Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel is a temple built by Ramesses II (Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom, who ruled 1279-1213 BC) in Nubia, what is now in Egypt near the border of Sudan. It was investigated by James Breasted at Chicago's Oriental Institute.
Originally carved into and out of the sandstone cliffs of the Nile River, the site was threatened in the 1960s when the Aswan Dam was proposed; and in an amazing feat of engineering technology, the temple was cut out of the rock, lifted above the floodplain, and rebuilt in an appropriate location for preservation.

Template of Philae

Situation:
Philae is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Strabo.Philae proper, although the smaller island, is, from the numerous and picturesque ruins formerly there, the more interesting of the two. Prior to the inundation, it was not more than 1250 English feet, or rather less than a quarter of a mile, long, and about 400 feet broad. It is composed of Syenite stone: its sides are steep and perhaps escarped by the hand of man, and on their summits was built a lofty wall encompassing the island.
For Philae, being accounted one of the burying-places of Osiris, was held in high reverence both by the Egyptians to the north and the Ethiopians (Aethopians in Greek) to the south, and it was deemed profane for any but priests to dwell therein, and was accordingly sequestered and denominated the unapproachable . It was reported too that neither birds flew over it nor fish approached its shores.These indeed were the traditions of a remote period; since in the time of the Macedonian kings of Egypt, Philae was so much resorted to, partly by pilgrims to the tomb of Osiris, partly by persons on secular errands, that the priests petitioned Ptolemy Physcon (170-117 BC) to prohibit public functionaries at least from coming thither and living at their expense. The obelisk on which this petition was engraved was brought into England by Mr. Bankes, and its hieroglyphics, compared with those of the Rosetta stone, threw great light upon the Egyptian phonetic alphabet.
The islands of Philae were not, however, merely sacerdotal abodes; they were the centres of commerce also between Meroë and Memphis. For the rapids of the cataracts were at most seasons impracticable, and the commodities exchanged between Egypt and Ethiopia were reciprocally landed and re-embarked at Syene and Philae.
The neighbouring granite-quarries attracted hither also a numerous population of miners and stonemasons; and, for the convenience of this traffic, a gallery or road was formed in the rocks along the east bank of the Nile, portions of which are still extant.
Philae also was remarkable for the singular effects of light and shade resulting from its position near the Tropic of Cancer. As the sun approached its northern limit the shadows from the projecting cornices and mouldings of the temples sink lower and lower down the plain surfaces of the walls, until, the sun having reached its highest altitude, the vertical walls are overspread with dark shadows, forming a striking contrast with the fierce light which embathes all surrounding objects.
Construction:
The most conspicuous feature of both islands was their architectural wealth. Monuments of very various eras, extending from the Pharaohs to the Caesars, occupy nearly their whole area. The principal structures, however, lay at the south end of the smaller island.
The most ancient were the remains of a temple for Hathor built in the reign of Nectanebo I during 380-362 BCE, was approached from the river through a double colonnade. Nekhtnebef is his Homen and he became the founding pharaoh of the thirtieth and last dynasty of native rulers when he deposed and killed Nefaarud II. Hathor is named alternatively, Athor, and was associated with their goddess, Aphrodite, by the Greeks.
For the most part, the other ruins date from the Ptolemaic times, more especially with the reigns of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Ptolemy Epiphanes, and Ptolemy Philometor (282-145 BC), with many traces of Roman work in Philae dedicated to Ammon-Osiris.
In front of the propyla were two colossal lions in granite, behind which stood a pair of obelisks, each 44 feet high. The propyla were pyramidal in form and colossal in dimensions. One stood between the dromos and pronaos, another between the pronaos and the portico, while a smaller one led into the sekos or adytum. At each corner of the adyturn stood a monolithal shrine, the cage of a sacred hawk. Of these shrines one is now in the Louvre, the other in the Museum at Florence.
Beyond the entrance into the principal court are small temples or rather chapels, one of which, dedicated to Hathor (Athor), is covered with sculptures representing the birth of Ptolemy Philometor, under the figure of the god Horus. The story of Osiris is everywhere represented on the walls of this temple, and two of its inner chambers are particularly rich in symbolic imagery. Upon the two great propyla are Greek inscriptions intersected and partially destroyed by Egyptian figures cut across them.
The inscriptions belong to the Macedonian era, and are of earlier date than the sculptures, which were probably inserted during that interval of renaissance for the native religion which followed the extinction of the Greek dynasty in Egypt in 30 BC by the Romans.
The monuments in both islands indeed attested, beyond any others in the Nile-valley, the survival of pure Egyptian art centuries after the last of the Pharaohs had ceased to reign. Great pains have been taken to mutilate the sculptures of this temple. The work of demolition is attributable, in the first instance, to the zeal of the early Christians, and afterward, to the policy of the Iconoclasts, who curried favour for themselves with the Byzantine court by the destruction of heathen images as well as Christian ones.
The soil of Philae had been prepared carefully for the reception of its buildings–being levelled where it was uneven, and supported by masonry where it was crumbling or insecure. For example, the western wall of the Great Temple, and the corresponding wall of the dromos, were supported by very strong foundations, built below the pre-inundation level of the water, and rested on the granite which in this region forms the bed of the Nile. Here and there steps were hewn out from the wall to facilitate the communication between the temple and the river.
At the southern extremity of the dromos of the Great Temple was a smaller temple, apparently dedicated to Isis; at least the few columns that remained of it are surmounted with the head of that goddess. Its portico consisted of twelve columns, four in front and three deep. Their capitals represented various forms and combinations of the palm branch, the dhoum-leaf, and the lotus-flower. These, as well as the sculptures on the columns, the ceilings, and the walls
were painted with the most vivid colors, which, owing to the dryness of the climate, have lost little of their original brilliance.
History:
Pharaonic era
The ancient Egyptian name of the smaller island is Philak, or boundary. As their southern frontier, the Pharaohs of Egypt kept there a strong garrison, and, for the same reason, it was a barrack also for Macedonian and Roman soldiers in their turn. The first temple structure, which was built by native pharaohs of the thirtieth dynasty, was the one for Hathor.
Greco-Roman era
The island temple construction at Philae was continued over a three-century period by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and the rulers of the Roman Principate. The principal deity of the temple complex was Isis, but other temples and shrines were dedicated to her son Horus and the goddess Hathor. In Ptolemaic times Hathor was associated with Isis, who was in turn associated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite. For centuries the temple complex was the holiest site for Isis worshippers. The temple was closed down officially in the 6th century A.D. by the Byzantine emperor, Justinian. It was the last pagan temple to exist in the Mediterranean world (although a Roman temple to Isis remained in England). Philae was a seat of the Christian religion as well as of the ancient Egyptian faith. Ruins of a Christian church were still discovered, and more than one adytum bore traces of having been made to serve at different eras the purposes of a chapel of Osiris and of Christ. The Philae temple was converted into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, until that was closed by Muslim invaders in the 7th century.
1800s
The island of Philae attracted much attention in the nineteenth century. In the 1820s, Joseph Bonomi the Younger, a British Egyptologist and museum curator visited the island. So did Amelia Edwards, a British novelist in 1873–1874|4.
The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it on either side, and the purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and even higher against the sky. They show no sign of ruin or age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air–if a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and pylons–we should not think it strange.
These visits were only a sampling of the great interest that Victorian-era Britain had for Egypt. Soon, tourism to Philae became common.
1900s
Aswan Low Dam
In 1902, the Aswan Low Dam was completed on the Nile River by the British. This threatened many ancient landmarks, including the temple complex of Philae, with being submerged. The dam was heightened twice, from 1907–12 and from 1929–34, and the island of Philae was nearly always flooded. In fact, the complex was not underwater only when the dam's sluices were open, from July to October.
It was postulated that the temples be relocated, piece by piece, to nearby islands, such as Bigeh or Elephantine. However, the temples' foundations and other architectural supporting structures were strengthened instead. Although the buildings were physically secure, the island's attractive vegetation and the colors of the temples' reliefs were washed away. Also, the bricks of the Philae temples soon became encrusted with silt and other debris carried by the Nile.
Rescue project
By 1960, UNESCO had decided to move many of the endangered sites along to Nile to safer ground. Philae's temple complex was moved, piece by piece, to Agilkai, 550 meters away, where it was reassembled and remains today. That project lasted from 1977 to 1980.
Nearby
Prior to the inundation, a little west of Philae lay a larger island, anciently called Snem or Senmut, but now Beghé. It is very precipitous, and from its most elevated peak affords a fine view of the Nile, from its smooth surface south of the islands to its plunge over the shelves of rock that form the First Cataract. Philae, Beghé, and another lesser island divided the river into four principal streams, and north of them it took a rapid turn to the west and then to the north, where the cataract begins.
Beghé, like Philae, was a holy island; its and rocks are inscribed with the names and titles of Amenhotep III (Amunoph III), Rameses the Great, Psammetichus, Apries, and Amasis, together with memorials of the later Macedonian and Roman rulers of Egypt. Its principal ruins consisted of the propylon and two columns of a temple, which was apparently of small dimensions, but of elegant proportions. Near them were the fragments of two colossal granite statues and also an excellent piece of masonry of much later date, having the aspect of an arch belonging to some Greek church or Saracen mosque.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut is situated beneath the cliffs at Deir el Bahari on the west bank of the Nile near the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Designed by the architect Senemut, the mortuary temple is dedicated to the sun god Amon-Ra and resides beside the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep, which served both as an inspiration, and later, a quarry. It is considered one of the "incomparable monuments of ancient Egypt."

