News from the Valley of the Kings

Jane Akshar has done one of her much appreciated write ups of a lecture at the Mummification Museum in Luxor, with Francisco Tiradritti talking about the work in the Tomb of Hawra.

The team started work at the tomb of Harwa in 1996 although a survey had been done a year earlier. Harwa was a very important official, steward of the God’s wife of Amun or Divine Votaress and there are 8 known statues of him (see the website http://www.harwa.it/harwa.php?action=reset also for a life see http://www.harwa.it/vecchisiti/sito99/harwlife.htm ) and they are in different styles the ones in the Cairo Museum and 1 in BM are Old Kingdom, the block statues are New Kingdom and there is a shrine that is Middle King. This is because the 15th Dynasty was part of the great Renaissance of Egypt. Although all periods had copied previous styles the Nubian Kings specialised in this by with a Nubian twist.

Francesco Tiradritti has a dig diary for their 2010 winter season at the tomb of Harwa.  There is no newsfeed so you will need to click through the calendar to read each day in turn.  I have linked to a translation into English from the original Italian.

Harwa's tomb is in Assasif area and known as TT37.  It is a 25th Dynasty tomb built on the processional way of Mentuhotep with an entrance from the south.  Although little known, it is very large for a private tomb with four underground levels and reaches depths of 25m.  The best sites explaining the tomb I have found are here and here. Jane Akshar also covered a Mummification Museum lecture in 2009 which has more details.  The video below is from 2009 as well - but it is in Italian



Harwa's mummy is in the Field Museum in Chicago. There is an (English!) video about it, although the video has a lot of general shots of places like Karnak but persist and you will get shots of the mummy and his cedar coffin later.