All in all a very interesting presentation.
Huub Pragt, a Dutch Egyptologist who is currently leading a tour: Ancient Beliefs, gave a lecture with the above title at Thebes Hotel. In a little over an hour he explained and illustrated his view of the end of the New Kingdom, the start of the Third Intermediate Period in Upper Egypt, the very secret movement of the Royal (and other) mummies to DB320, the Royal Cache at Deir el Bahari that was to remain undisturbed until about 150 years ago, and the connection with the Lower Egyptian rulers at Tanis. The lecture was well illustrated - the projector being properly set up to give as large an image as possible. Unfortunately this meant that the images were rather too faint for my normal camera settings and I am not illustrating this blog post. His views do not completely concur with other chronologies (I have Aiden Dodson's "Afterglow of Empire" here, but also reasonable memories of Kenneth Kitchen's "Third Intermediate Period"). It is not for me to say who is right and who is wrong, but Huub put together a cohesive argument. The filling of DB320 was achieved over a period of about 110 years by the High Priests of Amun. Masaharta was one such priest, under Panedjem. He died before that pharaoh, so never became pharaoh of Upper Egypt himself. His brother, Menkheperre, had that honour. The tombs of several rulers of Upper Egypt from this time have yet to be discovered, and Huub speculates that they may be in one of the wadis to the south of the Valley of the Queens. He has photographed a number of very faint inscriptions in these wadis that include the cartouche of Herihor. The tombs of the first rulers of Lower Egypt at Tanis were well hidden under the flooring slabs of the Temple of Amun and were only discovered by Pierre Montet in 1939. The tomb of Ramses XI, who spent his last years as ruler of Lower Egypt, has yet to be found. He did not use his tomb, KV4, in the Valley of the Kings. This tomb was instead used as a workshop where the Royal Mummies were rewrapped before being taken to the Royal Caches.
All in all a very interesting presentation.
4 Comments
Teresa Day-Smith
25/3/2019 07:07:41
These lectures only occur in the fall, winter and early spring - is that correct? Not in the summer?
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Brian
25/3/2019 07:47:12
These lectures occur, always at short notice, mainly from October to April depending on when speakers are available. It is possible, but not likely, that there will be any in Summer.
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Teresa Day-Smith
26/3/2019 02:39:25
Thank you.
Angela
9/4/2019 19:03:21
Zany has just been telling me KV49 was used to gather the bodies together. part was via a dayschool part Channel 4 by the same speaker - John Ward.
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