Deir El-Medina in The Egyptian Museum of Turin

OLLECTION OLLECTION
ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA ÆGYPTIACA ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA

LEODIENSIA
11
Outside the Box

La collection Ægyptiaca Leodiensia — dirigée par Dimitri Laboury, Stéphane Polis et Jean Winand — a pour vocation de
Outside the Box — Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS

publier des travaux d’égyptologie dans les domaines les plus divers. Elle accueille en son sein des monographies
ainsi que des volumes collectifs thématiques.
This volume represents the outcome of the confer- vative technological solutions. Accordingly,
ence “Deir el-Medina and the Theban Necropolis “Outside the box,” can be read both as a plea
in Contact: Describing the interactions within for making the fascinating material from Deir Selected papers from the conference
and outside the community of workmen” held
in Liège in 2014 (27-29 October). The goal of this
el-Medina more broadly available, and as a
shout of admiration regarding the creativity “Deir el-Medina and
the Theban Necropolis in Contact”
conference was to encourage a wider perspective and tireless inventiveness of scholars working
on Deir el-Medina, bringing together scholars on the sources stemming from this exceptional
from all egyptological fields and disciplines who socio-cultural setting.
are interested in studying the many types of
interactions that the ancient community of Deir Andreas DORN is professor of Egyptology at
Liège, 27-29 October 2014
el-Medina developed both internally and at the the University of Uppsala (Sweden). He spe-
broader (supra-)regional level. cializes in cultural history, archaeology and
The title of the volume, “Outside the box,”
refers to two important dimensions touched
architecture. He focuses mainly on the contex-
tualisation of artefacts in order to investigate
Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS (eds.)
on by the papers in this volume. First, it points micro-historical phenomena. His research pro-
to the fact that a vast quantity of documents jects include the burial equipment of king Sety
from Deir el-Medina and, more broadly, from I, the architecture and archaeology of the tomb
the Theban Necropolis has been available for of king Siptah, graffiti in the Valley of the Kings
a long time to some restricted academic cir- and Western Thebes as well as the publication
cles, but are now to be taken outside the box: of hieratic texts from Deir el-Medina.
this holds true not only for the publication of
papyri and ostraca preserved in many collec- Stéphane POLIS is research associate at
tions across the world, but also for archival the National Fund for Scientific Research
material describing the excavations at the site (Belgium). His fields of research are ancient
itself, and more broadly for the monuments Egyptian linguistics, and Late Egyptian phi-
that remain there still, but are not available to lology and grammar. His work focuses, on
scholars or the general public. Second, most the one hand, on language variation and lan-
of the papers collected in this volume share a guage change in Ancient Egyptian, and, on the
common feature, namely their attempt to think other hand, on the publication and analysis of
outside the box, using new theoretical frame- hieratic material from the community of Deir
works, cross-disciplinary approaches, or inno- el-Medina.
PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE LIÈGE
ISBN : 978-2-87562-166-5
Outside the Box
Photo of the book cover: O. Turin CG 57141 (reproduced with kind permission of the Museo Egizio, Turin).
Dépôt légal D/2018/12.839/16

ISBN 978-2-87562-166-5
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Imprimé en Belgique
Collection Ægyptiaca Leodiensia 11
Outside the Box

Selected papers from the conference
“Deir el-Medina and the Theban Necropolis in Contact”
Liège, 27–29 October 2014
Presses Universitaires de Liège

