From this description it will have been seen that the temple is an important monument of the Egyptian art and architecture of the Middle Kingdom. It is the only temple of that period of which considerable traces have been found, and on that account the study of it will be of the greatest interest. It is the best preserved of the older temples of Egypt, and at Thebes it is by far the most ancient building recovered. Historically it has given us a new king of the XIth Dynasty, Sekhâhe-tep-Râ Mentuhetep, and the name of the queen of Neb-hapet-Râ Mentuhetep, Aasheit, who seems to have been an Ethiopian, to judge from her portrait, which has been discovered. It is interesting to note that one of the priestesses was a negress.
The name Neb-hapet-Râ may be unfamiliar to those readers who are acquainted with the lists of the Egyptian kings. It is a correction of the former reading, “Neb-kheru-Râ,” which is now known from these excavations to be erroneous. Neb-hapet-Râ (or, as he used to be called, Neb-kheru-Râ) is Mentuhetep III of Prof. Petrie’s arrangement. Before him there seem to have come the kings Mentuhetep Neb-hetep (who is also commemorated in this temple) and Neb-taui-Râ; after him, Sekhâhetep-Râ Mentuhetep IV and Seânkhkarâ Mentuhetep V, who were followed by an Antef, bearing the banner or hawk-name Uah-ânkh. This king was followed by Amenemhat I, the first king of the XIIth Dynasty. Antef Uah-ânkh may be numbered Antef I, as the prince Antefa, who founded the XIth Dynasty, did not assume the title of king.
Other kings of the name of Antef also ruled over Egypt, and they used to be regarded as belonging to the XIth Dynasty; but Prof. Steindorff has now proved that they really reigned after the XIIIth Dynasty, and immediately before the Sekenenrâs, who were the fighters of the Hyksos and predecessors of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The second names of Antef III (Seshes-Râ-up-maat) and Antef IV (Seshes-Râ-her-her-maat) are exactly similar to those of the XIIIth Dynasty kings and quite unlike those of the Mentuheteps; also at Koptos a decree of Antef II (Nub-kheper-Râ) has been found inscribed on a doorway of Usertsen (Senusret) I; so that he cannot have preceded him. Prof. Petrie does not yet accept these conclusions, and classes all the Antefs together with the Mentuheteps in the XIth Dynasty. He considers that he has evidence from Herakleopolis that Antef Xub-kheper-Râ (whom he numbers Antef V) preceded the XIIth Dynasty, and he supposes that the decree of Nub-kheper-Râ at Koptos is a later copy of the original and was inscribed during the XIIth Dynasty. But this is a difficult saying. The probabilities are that Prof. Steindorff is right. Antef Uah-ânkh must, however, have preceded the XIIth Dynasty, since an official of that period refers to his father’s father as having lived in Uah-ânkh ‘s time.
The necropolis of Dêr el-Bahari was no doubt used all through the period of the XIth and XIIth Dynasties, and many tombs of that period have been found there. A large number of these were obliterated by the building of the great temple of Queen Hatshepsu, in the northern part of the cliff-bay. We know of one queen’s tomb of that period which runs right underneath this temple from the north, and there is another that is entered at the south side which also runs down underneath it. Several tombs were likewise found in the court between it and the XIth Dynasty temple. We know that the XVIIIth Dynasty temple was largely built over this court, and we can see now the XIth Dynasty mask-wall on the west of the court running northwards underneath the mass of the XVIIIth Dynasty temple. In all probability, then, when the temple of Hatshepsu was built, the larger portion of the Middle Kingdom necropolis (of chamber-tombs reached by pits), which had filled up the bay to the north of the Mentuhetep temple, was covered up and obliterated, just as the older VIth Dynasty gallery tombs of Shêkh Abd el-Kûrna had been appropriated and altered at the same period.
