EPIGRAPHIC ACTIVITIES

We continued the study of the decoration of the first pillared hall, started in 1999. During that season we had tried to improve the reconstruction of the door-frames of the subsidiary rooms on the southern side of the hall. To facilitate the identification of the relevant limestone blocks and their interrelationships we made four wooden boxes (length cm 300; width cm 150; depth cm 15) and filled them with sand. Inside each we reconstructed one of the door-frames. This method yielded good results and allowed us to get a better idea of the content of the scenes which decorated the lintels. We were able to show that: 

• The lintel of the second door-frame (counting from East to West) (S2) was decorated with an image of Harwa seated in front of a pile of offerings. In this case the reconstruction of the door-jambs was more successful than for other doors whose state of preservation is much worse. The jambs are decorated with images of Harwa seated in front of an offerings table upon which are placed slices of bread (Fig. 7).

• On the lintel of the third door (S3) Harwa is depicted sitting in front of an offering table, on which are slices of bread, and assisting in the butchering of a calf.

• The fourth door (S4) bears a scene showing the sons of Harwa (it was possible to identify the name Pa-di-maat, who is also represented in the vestibule of the tomb facing(?) their father, who is, as always, sitting behind an offering table on which lie slices of bread.

• The reconstruction of the lintel of the door furthest to the West (S5) led to the identification of a scene in which to the right a figure – possibly the father of Harwa – and, to the left, Harwa’s mother Nesatureret, are depicted. The centre of the scene is occupied by two standing figures of a man: that to the right is certainly to be identified as Harwa. This door opened into a room with a vaulted ceiling and a shaft with a funerary chamber at the bottom. The lintel decoration perhaps indicates that this room was intended to be the burial place of the parents of Harwa. The relationship between the decoration of the door-frame and the function of the room can be only be ascertained by emptying the shaft and the burial chamber underneath.  

The Photographer Carlos de la Fuente completed the digital photography of all the recorded fragments of the decoration, recovered in the excavations of the first pillared hall. We now have more than 1200 digital pictures that will be to aid the virtual reconstruction of the tomb.

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