It consists of (1) a long corridor having an eastern frontage with some eighteen openings, which give access to a rock-cutting of the nature of an open court. (2) Cut in the back wall of this corridor, and at right angles to it, are a long central subterranean passage leading to a hall (C), and two sepulchral chambers. Access to one of these sepulchral chambers (J) is by means of a staircase, while the other (E) is approached by a vertical pit (D) of four metres in depth; both are cut in the floor of the hall (C). The northern end of the corridor was divided off by a stone and mortar partition, with a small chamber (B) at the back, which was presumably a portion divided off for a member of the owner’s family. The blind end of the corridor on the south had originally been closed by a mud-brick wall, and no doubt thus formed another private compartment like the third chamber (A), which is parallel to the central passage.
It appears, therefore, that there were five distinct burial chambers (and if counting the hall (C) a sixth) which were closed, leaving the greater part of the corridor and central passage open for any ceremonial rites that might be made by the living relations in favour of the deceased.
This great tomb, dating from the Late Middle Kingdom, was found to have been utilized for the storing of numerous stray burials of epochs ranging through the Intermediate Period down to the early part of the XVIIIth Dynasty. Our reasons for assigning this date to the tomb were the antiquities (Nos. 85, 86, 87) found in the layer of rubbish and burnt ashes that covered its floors; these were quite distinct from the coffins and other antiquities forming the cache which rested upon the rubbish.
It is difficult to imagine how such a large mausoleum, cut in the shallow and crumbling limestone stratum, with so many openings, could for long have been protected from plunderers. The smoke-blackened walls show how its contents were destroyed, and the martins’ nests, together with the innumerable mason-bee cells that adhered to the walls and ceiling, show that the tomb had been left open after having been plundered for a lengthy period, before it was re-used as a storehouse.
When revealed, the main entrance was not closed by bricks or by stones, as was often the custom, but the sand was merely poured over when the Ancients last covered it up. The remaining openings had certainly in some instances been closed by planks from old coffins, but the greater number were carelessly filled like the entrance. Three of the inner chambers were carefully closed; in two cases with bricks, and in one with stones. These closed chambers were as follows:—
Hall (C) had its doorway bricked two-thirds up with crude mud-bricks and Tafle mortar, and the remaining third of its opening with similar bricks but with a mud mortar ([Pl. LVI]), showing that it had been opened and re-closed a second time. The mortar-bed of mud for this last closing was found in the central passage (Pls. LV, LVI. 14) just as it was left by the ancient mason.
Chamber (A) had its doorway completely closed with flat mud-bricks, and the outer surface smeared over with Tafle stucco ([Pl. LVII], above the coffin to the left), which was stamped in numerous places with a seal giving the Nebti name
Chamber (B) had its entrance blocked by a heap of stones piled before it and a coffin placed in front ([Pl. LIX]. 1).
Behind these bricked-up doorways was the greater mass of the burials that were stored in the tomb.