Deir el-Bersha, named after the modern village nearby, is a necropolis
and quarry site on the east bank of the Nile, in the remote cliffs at
the mouth of the Wadi Deir el-Nakhla. The site is important not only
for its 39 rock-cut tombs, many similar in style to the later tombs at
Beni Hasan, but also for its extensive galleries of limestone
quarries. Unfortunately the quarrying and earlier earthquakes as well
as more recent vandalism have greatly damaged the tombs which are now
in a lamentable state of preservation.
The most important tombs at Deir el-Bersha belong to Dynasty XI and
XII governors of the 15th Upper Egyptian Nome who lived in Hermopolis
(el-Ashmunein) across the river. They were visited by many early
travellers and excavated by Percy Newberry for the Egypt Exploration
Fund during 1891-1893, by Georges Daressy in 1897 and Ahmed Kamal from
1900. George Reisner began excavations in 1915 for the Boston-Harvard
Expedition. Since the 1980s a Dutch-American expedition has excavated
at Deir el-Bersha.
The decorated tombs in the cliffs of Deir el-Bersha date from the Old
Kingdom, First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, when it was the
principal cemetery of Hermopolis. Early excavations at the site
brought to light a number of high-status burials, some of them
substantially intact. The most famous and most impressive of the
Middle Kingdom tombs was constructed for Djehutihotep, a governor who
ruled during the Dynasty XII reigns of Amenemhet II and Senwosret II
and III. Djehutihotep’s main title was ‘Great Overlord of the Hare
Province’. His tomb-chapel has a portico with two palm-columns, a
rectangular inner hall and a deep cult chamber with a statue niche up
a short flight of steps. The tomb has long been famous for a unique
painted scene on the left-hand wall of the inner hall, depicting the
transportation of a colossal statue of the deceased from the alabaster
quarries at Hatnub to his mortuary chapel. The scene shows how the
statue, measuring 6.5m high and estimated to weigh about 60 tonnes,
was dragged on a wooden sledge by 172 men pulling with ropes, while
another man pours something (presumably water) from a jar to lubricate
the ground in front of the sledge. The lifting of the weight was done
using wooden levers. The tomb also contains other interesting scenes
of daily life in the Middle Kingdom.
In one of five subsidiary shaft-graves in the forecourt of
Djehutihotep’s tomb-chapel was the tomb of Gua, who held the title of
‘Chief of Physicians’, and was probably Djehutihotep’s personal
doctor. A quantity of rich burial equipment was found here, including
two beautifully decorated cedarwood coffins, Gua’s canopic jars and
several wooden models, now in the British Museum.
Among other interesting and important tombs is that of the governor
Djehutinakht, discovered by H Lyman Story, registrar of the Boston
Museum in 1915. Djehutinakht was ‘Heredetery Prince and Controller of
the Two Thrones’, a governor of Dynasty XI. His wife shared the tomb
and also confusingly shared the same name. Djehutinakht’s tomb had
been anciently plundered but many artefacts were found during its
clearance, including the owner’s elaborate and beautifully detailed
outer coffin, an unparalleled masterpiece of Middle Kingdom art, and
parts of his desecrated mummy, the linen-wrapped head of which was
found watching the excavators from on top of the coffin. Among the
treasures left behind were several coffins, mummy-masks and funerary
equipment, as well as jewellery, superb wooden models, vessels and
statuettes.
The limestone quarries and their associated settlements in and around
the Wadi Deir el-Nakhla were in use from the New Kingdom through to
the Roman Period and into the Coptic era. The Mission to Deir el-Bersha
of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, directed by Professor Harco
Willems have been working in the quarry areas since 2002 where they
have revealed many interesting features, inscriptions, drawings and
grafitto as well as a badly damaged stela of Amenhotep III. They point
out that the removal of Amun’s name from the defaced stela may
indicate that the quarries were in use during the Amarna Period.
Recent excavation reports on the Deir el-Bersha quarries can be found
on the Leuven excavation website
Pharaonic Tombs and Stone Quarries in Deir al-Barsha. |