ArchitectureWhile Hatshepsut used Mentuhotep’s temple as a model, the two structures are significantly different. Hatshepsut employed a lengthy colonnaded terrace that deviated from the centralized massing of Mentuhotep’s model – an anomaly that may be caused by the decentralized location of her burial chamber. There are three layered terraces reaching 97 feet tall. Each 'storey' is articulated by a double colonnade of square piers, with the exception of the northwest corner of the central terrace, which employs Proto Doric columns to house the chapel. These terraces are connected by long ramps which were once surrounded by gardens. The layering of Hatshepsut’s temple corresponds with the classical Theban form, employing Pylon, courts, hypostyle hall, sun court, chapel and sanctuary.

Sculpture and Relief

The relief sculpture within Hatshepsut’s temple recites the tale of the divine birth of a female pharaoh- the first of its kind. The text and pictorial cycle also tell of an expedition to the Land of Punt, an exotic country on the Red Sea coast. While the statues and ornamentation have since been stolen or destroyed, the temple once was home to two statues of Osiris, a sphinx avenue as well as many sculptures of the Queen in different attitudes – standing, sitting, or kneeling.

Historical Influence

Hatshepsut’s temple is considered the closest Egypt came to the Classical Architecture. It marks a turning point in the architecture of Ancient Egypt, which forsook the megalithic geometry of the Old Kingdom for a temple which allowed for active worship, requiring the presence of participants to create the majesty. The linear axiality of Hatshepsut’s temple is mirrored in the later New Kingdom temples. The architecture of the original temple has been considerably altered as a result of misguided reconstruction in the early twentieth century AD.

Tutankhamun

Discovery of the tomb

In 1907, just before his discovery of the tomb of Horemheb, Theodore M. Davis's team uncovered a small site containing funerary artifacts with Tutankhamun's name. Assuming that the site was Tutankhamun's complete tomb, Davis concluded the dig. The details of both findings are documented in Davis's 1912 publication, The Tombs of Harmhabi and Touatânkhamanou; the book closes with the comment, "I fear that the Valley of Kings is now exhausted."[2] But Davis was to be proven spectacularly wrong.

The British Egyptologist Howard Carter (employed by Lord Carnarvon) discovered Tutankhamun's tomb (since designated KV62) in The Valley of The Kings on 4 November 1922 near the entrance to the tomb of Ramesses VI, thereby setting off a renewed interest in all things Egyptian in the modern world. Carter contacted his patron, and on 26 November that year both men became the first people to enter Tutankhamun's tomb in over 3000 years. After many weeks of careful excavation, on 16 February 1923 Carter opened the inner chamber and first saw the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.

Investigation

1922

The first step to the stairs were found on 4 November. The following day saw the exposure of complete staircase. The end of November saw access to the Antechamber and discovered of Annexe, and then to the Burial Chamber and Treasury.

On 29 November, the tomb was officially opened, and the first announcement and press conference followed the next day, The first item was removed from the tomb of 27 December.