2018
Table of Contents
Andreas DORN, Todd J. GILLEN & Stéphane POLIS, Deir el-Medina studies. Current situation
and future perspectives ........................................................................................................................ 7–16
Guillemette ANDREU-LANOË & Jacques PELEGRIN, La fabrique des ostraca en calcaire.
Comment scribes et dessinateurs se procuraient-ils ces supports ? ............................................. 17–25
Anne AUSTIN, Living and Dying at Deir el-Medina: An osteological analysis
of the TT 290 assemblage ................................................................................................................... 27–47
Patricia BERG, Textual references to mobility in necropolis journals
and notes from Deir el-Medina ........................................................................................................ 49–70
Anne BOUD’HORS, Moines et laïcs dans la nécropole thébaine (VIIe–VIIIe siècles).
Frontières et interactions entre deux modes de vie ........................................................................ 71–82
Massimo CULTRARO & Federica FACCHETTI, A foreign market revisited.
New evidence of Mycenaean and Aegean-related pottery from Schiaparelli’s campaigns
(1905–1909) at Deir el-Medina ......................................................................................................... 83–96
Paolo DEL VESCO & Federico POOLE, Deir el-Medina in the Egyptian Museum of Turin.
An overview, and the way forward ................................................................................................. 97–130
Rob J. DEMARÉE, A Late Ramesside ship’s log (Papyrus Turin 2098 + 2100/306 verso) .............. 131–140
Andreas DORN, Graffiti de la Montagne Thébaine (GMT) 2012/2013: Old and new graffiti
from Western Thebes. Report on the 1st campaign of the
“Graffiti in the valleys of Western Thebes project” .................................................................... 141–155
Kathrin GABLER, Can I stay or must I go? Relations between the Deir el-Medina
community and their service personnel ...................................................................................... 157–189
Cédric GOBEIL, Archaeology in the archives. A zir-area at Deir el-Medina and
its implications for the location of the khetem ............................................................................ 191–216
Pierre GRANDET, Ostraca hiératiques documentaires de l’IFAO :
quelques points notables ................................................................................................................ 217–232
Ben HARING, Popular, but unique? The early history of the royal necropolis
workmen’s marks ............................................................................................................................ 233–244
Khaled HASSAN & Stéphane POLIS, Extending the corpus of Amennakhte’s literary
compositions. Palaeographical and textual connections between two ostraca
(O. BM EA 21282 + O. Cairo HO 425) ........................................................................................ 245–264
6 Table of Contents
Christine HUE-ARCÉ, The legal treatment of interpersonal violence in Deir el-Medina .............. 265–279
Paolo MARINI, Shabti-boxes and their representation on wall paintings in tombs
at Deir el-Medina ............................................................................................................................ 281–300
Bernard MATHIEU, Les « Caractères » : un genre littéraire de l’époque ramesside ........................ 301–332
Stephanie E. MCCLAIN, Authorship and attribution. Who wrote the twentieth dynasty
journal of the necropolis? .............................................................................................................. 333–364
Aurore MOTTE, Observations on the Reden und Rufe in the workmen’s tombs
of Deir el-Medina ............................................................................................................................ 365–381
Hana NAVRATILOVA, An elusive community: Traces of necropolis workmen
in Memphis? .................................................................................................................................... 383–406
Chloé C.D. RAGAZZOLI, Graffiti and secondary epigraphy in Deir el-Medina.
A progress report ............................................................................................................................ 407–420
Anne-Claire SALMAS, Space and society at Deir el-Medina.
Delineating the territory of a specific ‘social group’ ................................................................... 421–445
Deborah SWEENEY, Cattle at Deir el-Medîna ..................................................................................... 447–464
Julia TROCHE, The living dead at Deir el-Medina .............................................................................. 465–475
Pascal VERNUS, The circulation of “literary” texts in the Deir el-Medina community.
Two opposite cases .......................................................................................................................... 477–492
Jean WINAND, Dialectal, sociolectal and idiolectal variations in the late Egyptian
texts from Deir el-Medineh and the Theban area ...................................................................... 493–524
Index ........................................................................................................................................................ 525–539
Deir el-Medina in the Egyptian Museum of Turin*
An Overview, and the Way Forward
Paolo DEL VESCO & Federico POOLE

