Khaemhat
(also known as Mahu) was the "Overseer of the Granaries
of Upper and Lower Egypt", as well as a Royal Scribe.
He was married to his wife named Tiyi, but strangely the tomb
gives a lot of attention to another scribe by the name of
Imhotep. We really do not no much about the rest of his
family. For example, children do not appear to be pictured on
the walls of his private tomb, (TT 57), located on the West Bank at
Luxor (ancient Thebes).
It has been known
since George Lloyd, an amateur archaeologist, botanist and
traveler discovered it in 1842. It is a beautiful tomb, though
somewhat ghostly these days due to the removal of most of its
paint from the tomb's decorations.
The tomb has seen its hardships, as did its discoverer.
Lloyd, who worked with the French Egyptologist
Prisse d'Avennes at Thebes, was killed shortly after
discovering the tomb when his gun accidentally discharged.
The tomb itself has suffered from fire, and damage to the
reliefs at the hands of early explorers. In order to record
the decorations, squeezes were performed using newspaper
softened with water and pressing it onto the walls. This would
transfer the color of the reliefs onto the newspaper, but at
the same time, remove it from the walls. Today the tomb is
almost devoid of color, though the reliefs are a wonderful
display of art in motion and are full of life.
The
squeezes have been useful. At first they were in the Egyptian
Museum in Boulak, but in 1886 they were moved to the Boston
Museum of Fine Art. They were later examined by Dows Dunham,
who found previously unrecorded details. They have been
invaluable in providing some missing text from the tomb. Regrettably
however, had they not been made in the first place, the detail
would have remained on the walls of the tomb and today it
would perhaps be more of a treasure then what we are left
with.
 
The
tomb was apparently in use through Roman times with a number
of burials. Afterwards, it apparently became the home of
hermits who further damaged the interior with greasy
fires.
The tomb is in the Abd el-Qurna necropolis. It is one of
several tombs, including TT 126, 295 and 102 that are
clustered around a courtyard in the western end of this cemetery.
All of these tombs are well crafted and probably built during
the reign of Amenhotep
III. There owners were probably
affluent, and in the king's favor, as each has depictions of
Amenhotep III. Khaemhat's tomb, specifically, is one of only
four private tombs from the reign of Amenhotep III to be
decorated with reliefs. It is also noteworthy that this is one
of the few tombs that is specifically dated, recorded as year
30 of Amenhotep III's reign.
The
plan of the tomb is a somewhat complicated variation of the
standard T shape of many private tombs. It is entered down a
stairway into a court with a niche for a stele. Making a left
through a short corridor, one arrives in the first hall. This
room contains a number of agricultural scenes, which are
somewhat rare. They might have celebrated a special harvest.
These scenes include men threshing and women with baskets
picking up the fields, sensitive depictions of animals,
tillers bending to their task while another man scatters seed
and many other wonderful representations.
Examining the left front wall, we first encounter scenes
depicting the measuring of crops, the recording of grain and
the deceased inspecting men measuring crops. There is also a
scene depicting docks and a market. On the next small southern
wall we find statues of Khaemhat and a royal scribe named
Imhotep. Tucked in between the statues is a relief of
Khaemhat's wife, Tiyi.. Then on the back left wall is a scene
recording men bringing cattle before Amenhotep III, while on
the right rear wall we find Amenhotep III rewarding officials.
There are apparently no decorations on the short northern
wall, though on the front right wall we find various
agricultural scenes.

The short corridor leading from the first hall into a
widened passage has a scene of Khaemhatt before deities.
Entering the wide passage, we find scenes to the left and
right. On the left, is the funeral procession and
ceremonies, while on the right is the Book of the
Dead, along
with the typical pilgrimage to Abydos. This passage leads into
the inner room of the tomb, with paired statues to the left,
right and rear. One set of statues is that of Khaemhat and
Tiyi, one set is of Khaemhat and Imhotep, and one is of
Khaemhat and an unknown woman.
Within
the inner room a short corridor leads to a shallow stairway
that in turn leads to a tunnel that circles clockwise. It
first reaches a set of small rooms and at the bottom, two
larger rooms. One of these two larger rooms was probably the
burial chamber, and the other meant to hold the owner's
funerary equipment, though nothing was found.
A number of items were found in or near the tomb, mostly by
Sir Robert Mond, a wealthy businessman and chemist. These
items included wood and stone shawabtis, a shawabti box, a
bronze spear-head and a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure. He also
found three rock stele, one of which mentions Khaemhat, and
the coffins of Pedamen and Khonsuiuefankh. The stele were
discovered in the courtyard.

References:
| Title |
Author |
Date |
Publisher |
Reference Number |
|
Valley of the Kings |
Weeks, Kent R. |
2001 |
Friedman/Fairfax |
ISBN 1-5866-3295-7 |
|
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The |
Shaw, Ian |
2000 |
Oxford University Press |
ISBN 0-19-815034-2 |
Archives
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