1923

16 February saw the official opening of the Burial Chamber, and 5 April saw the death of Lord Carnarvon.

1924

On 12 February the granite lid of the sarcophagus was raised. In April, Carter argued with the Antiquities Service, and left the excavation for the United States.

1925

In January, Carter resumed activities in the tomb, and on 13 October he removed the cover of the first sarcophagus, 23 October removed the cover of the second sarcophagus, 28 October the team removed the cover of the final sarcophagus and exposure of the mummy, and on 11 November the examination of the remains of Tutankhamun started.

1926

Work started in the Treasury on 24 October.

1927

Between 30 October and 15 December, the Annexe was emptied and examined.

1930

On 10 November, 8 years after the discovery, the last objects are removed from the tomb.

Layout of tomb

n design, the tomb appears to have originally been intended for a private individual, not for royalty. There is some evidence to suggest that the tomb was hastily adapted for a royal occupant during its excavation. This may be supported by the fact that only the burial chamber walls were decorated, unlike royal tombs in which nearly all walls were painted with scenes from the Book of the Dead.

Staircase

Starting from a small, level platform, 16 steps descend to the first doorway, which was sealed and plastered – although it had been penetrated by grave robbers at least twice.

Entrance corridor

Beyond the first doorway, a descending corridor leads to the second sealed door, and into the room that Carter described as the Antechamber. This was used originally to hold material left over from the funeral and material associated with the embalming of the king, after the initial robberies this material was either moved into the tomb proper, or moved to KV54.

Antechamber

The undecorated Antechamber was found to be in a state of "organized chaos" and contained approximately 700 objects (articles 14 to 171 in the Carter catalog) amongst which were three funeral beds, plates in shape of Hippopotamus (the Goddess Tawaret), of lion (or leopards) and cattle (the Goddess Hathor). Perhaps the most remarkable item in this room were the components, stacked, of four chariots of which one was probably used for hunting, one for "war" and another two for parades.

Burial chamber

Decoration

This is the only decorated chamber in the tomb, with scenes from the Opening of the Mouth ritual (showing Ay, Tutankhamun's successor acting as the king's son, despite being older than him) and Tutankhamun with the goddess Nut on the north wall, the first hour of Amduat (on the west wall), spell one of the Book of the Dead (on the east wall) and representations of the king with various deities (Anubis, Isis, Hathor and others now destroyed) on the south wall. The north wall shows Tutankhamen being followed by his Ka, being welcomed to the underworld by Osiris.

Contents

The entire chamber was occupied by a series of gilded wooden shrines. The outer shrine measured 5.08 x 3.28 x 2.75 m and 32 mm thick, almost entirely filling the room, with only 60 cm at either end and less than 30 cm on the sides. Outside of the shrines were 11 paddles for the "solar boat", containers for scents, lamps decorated images of the God Hapi.

The fourth and last shrine was 2.90 m long and 1.48 m wide. The walls were decorated by the king's funeral procession, and Nut was painted on the ceiling, "embracing" with her wings the granite outer sarcophagus.

Sarcophagus of Tutankhamun

The outer sarcophagus was constructed in granite. The main body and the lid were carved from different coloured stone at each corner, it appears to have been constructed for a different owner, but then recarved for Tutankhamen, the identity of the original owner is not preserved. In each corner a protective goddess (Isis, Nephthys, Serket and Neith) guard the body.

Inside the stone sarcophagus, the king's body was placed within three further mummy form sarcophagi, the innermost being famously composed of 110.4 kg of pure gold. Inside this the mummy itself was wearing the famous gold mask.

Annex

The 'Annex', originally used store oils, ointments, scents, foods and wine, was the last room to be cleared, from the end of October 1927 to the spring of 1928. Although quite small in size, it contained approximately 280 groups of objects, totaling more than 2,000 individual pieces.

Present day

As of 2007, the tomb is open for visitors, as an additional charge above that of the price of general access to the Valley of the Kings. It has been announced that the number of visitors will be limited to 400 per day, as of May 2008.

Ramesses II

Family and life

Ramesses II was the third king of the 19th dynasty, and the second child of Seti I and his Queen Tuya. His only definite sibling was Princess Tia, although Henutmire, one of his Great Royal Wives, may have been his younger half-sister.

Ramesses had numerous consorts, the most famous being Nefertari. During his long reign, eight women held the title Great Royal Wife (often simultaneously): Nefertari and Isetnofret, whom he married early in his reign; Bintanath, Meritamen and Nebettawy, his own daughters who replaced their mothers Nefertari and Isetnofret when they died or retired; Henutmire; Maathorneferure, Princess of Hatti and another Hittite princess whose name is unknown.

The writer Terence Gray stated in 1923 that Ramesses II had as many as 20 sons and 20 daughters but scholars today believe his offspring numbered over 100. In 2004, Dodson and Hilton noted that the monumental evidence "seems to indicate that Ramesses II had around 110 children, [with] 48–55 sons and 40–53 daughters." His children include Bintanath and Meritamen (princesses and their father's wives), Sethnakhte, Amun-her-khepeshef the king's first born son, Merneptah (Ramesses' 13th son, who would eventually succeed him), and Prince Khaemweset. Ramesses II's second born son, Ramesses B, sometimes called Ramesses Junior, became the crown prince from Year 25 to Year 50 of his father's reign after the death of Amen-her-khepesh.

Campaigns and battles

Early in his life, Ramesses II embarked on numerous campaigns to return previously held territories back to Nubian hands and to secure Egypt's borders. He was also responsible for suppressing some Nubian revolts and carrying out a campaign in Libya. Although the famous Battle of Kadesh often dominates the scholarly view of Ramesses II's military prowess and power, he nevertheless enjoyed more than a few outright victories over the enemies of Egypt.

Battle against Sherden sea pirates

In his second year, Ramesses II decisively defeated the Shardana or Sherden sea pirates who were wreaking havoc along Egypt's Mediterranean coast by attacking cargo-laden vessels travelling the sea routes to Egypt. The Sherden people probably came from the coast of Ionia or possibly south-west Turkey. Ramesses posted troops and ships at strategic points along the coast and patiently allowed the pirates to attack their prey before skillfully catching them by surprise in a sea battle and capturing them all in a single action. A stela from Tanis speaks of their having come "in their war-ships from the midst of the sea, and none were able to stand before them". There must have been a naval battle somewhere near the mouth of the Nile, as shortly afterwards many Sherden are seen in the Pharaoh's body-guard where they are conspicuous by their horned helmets with a ball projecting from the middle, their round shields and the great Naue II swords with which they are depicted in inscriptions of the Battle of Kadesh.