Museo Egizio, Turin
Abstract. The authors look at the Deir el-Medina evidence in the Egyptian Museum of Turin against the
backdrop of its archaeological context and of archive records related to Schiaparelli’s early-twentieth-century
excavation of the site, singling out several case studies to exemplify potentially fruitful approaches to a holistic
study of this evidence. After an introductory overview (Sections 1 and 2), in Section 3 Federico Poole
investigates unprovenanced artifacts from the early-nineteenth-century Drovetti collection. By crosschecking
historical-artistic and archaeological evidence against prosopographical information or the results of later,
better-documented explorations, several of these artifacts — including stelae, shabtis and votive statuettes —
can be traced to their owners and/or probable find-spot. In Section 4, Paolo Del Vesco reconstructs the history
of the excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Egypt, directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli, at Deir
el-Medina (1905, 1906, 1908–1909) on the basis of a variety of archive documents, including inventories,
reports, drawings, and photographs. He locates the areas explored by the mission and follows the progress of
the excavation with the gradual unearthing of its principal finds, tapping the potential of the documentation to
precisely localize the places of origin of some, including a stela of Amenmesse, a Demotic archive, and chapel
seats, and shedding new light on others, such as several large storage jars decorated with Aegean motifs.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Turin Egyptian Museum inaugurated its new galleries on April 1, 2015, after undergoing a
complete makeover. The five-year project involved major renovation and restoration of the late-
seventeenth-century Palazzo dell’Accademia delle Scienze, which has housed the Egyptian collection
ever since its arrival in Turin. The display space, formerly limited to the ground floor and first floor,
has been expanded to include the second and third floor, as well as new underground rooms. The last
leg of the project, when the scientific guidelines for the new installation were laid down, was overseen
by director Christian Greco, in office since April 28, 2014, as well as a fully renovated curatorial staff,
including the authors of the present article.
As might be expected, the site of Deir el-Medina features prominently in the new galleries. A vast
room on the first floor of the museum is devoted to the village, while another of the same size next to
it houses the intact burial assemblage of Kha.
*
Sections 1–3 and 5 by Federico Poole; section 4 by Paolo Del Vesco.
98 Paolo DEL VESCO & Federico POOLE
In planning our new installation, we have placed a strong emphasis on context in a broad sense,
taking in archaeological context together with the history of the collection and the motivations driving
the individuals who excavated, purchased, displayed and studied it. Being presently engaged in sowing
the seeds for a revival of the Museo Egizio’s role as a research institution, we believe a similar emphasis
on context should inform future investigations of its collection. Some valuable work in this direction
has already been done by our predecessors at the Turin museum, in whose footsteps we tread while
looking for potentially fruitful research paths for the future. We advocate a network-based approach,
drawing on contributions from scholars internationally and looking to establish common standards
and research paths to expand our knowledge base beyond the confines of our collections and take in
the whole range of available evidence as an integrated whole. To exemplify the research approaches we
are trying to develop, this paper examines some of the Deir el-Medina evidence in the Turin museum
against the backdrop of its archaeological context and archive records related to Schiaparelli’s early-
twentieth-century excavation of the site.
One of the most significant of the Turin museum’s Deir el-Medina holdings, the papyri and
ostraca from the workmen’s village, will be largely left out of this discussion. Placing these corpora in
their archaeological and historical-prosopographical context is a task of the highest interest, but also
one which poses special challenges and calls for specific competences and investigative methods. An
international collaborative study project for the investigation and publication of the papyri from the
workmen’s community is currently under development, and will also be addressing questions of origin
and context.
2. THE ORIGIN OF ARTIFACTS FROM THE WORKMEN’S VILLAGE IN THE MUSEO EGIZIO
Some 4,000 objects from the workmen’s village in Deir el-Medina are officially listed in the database of
the Museo Egizio. Of these objects, over 3,000 come from the early-twentieth-century excavations of
the Turin museum in Egypt, including some 500 from the celebrated tomb of the Overseer of Works
Kha. To these we can add a number of unprovenanced items that can certainly or very probably be
attributed to the site on the basis of internal evidence. This includes about 500 artifacts from the
collection sold by the French consul Bernardino Drovetti to King Charles Felix of Savoy in 1824.
Several thousands of objects among the over 30,000 in the Turin museum collection have lost their
original inventory number and have hence been assigned a new one, prefixed by “Provv.”1 These are
largely fragmentary objects from the Italian excavations that are hard to trace to one or the other item
in the inventories of the Italian mission. At least 70 or so of these (mostly architectural elements,
stelae, or ostraca) certainly come from Deir el-Medina, and this provenance is likely for many more
artifacts in this group.
3. THE DROVETTI COLLECTION

There are only scattered indications available about the provenance of objects from the Drovetti
collection, and none that we are aware of specifically concerning the workmen’s village at Deir
1
Besides the “Provv.” prefix, the Turin museum uses the Cat. (or C.) prefix for objects from the Drovetti collection and
a limited number of others acquired before 1882 or 1888 (the dates of publication of the two volumes of the catalogue
of the collection by Fabretti, Rossi and Lanzone) and S. (or Suppl.) for objects acquired post 1888, mainly through
Schiaparelli’s purchases and excavations. A new system (prefix CGT or n.) was implemented starting in the 1960s,
mainly for published objects, on the model of the CG of the Cairo Museum.
Deir el-Medina in the Egyptian Museum of Turin 99
el-Medina. The site is not mentioned in what accounts survive of the operations of Drovetti’s agents,
Rifaud and Lebolo, in the Theban area in 1818; accordingly, it can be surmised that they obtained
objects from the village not directly, but through local purveyors. Thus, attribution to this site and
inferences about the possible provenance of the Drovetti artifacts have so far been essentially based on
intrinsic information provided by the objects themselves, which is largely, although not exclusively,
prosopographical: as some examples below will show, historical-artistic and archaeological
information can sometimes go a long way in complementing prosopographical data and help to dispel
the fog of homonymy that often precludes identification of owners of objects purely on the basis of the
names and titles written on them.
Based on the information currently available in our database — subject to modification in the
future — the breakdown by object category of the Drovetti artifacts relative to the workmen’s village in
the Turin museum is the following: 280 papyri,2 68 stelae, 54 shabtis and 2 shabti boxes, 23 statues or
statuettes, 11 ostraca, 8 model vases, 6 canopic jars, 3 furniture elements, 3 chisels, 3 fragments of
inscribed canes, 2 pyramidia, 2 stone doorframe elements, 3 vases (2 of clay and one of stone), and
other individual objects (a wooden doorframe, an ancestor bust, an offering table, part of an altar, and
the handle of a flail/fly whisk). With few exceptions where attribution is deduced from the nature
and/or style of the object — notably the ancestor bust, the ostraca, and, as we shall see, some of the
shabtis — these objects can be traced to the village essentially on the basis of the names and titles
inscribed on them. The Drovetti collection actually includes many more artifacts from Deir el-Medina.
Further study in a material-culture perspective will certainly allow scholars to lengthen the above list
in the future, also to include uninscribed objects. The numbers given above are thus essentially meant
to establish an order of magnitude.
Below I look at some groups of Deir el-Medina objects from the Drovetti collection to exemplify
potentially fruitful paths for research.
3.1. Stelae and other epigraphic evidence from tombs