The kings of the XIIth and XIIIth Dynasties were not buried at Thebes, as we have seen, but in the North, at Dashûr, Lisht, and near the Fayymn, with which their royal city at Itht-taui had brought them into contact. But at the end of the XIIIth Dynasty the great invasion of the Hyksos probably occurred, and all Northern Egypt fell under the Arab sway. The native kings were driven south from the Fayymn to Abydos, Koptos, and Thebes, and at Thebes they were buried, in a new necropolis to the north of Dêr el-Bahari (probably then full), on the flank of a long spur of hill which is now called Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga, “Abu-’l-Negga’s Arm.” Here the Theban kings of the period between the XIIIth and XVIIth Dynasties, Upuantemsaf, Antef Nub-kheper-Râ, and his descendants, Antefs III and IV, were buried. In their time the pressure of foreign invasion seems to have been felt, for, to judge from their coffins, which show progressive degeneration of style and workmanship, poverty now afflicted Upper Egypt and art had fallen sadly from the high standard which it had reached in the days of the XIth and XIIth Dynasties. Probably the later Antefs and Sebekemsafs were vassals of the Hyksos. Their descendants of the XVIIth Dynasty were buried in the same necropolis of Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga, and so were the first two kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Aahmes and Amenhetep I. The tombs of the last two have not yet been found, but we know from the Abbott Papyrus that Amenhetep’s was here, for, like that of Menttihetep III, it was found intact by the inspectors. It was a gallery-tomb of very great length, and will be a most interesting find when it is discovered, as it no doubt eventually will be. Aahmes had a tomb at Abydos, which was discovered by Mr. Currelly, working for the Egypt Exploration Fund. This, however, like the Abydene tomb of Usert-sen (Senusret) III, was in all likelihood a sham or secondary tomb, the king having most probably been buried at Thebes, in the Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga. The Abydos tomb is of interesting construction. The entrance is by a simple pit, from which a gallery runs round in a curving direction to a great hall supported by eighteen square pillars, beyond which is a further gallery which was never finished. Nothing was found in the tomb. On the slope of the mountain, due west of and in a line with the tomb, Mr. Currelly found a terrace-temple analogous to those of Dêr el-Bahari, approached not by means of a ramp but by stairways at the side. It was evidently the funerary temple of the tomb.
Statue of Queen Teta-shera
Grandmother of Aahmes, the conqueror of the Hyksos and founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty. About 1700 B. C. British Museum. From the photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.
The secondary tomb of Usertsen (Senusret) III at Abydos, which has already been mentioned, was discovered in the preceding year by Mr. A. E. P. Weigall, and excavated by Mr. Currelly in 1903. It lies north of the Aahmes temple, between it and the main cemetery of Abydos. It is a great bâb or gallery-tomb, like those of the later kings at Thebes, with the usual apparatus of granite plugs, barriers, pits, etc., to defy plunderers. The tomb had been plundered, nevertheless, though it is probable that the robbers were vastly disappointed with what they found in it. Mr. Currelly ascribes the absence of all remains to the plunderers, but the fact is that there probably never was anything in it but an empty sarcophagus. Near the tomb Mr. Weigall discovered some dummy mastabas, a find of great interest. Just as the king had a secondary tomb, so secondary mastabas, mere dummies of rubble like the XIth Dynasty pyramid at Dêr el-Bahari, were erected beside it to look like the tombs of his courtiers. Some curious sinuous brick walls which appear to act as dividing lines form a remarkable feature of this sham cemetery. In a line with the tomb, on the edge of the cultivation, is the funerary temple belonging to it, which was found by Mr. Randall-Maclver in 1900. Nothing remains but the bases of the fluted limestone columns and some brick walls. A headless statue of Usertsen was found.
We have an interesting example of the custom of building a secondary tomb for royalties in these two nécropoles of Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga and Abydos. Queen Teta-shera, the grandmother of Aahmes, a beautiful statuette of whom may be seen in the British Museum, had a small pyramid at Abydos, eastward of and in a line with the temple and secondary tomb of Aahmes. In 1901 Mr. Mace attempted to find the chamber, but could not. In the next year Mr. Currelly found between it and the Aahmes tomb a small chapel, containing a splendid stele, on which Aahmes commemorates his grandmother, who, he says, was buried at Thebes and had a mer-âhât at Abydos, and he records his determination to build her also a pyramid at Abydos, out of his love and veneration for her memory. It thus appeared that the pyramid to the east was simply a dummy, like Usertsen’s mastabas, or the Mentuhetep pyramid at Dêr el-Bahari. Teta-shera was actually buried at Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga. Her secondary pyramid, like that of Aahmes himself, was in the “holy ground” at Abydos, though it was not an imitation bâb, but a dummy pyramid of rubble. This well illustrates the whole custom of the royal primary and secondary tombs, which, as we have seen, had obtained in the case of royal personages from the time of the 1st Dynasty, when Aha had two tombs, one at Nakâda and the other at Abydos. It is probable that all the 1st Dynasty tombs at Abydos are secondary, the kings being really buried elsewhere. After their time we know for certain that Tjeser and Snefru had duplicate tombs, possibly also Unas, and certainly Usertsen (Senusret) III, Amenemhat III, and Aahmes; while Mentuhetep III and Queen Teta-shera had dummy pyramids as well as their tombs. Ramses III also had two tombs, both at Thebes. The reasons for this custom were two: first, the desire to elude plunderers, and second, the wish to give the ghost a pied-à-terre on the sacred soil of Abydos or Sakkâra.