber 15 but of greater width. The debris in these chambers was some of the densest we have encountered in KV 5 and it was extremely difficult and time‐consuming to remove. The process of digging was made even more time‐consuming because of the potsherds embedded in the debris and the traces of carved and painted plaster that was found on the chamber walls. We removed a substantial amount of debris during our work this season and found several hundred potsherds, a mixed bag of undiagnostic wall sherds, New Kingdom to Christian, nearly all of which had washed into the tomb during various flood events over the past three thousand years. The sherds did not provide reliable dating for any of the flood strata in the tomb. Only one object was found during the work: the lower two‐thirds of an alabaster ushabti, painted with a single column of text on its body that can tentatively be dated to the reign of Rameses VI or VII. Similar ushabti fragments were found in KV 5 in earlier seasons and are published in our Preliminary Report. Badly damaged and fragmentary plaster was found on the wall of Chamber 14 adjacent to Gate 19. We will not clean this plaster until next season, but it likely will show inscriptions similar to those we found two seasons ago on the south wall of Chamber 22. Those included parts of Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, the “Negative Confession.” Conservation work in KV 5 also continued, with Ahmed Saleh Abdallah on loan to us from the SCA. For the past two seasons, in addition to stabilizing the walls and ceilings in the chambers mentioned above and in Chamber 5, we continued to restore and stabilize the walls in Corridor 7 near the juncture of corridors 10 and 11, where the carved figure of Osiris is located. There were two reasons for this latter work. First, the walls here are covered by a deeper layer of bedrock than elsewhere in KV 5 and they have literally burst because of the great weight to which they have been subjected. Their stability was uncertain. Second, visitors to KV 5 invariably walk down Corridor 7 to view the figure of Osiris, and it is desirable that their approach be aesthetically pleasing as well as safe. Work this season has now stabilized the walls in a structurally sound and aesthetically acceptable manner. Ahmed Hassan exposing the entrance to Chamber 19
The TMP is also pleased to announce the opening of a new field headquarters on the West Bank at Luxor, a facility that will serve as project office and storeroom. It will house copies of all TMP field data, including images, maps, plans, field notes, and publications. Perhaps of even greater importance, the headquarters boasts an extensive Egyptological library, in English and Arabic, together with what can best be described as a small public library. The library already houses over a thousand volumes in Arabic and in English and we hope the number of books and journals will continue to grow. The collection includes works on subjects ranging from archaeological techniques, surveying, conservation, osteology, and others appropriate for those who work on the monuments at Thebes, to general works on medicine, health and nutrition, history, literature, science, language. In short, it is intended to be a library that can profitably be consulted by professional Egyptologists as well as by the general public of all ages. Computers for Internet searches and journal access (including Jstor) are available. We are working with local orphanages school groups to offer programs introducing young people to the importance of protecting and studying Egypt’s long traditions. The library is available to all, free of charge, daily from 1500 to 2200. Already, it is being visited by Egyptologists, antiquities inspectors, conservators, tourist guides, and local Egyptian students, and we expect the number of patrons to grow rapidly as word of the library’s availability spreads. We believe that the library will be an important part of the TMP’s efforts to inform and educate the general public about the importance of Egypt’s patrimony, and to enhance the work of those directly involved in the protection of the Theban monuments. Ahmed examining historical maps in TMP’s new Luxor library Reading room in the new Luxor library Courtyard of the new TMP Luxor library