A number of the Drovetti artifacts are decidedly funerary in character and can be traced to known
tombs,3 including:
– Lintel and jamb Cat. 1516 and 1517, respectively, from the tomb of the scribe Amenemope
(TT 215).4
– Stela Cat. 1579 of the draughtsman May (TT 338).5
– Pyramidion Cat. 1603 of the scribe Ramose (TT 7 or TT 212).6
2
Plus several thousands of fragments sorted out into over 200 envelopes.
3
Cf. Tosi & Roccati (1972: 25–26). Some of the stelae they ascribe to tombs, however, appear to be non-funerary in
character. These include: Cat. 1604 (CGT 50022) — an Ax iqr n ra stela, for which a funerary provenance appears
unlikely (cf. Demarée 1983: 182–184, esp. note 22) —, Cat. 1463 (CGT 50030), Cat. 1601 (50066), and Cat. 1549 (CGT
50055), which are more likely to come from votive chapels.
4
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 122–124, 299, CGT 50085, and 176–177, 336, CGT 50203).
5
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 41–42, 264, CGT 50009). May’s lucarne stela in the Bankes collection at Kingston Lacy was
acquired by William John Bankes only a few years later, during his 1825 sojourn in Egypt, cf. Černý (1958: no. 1).
6
Rammant-Peeters (1983: 70–71, Doc. 65); all four sides reproduced in Tosi (n.d.: [8–9]). A lucarne stela of Ramose is
in the Bankes collection (Černý 1958: no. 4), again indicating that Bankes was drawing on the same sources as
Drovetti’s purveyors.
– Stela Cat. 1609 of the chief craftsman Huy (TT 361).7

– Stela Cat. 1618 of the overseer of works Kha (TT 8).8
– Stela Cat. 1619 of Minhotep and Nakhtmin (TT 291).9
– Stela Cat. 1635 of the sculptor Qen (TT 4).10
– Stela Cat. 1636 of the sculptor Kel (Karo) (TT 330).11
– Stela Cat. 7357 of the draughtsman Ipy (TT 217).12
– Stela Cat. 1586, which has been convincingly ascribed to the workman, later chief craftsman,
Nakhy (Neny) (iii), father of Buqentuf and husband of Nefertari.13 The tomb has not been
located, as far as we know, but a stash of funerary cones inscribed for Nakhy alone, for Nakhy
and Nefertari, and for Amenwahsu (identifiable as their son, who is mentioned on the stela)
was found between the two pyramids in courtyard 1138.14
The attention of early-nineteenth-century diggers thus appears to have been mainly focused on the
more exposed tombs lying largely on the upper slopes of the western necropolis (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Presumed provenance of funerary items in Drovetti collection (TT numbers),

indicated on the plan of Deir el-Medina by Castel & Meeks (1980: plan 1)
7
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 105–106, 292, CGT 50069).
8
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 38–39, 263, CGT 50007).
9
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 44–47, 265, CGT 50011); Bruyère & Kuentz (1926: 28–30, 33–35, pl. X).
10
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 110–112, 294).
11
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 47–49, 266, CGT 50012).
12
Tosi & Roccati (1972: 63–64, 273, CGT 50031).
13
Davies (1999: 66–67). Tosi & Roccati (1972: 44, CGT 50010), ascribe it to Nakhy (iv), son of Buqentuf, which would
clash, among other things, with the style of the stela, which still shows distinct post-Amarnian traits. Incidentally, the
reading Neny (Ranke 1935: 206, 1) for the name seems equally viable.
14
Bruyère (1929b: 15–18, esp. 17).
Some of these same chapels were sought out by the Italian Mission in 1905–1909 and documented
with drawings and notes by Schiaparelli’s collaborator, Francesco Ballerini (see below).
3.2. Shabtis
Unlike stelae and reliefs, shabtis do not usually carry rich information about kith and kin. Homonymy
thus tends to preclude identification of the owner for those bearing the more common titles, most
notably sDm-aS and nb.t-pr. However, when combined with considerations of style and manufacture,
even generic prosopographical data can result in quite plausible attributions, as the following
examples — all concerning shabtis from the Drovetti collection, or in any case acquired before 1882 —
will hopefully show.
3.2.1. The family of Nebenmaat

