Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2001 - 58

tures are the remnants of a vast construction site. I realized that the whole site had been methodically dismantled
and left to be reclaimed by the desert sands - there was
never intended to be any formal superstructure over the
kings tomb once it had been completed. This evidence
indicates that the tomb was intentionally built as a concealed royal burial place - the first in Egyptian history.
One of the most basic facts taught to students of
Egyptian archaeology is that at the beginning of the New
Kingdom (ca. 1550-1070 b.c.) pharaohs abandoned the
royal pyramid in favor of the hidden tombs in the Valley
of the Kings at Thebes. It is now clear that the tombs of
the New Kingdom pharaohs are presaged by the under-

by Mary-Ann
the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 b.c.)
onward, an annual festival was held at Abydos in
From which an image of the god Osiris was carried in
procession from his main temple to a tomb in the
desert that was thought to be his resting place (the
tomb was in reality that of King Djer of Dynasty I [ca.
2950-2775 b.c.]). The festival incorporated a ritual reenactment of the mythical struggle for kingship
between Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, and Seth,
the brother and murderer of Osiris, that ended in the
ultimate triumph of Horus before a divine tribunal,
which established him as the legitimate king of Egypt
and Osiris as the ruler of the netherworld. Uncontrolled digging here during the last century unearthed a
rich corpus of inscribed limestone stelae bearing the
prayers of their owners to accompany Osiris on his
journey to eternal life. Most of these stelae date from
the Middle Kingdom and the utilization of the area in
later periods remained poorly understood until now.
In 1996, a breakthrough came when we discovered
a small, remarkably well-preserved chapel at Abydos
whose very existence had remained unknown since its
abandonment in the Roman period, nearly 2,000 years
ago. Inscriptions associated with the chapel date it to
the reign of the powerful New Kingdom ruler Thutmose III (ca. 1490-1436 b.c.). The following season,
we traced the mud-brick foundation of a nearby structure that proved to be another chapel of similar size
and orientation to the first. Within it we found bricks
stamped with the identical text - "Thutmose III,
beloved of Osiris" - that we had found in the first sanctuary. This pair of small chapels apparently marked the
entrance to the great processional route leading from
the temple of Osiris to the gods tomb. Beyond them,

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ground tomb of Senwosret III at Abydos. The concept of
the hidden royal tomb may have been developed again
during the early New Kingdom by pharaoh Ahmose (see
page 52), who also constructed an underground burial
place at Abydos, not far south of Senwosret 11Is. Standing on the site of Senwosret Ill's tomb in 1997, and wondering about the choice of location, I observed what I
believe to be a crucial defining feature of the tomb site.
Where the tomb is positioned, the line of the cliffs on
either side recedes from view, leaving the visual impression of a massive natural pyramid looming over the tomb
site. I believe this 700-foot-tall natural pyramid served as
the focal point for his tomb. This distinct projection of

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to the north and south of the festival route, private individuals with sufficient means built their own chapels.
These discoveries were made as part of the investigations of the North Abydos Cultic Zone Project, which I
undertook under the auspices of the Pennsylvania-YaleInstitute of Fine Arts, New York University Expedition to
Abydos. Our project focuses on the area directly adjacent
to the massive mud-brick walls of the Osiris temple
precinct. It was in precisely such an area, outside the
enclosure of a temple dedicated to one of the Egyptian
state s major gods, that I expected to find evidence of the
religious activities carried out by ordinary people, who
were not allowed into the interior of the temple itself to
worship the deity believed to dwell within its sanctuary.
The newly discovered Thutmose III chapels attest an
unexpected degree of royal involvement in the development
of the sacred landscape during the succeeding New Kingdom. The beautifully carved and painted decoration preserved in the northern chapel shows significant state-level
investment at Abydos outside of the main Osiris temple complex, which was a focus of royal interest throughout the New
Painted limestonerqfitf
shows priests carrying,
on poles the
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aflod.

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2001

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2001