First Syrian campaign

The immediate antecedents to the Battle of Kadesh were the early campaigns of Ramesses II into Canaan and Palestine. His first campaign seems to have taken place in the fourth year of his reign and was commemorated by the erection of a stela near modern Beirut. The inscription is almost totally illegible due to weathering. His records tell us that he was forced to fight a Palestinian prince who was mortally wounded by an Egyptian archer, and whose army was subsequently routed. Ramesses carried off the princes of Palestine as live prisoners to Egypt. Ramesses then plundered the chiefs of the Asiatics in their own lands, returning every year to his headquarters at Riblah to exact tribute. In the fourth year of his reign, he captured the Hittite vassal state of Amurru during his campaign in Syria.

Second Syrian campaign

The Battle of Kadesh in his fifth regnal year was the climatic engagement in a campaign that Ramesses fought in Syria, against the resurgent Hittite forces of Muwatalli. The pharaoh wanted a victory at Kadesh both to expand Egypt's frontiers into Syria and to emulate his father Seti I's triumphal entry into the city just a decade or so earlier. He also constructed his new capital, Pi-Ramesses where he built factories to manufacture weapons, chariots, and shields. Of course, they followed his wishes and manufactured some 1,000 weapons in a week, about 250 chariots in 2 weeks, and 1,000 shields in a week and a half. After these preparations, Ramesses moved to attack territory in the Levant which belonged to a more substantial enemy than any he had ever faced before: the Hittite Empire.

Although Ramesses's forces were caught in a Hittite ambush and outnumbered at Kadesh, the pharaoh fought the battle to a stalemate and returned home a hero. Ramesses II's forces suffered major losses particularly among the 'Re' division which was routed by the initial charge of the Hittite chariots during the battle. Once back in Egypt, Ramesses proclaimed that he had won a great victory, but in reality all he had managed to do was to save his army from destruction. In a sense, however, the Battle of Kadesh was a personal triumph for Ramesses, as after blundering into a devastating Hittite ambush, the young king courageously rallied his scattered troops to fight on the battlefield while escaping death or capture. Although the pharaoh claimed that he had won the battle, the victory was a pyrrhic one, and he was unable to occupy the city or territory around Kadesh.

Ramesses decorated his monuments with reliefs and inscriptions describing the campaign as a whole, and the battle in particular as a major victory. Inscriptions of his victory decorate the Ramesseum, Abydos, Karnak, Luxor and Abu Simbel. For example, on the temple walls of Luxor the near catastrophe was turned into an act of heroism:

His majesty slaughtered the armed forces of the Hittites in their entirety, their great rulers and all their brothers ... their infantry and chariot troops fell prostrate, one on top of the other. His majesty killed them ... and they lay stretched out in front of their horses. But his majesty was alone, nobody accompanied him

Third Syrian campaign

Egypt's sphere of influence was now restricted to Canaan while Syria fell into Hittite hands. Canaanite princes, seemingly influenced by the Egyptian incapacity to impose their will, and goaded on by the Hittites, began revolts against Egypt. In the seventh year of his reign, Ramesses II returned to Syria once again. This time he proved more successful against his Hittite foes. During this campaign he split his army into two forces. One was led by his son, Amun-her-khepeshef, and it chased warriors of the ?hasu tribes across the Negev as far as the Dead Sea, and captured Edom-Seir. It then marched on to capture Moab. The other force, led by Ramesses, attacked Jerusalem and Jericho. He, too, then entered Moab, where he rejoined his son. The reunited army then marched on Hesbon, Damascus, on to Kumidi, and finally recaptured Upi.

Later campaigns in Syria

Ramesses extended his military successes in his eighth and ninth years. He crossed the Dog River (Nahr el-Kelb) and pushed north into Amurru. His armies managed to march as far north as Dapur, where he erected a statue of himself. The Egyptian pharaoh thus found himself in northern Amurru, well past Kadesh, in Tunip, where no Egyptian soldier had been seen since the time of Thutmose III almost 120 years earlier. He laid siege on the city before capturing it. His victory proved to be ephemeral. In year nine, Ramesses erected a stela at Beth Shean. After having reasserted his power over Canaan, Ramesses led his army north. A mostly illegible stela near Beirut, which appears to be dated to the king's second year, was probably set up there in his tenth. The thin strip of territory pinched between Amurru and Kadesh did not make for a stable possession. Within a year, they had returned to the Hittite fold, so that Ramesses had to march against Dapur once more in his tenth year. This time he claimed to have fought the battle without even bothering to put on his corslet until two hours after the fighting began. Six of Ramesses' sons, still wearing their side locks, took part in this conquest. He took towns in Retenu, and Tunip in Naharin, later recorded on the walls of the Ramesseum. This second success here was equally as meaningless as his first, as neither power could decisively defeat the other in battle.

Peace treaty with the Hittites

The deposed Hittite king, Mursili III fled to Egypt, the land of his country's enemy, after the failure of his plots to oust his uncle from the throne. Hattusili III responded by demanding that Ramesses II extradite his nephew back to Hatti.

This demand precipitated a crisis in relations between Egypt and Hatti when Ramesses denied any knowledge of Mursili's whereabouts in his country, and the two Empires came dangerously close to war. Eventually, in the twenty-first year of his reign (1258 BC), Ramesses decided to conclude an agreement with the new Hittite king at Kadesh, Hattusili III, to end the conflict. The ensuing document is the earliest known peace treaty in world history.

The peace treaty was recorded in two versions, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the other in Akkadian, using cuneiform script; both versions survive. Such dual-language recording is common to many subsequent treaties. This treaty differs from others however, in that the two language versions are differently worded. Although the majority of the text is identical, the Hittite version claims that the Egyptians came suing for peace, while the Egyptian version claims the reverse. The treaty was given to the Egyptians in the form of a silver plaque, and this "pocket-book" version was taken back to Egypt and carved into the Temple of Karnak.