The Turin museum has three shabtis — two of limestone, one of wood — of the workman Nebenmaat
(Cat. 2662, 2664, 2665; see Fig. 2). The limestone ones, in particular, with their blue wigs and broad
collars and details painted in red and black against a white background, are of a common style at Deir
el-Medina, a notable parallel being the shabtis of Sennedjem and other members of his family.
Identification with either Nebenmaat (i) or Nebenmaat (ii) would be difficult, if at all possible,
were it not for the presence of shabtis in a similar style with other names found in the same family:
two limestone ones of the lady of the house Iyemwaw (Cat. 2585 and 2586) and a wooden one of the
workman Khaemtir (Cat. 2734), the former being the mother of Nebenmaat (ii), the latter his brother
(Fig. 2).15 The co-occurrence in the same collection of funerary objects in the same style guarantees
identifications that would have been shaky if based on purely prosopographical grounds. Particularly
in the case of Iyemwaw, it is only this co-occurrence that makes it highly likely that this is
Iyemwaw (iii) and not another homonymous lady. The presumable provenance is the group of three
chapels belonging to the family: TT 218 of Nebenmaat (ii)’s father Amennakht, TT 219 of
Nebenmaat (ii) himself, and TT 220 of his brother Khaemtir. Because of this, and because it seems
more likely that these shabtis were produced within a relatively narrow lapse of time than one
spanning three generations, it is plausible that the Turin shabtis belong to Nebenmaat (ii) rather than
to his homonymous grandfather, Nebenmaat (i). Nebenmaat (ii) appears in various documents dated
between years 25/26 and 64 of Ramesses II, while the tomb decoration dates from the first half of the
reign of this king, since the scribe Ramose is featured in one of the scenes.16
15
Davies (1999: 236–239, Chart 21).
16
Davies (1999: 236).
Figure 2. Shabtis of Nebenmaat, Iyemwaw, and Khaemtir (Cat. 2664, 2585, 2734)
3.2.2. Amenemheb and Mutemuia

Similar considerations apply to a group of three wooden
shabtis of the workman Amenemheb (Cat. 2524, 2525,
2526) in the same common style as the above-discussed
figurines. A case can be made that this is
Amenemheb (vi), whose wife was Mutemuia (v),17
because of the presence in the Drovetti collection of a
wooden shabti of a woman by this name (Cat. 2648)
bearing an especially close resemblance, in particular, to
Cat. 2524, although with the variant of the striped wig
(Fig. 3). Again, it is the co-occurrence of (1) the
prosopographical information (names and titles),
(2) similarity in style, and (3) the presence of the objects
in the same collection that makes the identification of
the two highly likely.
Figure 3. Shabtis of Amenemheb and Mutemuia

(Cat. 2524 and 2648)
17
Davies (1999: 183).
3.2.3. Members of Sennedjem’s family

A problematic case is that of a shabti of a nb.t-pr Iynofreti (Cat. 2588, Fig. 4). Adel Mahmoud has
identified it as belonging to Sennedjem’s wife and included it in his catalogue of objects from
Sennedjem’s tomb.18 Actually, the statuette already appears in the catalogue of the Turin collection
published in 1882,19 while Sennedjem’s tomb, also containing the burials of his wife and other family
members, was famously found sealed in 1886. It may be significant in this regard that Mahmoud
(2011) lists eight shabtis for the woman, whereas Eduard Toda’s original inventory of the contents of
the tomb, published by Daressy, only lists six.20 The Turin shabti is stylistically compatible with other
specimens in the quite diversified shabti gangs of Iynofreti and Sennedjem. Similar considerations
apply to a jar also inscribed for an Iynofreti (Turin, Cat. 3531), which Mahmoud (2011) acknowledges
but, in this case, correctly leaves out of his catalogue because it appears in the 1882 inventory.21 The
vase certainly belongs to Sennedjem’s wife, given its cogent similarities with Cairo JE 27286 (CG 2770)
(Fig. 4).22
Figure 4. Shabti of Iynofreti (Cat. 2588).

Jars of Iynofreti, Cairo JE 4186 and Turin Cat. 3531 (from Mahmoud 2011, used by permission)
Additionally, several shabtis of Sennedjem’s son, the workman Khonsu, purportedly from TT 1,
appear in the 1882 catalogue of the Turin collection. These include three clay specimens with yellow
decoration on a black background,23 to which we can add Cat. 2736 in the garb of the living, with
parallels in Cairo, New York and Moscow,24 and two shabtis of Khonsu’s wife, Tameket (Fig. 5).25
18
Mahmoud (2011: no. 20 of annexed PDF catalogue).
19
Fabretti, Rossi & Lanzone (1882: 366, n. 2588).
20
Daressy (1920: 155).
21
Regarding the shabtis, he was probably misled by the fact that the Turin museum commonly lumps together objects in
the catalogue by Fabretti et al. as “acquired pre-1888”; this date, however, is that of the publication of the second
volume of the catalogue, whereas the shabtis, like the jar, are in volume 1, published in 1882.
22
Mahmoud (2011: no. 136 of annexed PDF catalogue, also including a picture of the Turin vase).
23
Cat. 2737/745, 2737/740, and 2997; Mahmoud (2011: nos. 39–40 of annexed PDF catalogue).
24
JE 27229 (for two shabtis), MMA 86.1.20, MMA 86.1.21, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts Inv. 1627; Mahmoud
(2011: nos. 31–35).
Figure 5. Shabtis of Khonsu (Cat. 2737/745, 2737/740, 2736); shabti of Tameket (Cat. 2760)
It is hard to account for the puzzling fact that a number of grave goods from the burial assemblage of
Sennedjem’s family were already in the Turin museum before the discovery of the intact tomb in 1886.
The most plausible, if not totally satisfactory, explanation we can think of is that these objects from
Iynofreti, Khonsu and Tameket’s funerary equipment were buried separately in a shaft of another
family member.
3.2.4. A shabti gang of a scribe of the tomb Amennakht

