THE VESTIBULE

The vestibule of the Tomb of Harwa (TT 37) was used as magazine by the MMA Archaeological Mission to store monuments – mainly fragmentary – recovered during excavations in the Palace of Amenhotep III (Malqata) and in the mortuary temple of the Queen Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahri). Some of the objects were briefly published by W.C. Hayes (W.C. Hayes, Inscriptions from the Palace of Amenhotep III, JNES 10, 1951, pp. 231 – 242). The article is mainly focussed on the jar-stoppers bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, the fragments of a statue of Amun-Re and some other inscribed architectural features. Hayes states that some monuments (the statue of Amun-Re) were found during the 1916-1917 season and that excavations closed in 1920. From this information it is safe to assume that the closing of the vestibule took place after the latter date.
The MMA Archaeological Mission partly excavated the vestibule (to around 50 cm over the floor level). They walled up the passage leading to the outside portico and provided the entrance to the courtyard of the tomb of Harwa with a wooden door framed by a mud-brick wall (Fig. 1).
The wall was built partly over the inscriptions of the passage between the vestibule and the courtyard and it will be dismantled in the future. An iron door, framed by a red-brick wall coated in concrete, was further provided between the older wooden door and the courtyard. This intervention corresponds to works carried on by the Egyptian Antiquities, to further secure the vestibule, which took place in a later date. 

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