The treaty was concluded between Ramesses II and Hattusili III in Year 21 of Ramesses' reign. (c. 1258 BC) Its 18 articles call for peace between Egypt and Hatti and then proceeds to maintain that their respective gods also demand peace. The frontiers are not laid down in this treaty but can be inferred from other documents. The Anastasy A papyrus describes Canaan during the latter part of the reign of Ramesses II and enumerates and names the Phoenician coastal towns under Egyptian control. The harbour town of Sumur north of Byblos is mentioned as being the northern-most town belonging to Egypt, which points to it having contained an Egyptian garrison.

No further Egyptian campaigns in Canaan are mentioned after the conclusion of the peace treaty. The northern border seems to have been safe and quiet, so the rule of the pharaoh was strong until Ramesses II's death, and the waning of the dynasty. When the King of Mira attempted to involve Ramesses in a hostile act against the Hittites, the Egyptian responded that the times of intrigue in support of Mursili III, had passed. Hattusili III wrote to Kadashman-Enlil II, King of Karduniash (Babylon) in the same spirit, reminding him of the time when his father, Kadashman-Turgu, had offered to fight Ramesses II, the king of Egypt. The Hittite king encouraged the Babylonian to oppose another enemy, which must have been the king of Assyria whose allies had killed the messenger of the Egyptian king. Hattusili encouraged Kadashman-Enlil to come to his aid and prevent the Assyrians from cutting the link between the Canaanite province of Egypt and Mursili III, the ally of Ramesses.

Campaigns in Nubia

Ramesses II also campaigned south of the first cataract into Nubia. When Ramesses was about 22, two of his own sons, including Amun-her-khepeshef, accompanied him in at least one one of those campaigns. By the time of Ramesses, Nubia had been a colony for two hundred years, but its conquest was recalled in decoration from the temples Ramesses II built at Beit el-Wali (which was the subject of epigraphic work by the Oriental Institute during the Nubian salvage campaign of the 1960s), Gerf Hussein and Kalabsha in northern Nubia.

Campaigns in Libya

During the reign of Ramesses II, there is evidence that the Egyptians were active for a 300-kilometre (190 mi) stretch along the Mediterranean coast, at least as far as Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. Although the exact events surrounding the foundation of the coastal forts and fortresses is not clear, some degree of political and military control must have been held over the region to allow their construction.

There are no detailed accounts of Ramesses II undertaking large military actions against the Libyans, only generalised records of his conquering and crushing them, which may or may not refer to specific events, otherwise unrecorded. It may be that some of the records, such as the Aswan Stela of his year 2, are harking back to Ramesses' presence on his father's Libyan campaigns. Perhaps it was Seti I who achieved this proposed control over the region, and it was he who planned to establish the defensive system, in a manner similar to which he rebuilt those to the east, the Ways of Horus across Northern Sinai.

Sed festival

After reigning for 30 years, Ramesses joined a selected group that included only a handful of Egypt's longest-lived kings. By tradition, in the 30th year of his reign Ramesses celebrated a jubilee called the Sed festival, during which the king was ritually transformed into a god. Only halfway through what would be a 66-year reign, Ramesses had already eclipsed all but a few greatest kings in his achievements. He had brought peace, maintained Egyptian borders and built great and numerous monuments across the empire. His country was more prosperous and powerful than it had been in nearly a century. By becoming a god, Ramesses dramatically changed not just his role as ruler of Egypt, but also the role of his firstborn son, Amun-her-khepsef. As the chosen heir and commander and chief of Egyptian armies, his son effectively became ruler in all but name.

Building activity and monuments

Ramesses built extensively throughout Egypt and Nubia, and his cartouches are prominently displayed even in buildings that he did not actually construct. There are accounts of his honor hewn on stone, statues, remains of palaces and temples, most notable the Ramesseum in the western Thebes and the rock temples of Abu Simbel. He covered the land from the Delta to Nubia with buildings in a way no king before him had done. He also founded a new capital city in the Delta during his reign called Pi-Ramesses; it had previously served as a summer palace during Seti I's reign.

His memorial temple Ramesseum, was just the beginning of the pharaoh's obsession with building. When he built, he built on a scale unlike almost anything before. In the third year of his reign Ramesses started the most ambitious building project after the pyramids, that were built 1,500 years earlier. The population was put to work on changing the face of Egypt. In Thebes, the ancient temples were transformed, so that each one of them reflected honour to Ramesses as a symbol of this divine nature and power. Ramesses decided to eternalize himself in stone, and so he ordered changes to the methods used by his masons. The elegant but shallow reliefs of previous pharaohs were easily transformed, and so their images and words could easily be obliterated by their successors. Ramesses insisted that his carvings were deeply engraved in the stone, which made them not only less susceptible to later alteration, but also made them more prominent in the Egyptian sun, reflecting his relationship with the sun god, Ra.

Ramesses constructed many large monuments, including the archeological complex of Abu Simbel, and the mortuary temple known as the Ramesseum. He built on a monumental scale to ensure that his legacy would survive the ravages of time. Ramesses used art as a means of propaganda for his victories over foreigners and are depicted on numerous temple reliefs. Ramesses II also erected more colossal statues of himself than any other pharaoh. He also usurped many existing statues by inscribing his own cartouche on them.

Pi-Ramesses

Here once stood some of the greatest monuments and buildings that Ramesses was building all across Egypt. The city was called Pi-Ramesses Aa-nakhtu, meaning "Domain of Ramesses II, Great in Victory" Although Pi-Ramesses was mentioned and named in the Bible, as a site where the Israelites were forced to work hard for the pharaoh, for many centuries it was lost, considered nothing more than a myth. For a time it was misidentified as being in Tanis, due to the amount of statuary and other material from Pi-Ramesses found there. But after 20 years of excavation, it was finally found in the eastern Delta. Its foundations lie hidden several feet beneath lush farmland. The colossal feet of the statue of Ramesses are almost all that remains above ground today, the rest is buried in the fields. The ancient city was dominated by huge temples and the king's vast residential palace, complete with its own zoo. The city also had a massive chariot base, as described in the Bible.

Ramesseum

The temple complex built by Ramesses II between Qurna and the desert has been known as the Ramesseum since the 19th century. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus marveled at the gigantic and famous temple, now no more than a few ruins.

Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple itself was preceded by two courts. An enormous pylon stood before the first court, with the royal palace at the left and the gigantic statue of the king looming up at the back. Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the syenite statue of the enthroned pharaoh, 17 metres (56 ft) high and weighing more than 1,000 tonnes (980 LT/1,100 ST). The scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh, represented on the pylon. Remains of the second court include part of the internal facade of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war and the rout the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In the upper registers, feast and honor of the phallic god Min, god of fertility. On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars and columns still left can furnish an idea of the original grandeur.
Scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king can also be seen, one in pink granite and the other in black granite, which once flanked the entrance to the temple. Thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall (m 41x 31) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various gods.[24] Part of the ceiling decorated with gold stars on a blue ground has also been preserved. Ramesses' children appear in the procession on the few walls left. The sanctuary was composed of three consecutive rooms, with eight columns and the tetrastyle cell. Part of the first room, with the ceiling decorated with astral scenes, and few remains of the second room are all that is left. Vast storerooms built in mud bricks stretched out around the temple.[50] Traces of a school for scribes were found among the ruins.

A temple of Seti I, of which nothing is now left but the foundations, once stood to the right of the hypostyle hall.

Abu Simbel

In 1255 BC Ramesses and his queen Nefertari had traveled into Nubia to inaugurate a new temple, a wonder of the ancient world, the great Abu Simbel. It is an ego cast in stone; the man who built it intended not only to become Egypt's greatest pharaoh but also one of its gods.

The great temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel was discovered in 1813 by the famous Swiss Orientalist and traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. However, four years passed before anyone could enter the temple, because an enormous pile of sand almost completely covered the facade and its colossal statues, blocking the entrance. This feat was achieved by the great Paduan explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who managed to reach the interior on 4 August 1817.

Other Nubian monuments

As well as the famous temples of Abu Simbel, Ramesses left other monuments to himself in Nubia. His early campaigns are illustrated on the walls of Beit el-Wali (now relocated to New Kalabsha). Other temples dedicated to Ramesses are Derr and Gerf Hussein (also relocated to New Kalabsha).

Tomb of Nefertari

The most important and famous of Ramesses' consorts was discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1904. Although it had been looted in ancient times, the tomb of Nefertari is extremely important, because its magnificent wall painting decoration is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of ancient Egyptian art. A flight of steps cut out of the rock gives access to the antechamber, which is decorated with paintings based on chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead. This astronomical ceiling represents the heavens and is painted in dark blue, with a myriad of golden five-pointed stars. The east wall of the antechamber is interrupted by a large opening flanked by representation of Osiris at left and Anubis at right; this in turn leads to the side chamber, decorated with offering scenes, preceded by a vestibule in which the paintings portray Nefertari being presented to the gods who welcome her. On the north wall of the antechamber is the stairway that goes down to the burial chamber. This latter is a vast quadrangular room covering a surface area of about 90 square metres (970 sq ft), the astronomical ceiling of which is supported by four pillars entirely covered with decoration. Originally, the queen's red granite sarcophagus lay in the middle of this chamber. According to religious doctrines of the time, it was in this chamber, which the ancient Egyptians called the golden hall that the regeneration of the deceased took place. This decorative pictogram of the walls in the burial chamber drew inspirations from chapters 144 and 146 of the Book of the Dead: in the left half of the chamber, there are passages from chapter 144 concerning the gates and doors of the kingdom of Osiris, their guardians, and the magic formulas that had to be uttered by the deceased in order to go past the doors.

Tomb KV5

In 1995, Professor Kent Weeks, head of the Theban Mapping Project rediscovered Tomb KV5. It has proven to be the largest tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and originally contained the mummified remains of some of this king's estimated 52 sons. Approximately 150 corridors and tomb chambers have been located in this tomb as of 2006 and the tomb may contain as many as 200 corridors and chambers. It is believed that at least 4 of Ramesses' sons including Meryatum, Sety, Amun-her-khepeshef (Ramesses' first born son) and "the King's Principal Son of His Body, the Generalissimo Ramesses, justified" (ie: deceased) were buried there from inscriptions, ostracas or canopic jars discovered in the tomb. Joyce Tyldesley writes that thus far

"no intact burials have been discovered and there have been little substantial funeral debris: thousands of potsherds, faience shabti figures, beads, amulets, fragments of Canopic jars, of wooden coffins ... but no intact sarcophagi, mummies or mummy cases, suggesting that much of the tomb may have been unused. Those burials which were made in KV5 were thoroughly looted in antiquity, leaving little or no remains."

Colossal statue

The colossal statue of Ramesses II was reconstructed and erected in Ramesses Square in Cairo in 1955. In August 2006, contractors moved his 3,200-year-old statue from Ramesses Square, to save it from exhaust fumes that were causing the 83-tonne (82 LT/91 ST) statue to deteriorate. The statue was originally taken from a temple in Memphis. The new site will be located near the future Grand Egyptian Museum.

Death and legacy

By the time of his death, Ramesses was suffering from severe dental problems and was plagued by arthritis and hardening of the arteries. When he finally died, he was about 90 years old. He had outlived many of his wives and children and left great memorials all over Egypt, especially to his beloved first queen Nefertari. Nine more pharaohs would take the name Ramesses in his honour, but few ever equalled his greatness. Nearly all of his subjects had been born during his reign and thought the world would end without him. Ramesses II did become the legendary figure he so desperately wanted to be, but this was not enough to protect Egypt. New enemies were attacking the empire which also suffered internal problems and it could not last. Less than 150 years after Ramesses died, the Egyptian empire fell, his descendants lost their power and the New Kingdom came to an end.

Mummy

Ramesses II was buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings. His mummy was placed in Cairo's Egyptian Museum, where it can be found today.

The pharaoh's mummy features a hooked nose and strong jaw, and is below average height for an ancient Egyptian, standing some 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in). His successor was ultimately to be his thirteenth son: Merneptah.

In 1974, Egyptologists visiting his tomb noticed that the mummy's condition was rapidly deteriorating. They decided to fly Ramesses II's mummy to Paris for examination. Ramesses II was issued an Egyptian passport that listed his occupation as "King (deceased)". The mummy was received at Le Bourget airport, just outside Paris, with the full military honours befitting a king.
In Paris, Ramesses' mummy was diagnosed and treated for a fungal infection. During the examination, scientific analysis revealed battle wounds and old fractures, as well as the pharaoh's arthritis and poor circulation.