The museum has all of 15 shabtis inscribed for an Amennakht, alternately bearing the titles sS-nswt,
sS-nswt m s.t-mAat, sS n nb-tA.wy m s.t-mAat, and sS nfr.w n Ax.ty n(t) HH (Fig. 6).26 A sixteenth shabti by
the same name (Cat. 2534), bearing the title sS-nswt m Ax.t HH, is not in our database and may be lost.27
Figure 6. Shabtis of Amennakht (Cat. 2538, 2536, 2532, 2535)
25
Cat. 2760–2761, Mahmoud (2011: nos. 49 and 50 of the annexed PDF catalogue).
26
Cat. 2529–2533, 2535–2539, 2540 (3 specimens), 2541, 2542.
27
Fabretti, Rossi & Lanzone (1882: 361); Černý (1972: 76).
The statuettes are all of wood and in a simple but quite distinctive style: hands not shown (purportedly
hidden under the broad collar), collar painted in red and sometimes black against a yellow
background, folded arms curving to follow the rounded profile of the body, and often lacking
agricultural tools, which is quite unusual for the Ramesside period. There are significant differences,
notably in the rendering of the collar, which appears in three different variants (only two are
illustrated), as well as in the more or less elongated body. This kind of variation is common in shabti
gangs produced by hand, plausibly by different craftsmen working on the same commission. Since the
designation “horizon of eternity” appears “since the beginning of the Twentieth Dynasty, and becomes
very common towards its end,”28 we can quite confidently ascribe this style of shabti figure with
generically Ramesside features (notably the broad collar and color scheme) to the Twentieth Dynasty.
The stylistic homogeneity of the statuettes guarantees that all belong to the same Amennakht. This
could hardly be anyone but the famous Amennakht (v) son of Ipuy (ii), also in consideration of the
several textual documents associated with him in the Drovetti collection, and in spite of Černý’s
skepticism in this regard.29 It is worth remarking that the series of titles almost exactly matches those
borne by his descendant Butehamun.30
There are other wooden shabtis in the same exact style in the Turin collection (Fig. 7): two of a
nb.t-pr Henutan31 (Cat. 2601 and 2602), two of a nb.t pr Hel (Hunero, Cat. 2705 and 2706) — the latter
a praying shabti in the garb of the living — and one of a workman Qen (Qenna, Cat. 2753).32 No
positive identification for any of these individuals seems possible at present, but all these statuettes
appear to have been made by the same workshop in the same period.
Figure 7. Shabtis of Henutan, Hel, and Qen (Cat. 2601, 2705, 2706, 2753)
28
Černý (1972: 76).
29
Cf. Černý (1972: 350).
30
Cf. Černý (1972: 77) and Bickel & Mathieu (1993: 36).
31
The name is indeed attested in the mid-20th Dynasty, see Davies (1999: 188).
32
To these we can add shabti Louvre N 2684 of the lady of the house Meretseger, Andreu & Donadoni Roveri (2003:
269, no. 236e).
3.3 Votive objects

Many of the objects in the Drovetti collection are votive rather than funerary in character. For the
purpose of the present overview, a quick assessment of this rich evidence will suffice.
The majority of the finds are connected either to the cult of Meretseger or to that of the deified
Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari — although a variety of other deities, including Amon-Re,
Hathor, Khonsu, Thoth, Ptah, Taweret, Mut, as well as Qadesh and Reshep, are featured, in lesser
numbers, on votive objects in the Drovetti collection.
It is well known that the shrine of Meretseger south of the village was an important foraging
ground for the local purveyors of Drovetti, Salt, and other buyers.33 The early acquisition objects in
Turin dedicated to this goddess include a dozen stelae, two ostraca, an altar table, two sizeable
limestone statues, and a wooden statuette.
Figure 8. Statuette of Ahmose Nefertari (Cat. 1369)