For the last decades of his life, Ramesses II was essentially crippled with arthritis and walked with a hunched back, but a recent study excluded ankylosing spondylitis as a possible cause of the pharaoh's arthritis. A significant hole in the pharaoh's mandible was detected while "an abscess by his teeth was serious enough to have caused death by infection, although this cannot be determined with certainty." Microscopic inspection of the roots of Ramesses II's hair revealed that the king may have been a redhead. After Ramesses' mummy returned to Egypt, it was visited by the late President Anwar Sadat and his wife.

The results of the study concluded that "the anthropological study and the microscopic analysis" of the pharaoh's hair showed that Ramesses II was "a fair-skinned man related to the Prehistoric and Antiquity Mediterranean peoples, or briefly, of the Berber of Africa".

Valley of The Kings

History

The Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or 'The Peak'. It has a pyramid shaped appearance, and it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years prior to the first royal burials carved here. Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special tomb police (the Medjay) were able to guard the necropolis.

While the iconic pyramid complexes of the Giza plateau have come to symbolize ancient Egypt, the majority of tombs were in fact cut into rock. Most pyramids and mastabas contain sections which are cut into ground level, and there are full rock-cut tombs in Egypt that date back to the   Old Kingdom.

After the defeat of the Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I, the Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that would reflect their new found power. The tombs of Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I (their exact location remains unknown) were probably in the Seventeenth Dynasty necropolis of Dra' Abu el-Naga'. The first royal tomb in the valley were those of Amenhotep I (although this identification is also disputed), and Thutmose I, whose advisor Ineni notes in his tomb that he advised his king to place his tomb in the desolate valley (the identity of this actual tomb is unclear, but it is probably KV20 or KV38).
“ I saw to the excavation of the rock-tomb of his majesty, alone, no one seeing, no one hearing. ”

The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains at least 63 tombs, beginning with Thutmose I (or possibly earlier, during the reign of Amenhotep I), and ending with Ramesses X or XI.

Despite the name, the Valley of the Kings also contains the tombs of favorite nobles as well as the wives and children of both nobles and pharaohs. Around the time of Ramesses I (ca. 1301 BC) construction commenced in the separate Valley of the Queens, although some wives continued to be buried with their husbands in the Valley of the Kings.

Exploration of the valley

The Greek writers Strabo (1st century BC) and Diodorus Siculus (1st century AD) were able to report that the total number of Theban royal tombs was 47, of which at the time only 17 were believed to be undestroyed. Pausanias and other ancient writers remarked on the pipe-like corridors of the Valley, clearly meaning the tombs.

Clearly others also visited the valley in these times, as many of the tombs have graffiti written by these ancient tourists. Jules Baillet located over 2100 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages. The majority of the ancient graffiti are found in KV9, containing just under a thousand of them. The earliest positively dated graffiti dates to 278 B.C.

The catacomb of Kom El-Shuqafa

The catacomb of Kom El-Shuqafa (Shoqafa, Shaqafa) is one of Alexandria's most memorable monuments. Identified as "a tour-de-force of rock-cut architecture which would be remarkable in any period," the Great Catacomb defies comprehensible description. Its vast, intricately decorated interior spaces cut at so great a depth into the rock present an enormity of experience outside the normal human realm and tell us of a level of technological expertise equaling enterprises of A side sketch of the Catacombs of Kom el-Shuqafamodern subways and tunnels while far surpassing them in aesthetic response.

Kom El-Shuqafa is the Arab translation of the ancient Greek name, Lofus Kiramaikos, meaning "Mound of Shards" or "Potsherds." Its actual ancient Egyptian name was Ra-Qedil.

These catacombs date back to the late first century AD. Kom El-Shuqafa lies on the site where the village and fishing port of Rhakotis, the oldest part of Alexandria that predates Alexander the Great, was located. They are A recreation of the superstructure of the tomb at Marina el-Alameinsituated in the Karmouz district of western Alexandria, which is now one of the most densely populated districts of Alexandria. This district itself was used by Mohammad Ali Pasha to defend the city. Then the area was destroyed in about 1850.

On its western side, as usual in Egyptian funerary practices, lies its “City of the Dead.” However, while the ancient Egyptians mummifed their dead, the Hellenistic custom was for cremation. This area used to contain a mound of shards of terra cotta which mostly consisted of jars and objects made of clay. These objects were mostly left by those visiting the tombs, who would bring food and wine for their consumption during the visit. However, they did not wish to carry these containers home from this place of death.

Excavations of the site began in 1892 but no catacombs were actually found until Friday, September 28th, 1900 when according to tradition, by mere chance, a donkey pulling a cart fell through a hole in the ground and into one of the catacombs. However, in reality, the discovery was made on that date by an Alexandrian, Monsieur Es-Sayed A Kom El-Shuqafa ticket stubAly Gibarah, who immediately sought out Botti at the Museum, explaining that, "While quarrying for stone, I broke open the vault of a subterranean tomb; come see it, take the antiquities if there are any, and authorize me to get on with my work without delay."

Little did Botti know what glorious finds he would make, but this day he would not visit the catacombs. He later explained that, since the discovery happened on a Friday, a day off for most Muslims, the museum was very busy and he had meetings that day. Besides, he had often been called out to see valueless work, and was therefore very satisfied to leave his visit until the next day. However, because the stone worker was so insistent on getting back to work, he allowed his inspector, Silvio Beghe, and an attendant, Abdou Daoud, to leave the museum at five o'clock, one half hour early, in order to visit the find and report back to him that evening. The next day, he would be astounded by this discovery. The site was opened for the public only in 1995 after pumping the subsoil water from the 2nd level.

The Necropolis is of the catacomb type that was widespread during the first three centuries in Italy (Rome). This type of catacomb was usually limited to the burial of deceased Christians. It was, to the believers of this new religion, an asylum where they could be safe from the injustice of the emperors. In the tombs below the cathedral of Saint Sebastian in Rome we Unique decorations inside Kom el-Shuqafacan find catacombs in the form of streets stretching for many miles, with tombs to their sites. However, in the Necropolis of Kom el-Shuqafa there is no trace of Christian burials.

The catacombs are unique both for their plan and for its decoration which represents a melding and mixing of the cultures and traditions of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. It was a place where people seemed to have a talent for combining rather than destroying cultures. Though the funerary motifs are pure ancient Egyptian, the architects and artists were clearly trained in the Greco-Roman style. Here then, we find decorations related to ancient Egyptian themes, but with an amazing twist that makes them quite unlike anything else in the world.

Scholars believe that the catacombs at first may have served only one wealthy family that still practiced the ancient Egyptian pagan religion. However, they were expanded into a mass Looking down the light wellburial site, probably administered by a corporation with dues-paying members, perhaps because of its pagan heritage. This theory could explain why so many chambers were hewn from the rock. In its final stage, the complex contained over one hundred loculi and numerous rock-cut sarcophagus tombs.

Some believe that the scale of this endeavor precludes the catacombs as representing a private monument. Alan Rowe thought that the complex was cut originally as a Serapeum rather than as a tomb complex. Though there is no solid evidence to support his theory, the complexity of the undertaking seems to almost preclude private patronage.

Looking up the light wellThese tombs represent the last existing major construction related to the ancient Egyptian religion. This was also the case in the Pankrati tomb in Rome. They dug out loculi and then closed the openings with marble and limestone. The name was written on the tomb in a different way from Italy, depending on the artistic style used. At Kom El-Shuqafa there is a mixture between Roman and the Pharaonic arts, which is not only represented in the architecture of the tomb, but also its engraving and statues. This mixture may have perhaps resulted because the opportunity in both Egypt and Alexandria gave rise to the mixture of the Greek and Romans arts with the Pharaonic art of Egypt which was prevalent in Egypt since Alexander's feet trod its grounds. Or perhaps it was the desire of the tomb's owner that the artist realize a mixture between both the Roman and Egyptian arts as was the effect of religious scenes shown in the drawings, and effect of Roman and Egyptian religions

One of the exedrae, a niche within the first level vestibuleThe catacomb is composed of a ground level construction that probably served as a funerary chapel, a deep spiral stairway and three underground levels for the funerary ritual and entombment. The first level consists of a vestibule with a double exedra, a rotunda and a triclinium. The second level, in its original state, was the main tomb, with various surrounding corridors. It was reached by a monumental staircase from the rotunda. The third level is submerged in ground water, which has also caused it to be saturated with sand. The Catacomb is one of the most inspired monuments of Alexandrian funerary architecture, following the conceptual design laid down in the Ptolemaic period, but disposing the elements of the tomb on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis.

The remains of an extensive mosaic pavement discovered during the Sieglin Expedition near the entrance to Kom el-Shuqafa and directly above the Hall of Caracalla allowed Schreiber to reconstruct a large funerary chapel directly above the spiral staircase that descends to the A view of the RotundaCatacomb. A possible model for reconstructing this chapel, contemporaneous with Kom el-Shuqafa, is preserved at the recently excavated site of Marina el-Alamein, 96 kilometers west of Alexandria. That structure is a large, broad building, entered on its long side. It has a very symmetrically arranged core that is preceded by a portico with eight Ionic columns.

The central part of this building beyond the portico is entirely devoted to a large banquet room paved with rectangular slabs of limestone and fitted with two stone banquet couches with their legs and horizontal beams indicated in relief as those of Ptolemaic Klinai. To the left and right of the banquet room are two smaller rooms, presumably for service. At the back fo the banquet hall is a monumental doorway flanked by engaged semi-columns that opens onto a short corridor that leads to a staircase down into the hypogeum.

A slightly different view of the RotundaAt Kom el-Shuqafa, a shaft about six meters in diameter contains both the spiral staircase, which is preserved to a height of about ten meters, and the central light well around which the steps wind. Most other tombs at Alexandria have square shafts, but this one is round. These shafts were not only used to light the tombs, but to lower the bodies of the deceased down to the actual burial area. The wall that encloses the stairwell and separates it from the light well consists of squared blocks pierced by arched windows that have slanted sills in order to direct light downward onto the stairs. There are ninety-nine steps that decrease in height as they approach the surface, so that at the top there is almost no steps at all. This was designed for the tomb visitors so that after viewing the deceased in the lower levels, the climb back up to the surface would become easier as the visitor became tired from the climb out.

A view of the TricliniumThis spiral staircase only went as low as the first floor and lead to a vestibule with two, opposed niches, known as exedrae. These were actually seats where visitors could rest. The niches were paved with alabaster and sheltered with shell style conch-shaped semi-domes. The ceiling of these niches were in the form of a semi dome ornamented as a shell. This type of design can be dated to the Antoinini period of Roman rule, or about the second century AD. There are also some remains a mosaic floor.

The vestibule leads to the rotunda, which is the focal point of the first level. It is a cylindrical shaft surrounded by a ring-shaped ambulatory. The shaft is capped by a dome supported by six pilasters. A low parapet between the pilasters enclosed the shaft, setting it off from the Another view of the tricliniumambulatory. At the bottom of this shaft were found five stone hands that were removed to the Greco-Roman Museum, but casts were made of them that can be seen on the parapet.

To the left (southeast) of the rotunda the tombs have a funeral banquet hall called a "Triclinium", which sits to a right angle to the vestibule. The entrance of the triclinium opens onto a huge room, nearly nine meters square, cut with four freestanding piers with Doric anta capitals. Between these piers are three rock-cut couches, each about two meters wide, that form the typical U-shape so that the diners could easily converse as they reclined. A raised ceiling cut above the area segmented by the four piers provides the impression of a light well and adds a sense of openness to the otherwise featureless room. The two piers that face the A drawing depicting a banquet within the Tricliniumentrance have insets to hold lamps or torches, and on days of feasting the benches would have surely been covered with elaborately patterned mattresses and cushions, evidenced by their depiction on Ptolemaic rock-cut klinai and on Roman sarcophagi outside Egypt. There may have been tables made of wood or stone here, but they have disappeared.

At a right angle to the triclinium and on an axis with the vestibule, a wide staircase from the Rotanda, which divides to accommodate the prompter's box (a covered shaft to the third lower level), leads down to the second level that contains the Main Tomb. This staircase is composed of fifteen steps that lead to a narrow landing from which the divided staircase of six additional steps continues to the Main Tomb. This is a similar arrangement to Egyptian rock-cut tombs, but is different than monumental staircases of the Hellenistic period.