Some thirty items in the Drovetti collection can be traced to the cult of Amenhotep I and/or
Ahmose Nefertari, including several sculptures, a number of stelae, and sundry other cult objects. An
important find-spot seems to have been the area of the chapels to the north (north-east) of the
enclosure of the Ptolemaic temple (although other shrines for the deified couple of course existed,
such as Chapel 1190,34 located not too far from TT 291, TT 338 and TT 8, which were presumably
visited by the French consul’s purveyors). Notably, the area north of the Ptolemaic temple may well be
33
Cf. Bruyère (1929a: 6).
34
Bruyère (1930: 38–44).
the source of four Turin statuettes of Ahmose Nefertari, three of wood and one of steatite (Cat. 1369,
1370, 1388, 1389),35 since another specimen in the same style (S. 6128) was later found by Schiaparelli
when he was exploring this general area, and was indeed presumed by Bruyère to come from
Chapel D.36 This sculpture was dedicated by the foreman Nebnefer (i) and the workman Any (ii), son
of Kasa (i)37 and thus dates from the first half of the reign of Ramesses II, like its stylistic cognate, Cat.
1369, dedicated by the workman Wadjmose (i) and his wife Iyemwaw (ii) (Fig. 8).38
Other wooden statuettes from the same batch in the Drovetti collection ended up in the Louvre and
the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin.39 These two last sculptures (Cat. 1369, Cat. 1388), and S. 6128 have
the same exact iconography and show marked resemblances in style, suggesting a common
provenance. This goes to show that inter-museum investigations of the disiecta membra of the
Drovettiana, spread across Turin, Paris and Berlin — without forgetting coeval acquisitions by Henry
Salt, William Bankes, and others — should be an integral part of the Museo Egizio’s “way forward”.
The cross-checking of stylistic considerations against prosopographical information and the
results of later archaeological explorations appears to be a viable path for the investigation of Deir
el-Medina artifacts — stelae, sculptures,40 shabtis, pottery, etc. — in the Drovetti collection, and
partially makes up for the dearth of documentary information.41 When we turn to Schiaparelli’s early-
twentieth-century explorations the documentary situation becomes incomparably better, although still
far less than ideal. In this case significant results can be obtained by supplementing the internal
evidence provided by the objects themselves with written sources such as reports and letters, drawings,
and, above all, a rich photographic documentation, as the following section will illustrate.
4. SCHIAPARELLI’S EXCAVATIONS IN DEIR EL-MEDINA

The Italian Archaeological Mission (M.A.I.), Schiaparelli’s brainchild, saw the light between 1901 and
1902 thanks to financial support from the king of Italy Vittorio Emanuele III and the Ministry of
Public Education, and logistic help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Army.42 The
archaeological mission started its activities in the field at the end of January 1903 with an exploration
of the Valley of the Queens. Between 1903 and 1920, Schiaparelli directed thirteen archaeological
campaigns in eleven different sites in Egypt. The mission excavated the village, necropolis and temple
areas of Deir el-Medina principally during three seasons: 1905, 1906 and 1908–1909. One of the main
results of their work at this site, and surely the most renowned, was the discovery of the intact burial of
35
For a comprehensive list of votive statuettes of Ahmose Nefertari, see Gitton (1975: 61–62).
36
Bruyère (1948: 105); Bruyère (1948: 98) speaks of “les statuettes et les têtes en bois de la reine Nefertari,” but
Schiaparelli actually only brought back one such statuette; the presence in Turin of the other specimens from the
Drovetti collection probably engendered this confusion.
37
Davies (1999: 31, n. 395); Černý (1972: 287).
38
Cf. Davies (1999: 217).
39
Andreu & Donadoni Roveri (2003: 235, n. 203, and 236, n. 205, respectively).
40
For a comparative stylistic study of several sculptures in the Museo Egizio and the Louvre, see Andreu (2006).
41
The paleography of epigraphic documents (not discussed here) also appears to be a field deserving further research, as
some pioneering efforts on stelae suggest: see Tosi & Roccati (1972: 234–235); Demarée (1983: 184–185).
42
The sums allocated to the M.A.I. for the first four years were: 15,000 Lire per annum given by the Royal House and
5,000 Lire per annum by the Ministry of Education. The Italian Mission also greatly benefited from five military tents
offered by the Army (Moiso 2008b: 202).
Kha, superintendent to works in the royal necropolis under Amenhotep II, Tuthmosis IV and
Amenhotep III, and of his wife Meryt.
Although official reports of these seasons were never published, a few results were included in the
two volumes devoted to the Valley of the Queens (1923) and the tomb of Kha (1927),43 as well as in
general reports addressed to the king. For many years, the absence of published reports has been
interpreted as the absence of excavation records. On the contrary, very interesting documentation of
the excavations has been preserved in the museum archives for more than a century and is presently
kept in the State Archive of Turin. Despite valuable cataloguing and study work by Beppe Moiso over
the last twenty years, a new assessment of all available archive material is urgently needed, and will
surely lead to interesting insights into the archaeological activity of the M.A.I. at many important
Egyptian sites, among which Deir el-Medina surely deserves a special place.
The individual we must credit for the production of most of the notes and photographs regarding
this site is Francesco Ballerini (1877–1910), one of Schiaparelli’s most capable collaborators.44 The
Italian team that explored Deir el-Medina was well assorted, with three archaeologists (Roberto
Paribeni, Giulio Farina, Arturo Frova), a restorer (Fabrizio Lucarini), a museum assistant (Benvenuto
Savina), and a few volunteers (Aldobrandino Malvezzi de’ Medici, Antonio Meli Lupi, Alessandro
Casati)45 alternating during the three main seasons spent at this site.
Thanks to the museum accounting books, to the letters of Schiaparelli and Ballerini, and to the
chronicles compiled by the Franciscan friars residing in Luxor,46 Moiso (2008b) was able to accurately
define the periods during which the M.A.I. was active at the site of Deir el-Medina: 18 January to 8
March 1905, 10 January to mid-March 1906, 15 December to 28 February 1908–1909, and few days in
December 1913 just to complete the photographic documentation.
Other archive material is extremely helpful when a more detailed reconstruction of the work done
in Deir el-Medina is attempted. These documents include inventories of finds, letters sent by
Schiaparelli to report to the Ministry on the activities of the mission after each campaign, a few
sketches of the structures uncovered during the fieldwork, and especially the thousands of photos kept
in the museum archive.
In the inventories — handwritten object lists most likely compiled in Turin after every work
season — the finds were roughly grouped by type and given a progressive number (prefixed by
“Suppl.” or “S.”).47 Sometimes a note on provenance was added. Unfortunately, for the whole bulk of
finds from Deir el-Medina these notes single out very few contexts: the “sanctuary of Meretseger”
(various fragments of inscriptions, stelae and statues, from inventory number S. 5985 to S. 6067); the
kom, a term which usually indicates a mound of debris (2 pilgrim flasks, S. 6959–6960, and other
vessels, S. 6970–6976); an otherwise unidentified “tomb of the papyri” (jars and a shabti-box fragment
43
A new edition of the latter volume, with a preface by A. Roccati, appeared in 2007.
44
On Ballerini’s life and archaeological work through his correspondence and other documents, see Consonni et
al. (2012).
45
For short biographies of Schiaparelli’s collaborators, see B. Moiso (ed.), Ernesto Schiaparelli e la tomba di Kha, Torino,
2008, p. 273–295.
46
Schiaparelli had been on very good terms with the Franciscan mission of Luxor since his first expedition to Egypt in
1884–1885, and this friendly relationship granted him crucial logistic support during his later archaeological work
(Moiso 2008a).
47
See note 1 above.
with the name Nebre, S. 6961–6969), which might have been close to the Ptolemaic house where the
Greek-Demotic archive was found;48 an area “near Abd el-Rassul’s houses” (2 vessels with content,
S. 7118–7119);49 the “chapel of Maya,” corresponding to TT 338 (wall paintings S. 7886–7910) and the
“tomb of Kha,” i.e., the shaft, passage and burial chamber of TT 8 (Kha and Meryt’s coffins and
funerary equipment, S. 8209–8649). Moreover, since the mission was working alternately at several
sites, breaks in the sequential continuity of inventory numbers allows us to distinguish the groups of
objects retrieved in each season at Deir el-Medina.
Further details can be gleaned from Schiaparelli’s short reports to the Italian Ministry of
Education. From these documents we learn for instance that during the first season, in 1905:
Il lavoro di maggiore importanza nella necropoli tebana, fu (…) lo scavo di quella parte della
necropoli di Deir-el-Medinet, che si estende sulla destra e sulla sinistra dell’omonimo tempio; che ci
occupò per oltre quaranta giorni, e con più di 500 operai. Quivi, sotto alti depositi di macerie che, in
alcuni punti, superano quindici metri di altezza, si rimise in luce il suolo antico.50
The activities were thus apparently concentrated to the north and south of the Hathor temple
enclosure wall, and most likely on the upper reaches of the slope of the western mountain in order to
remove less debris, as the deposit was already 15 m deep in many areas. In his letter, Schiaparelli goes
on to describe the main results. Many tombs were uncovered, some of which he dated to the
Eighteenth Dynasty, but most to the Twentieth and Twenty-First (sic) Dynasties. The vast majority
consisted of small mud-brick chapels with plastered walls leaning one against the other. There were
also a few rock-cut tomb shafts. Between the mud-brick structures the diggers also uncovered small
halls for public gatherings, chapels for the cult of the deceased pharaohs, and walls with painted
decorations.51 In the report, Schiaparelli acknowledges the importance of the site, stating that “the
peculiarity of this necropolis and numerous fragments of inscriptions found as work progressed leave
no doubts that this was the seat of the ‘Sodem ash,’ a sort of confraternity, whose existence was intuited
by Maspero from his study of a category of monuments of the Turin museum.”52 The 1905 campaign
at Deir el-Medina is, unfortunately, very poorly documented, possibly because Ballerini was not there
to supervise the work53 and the two assistants Schiaparelli had chosen for that season, the count
48
Vitelli (1929: 15).
49
The house of the Abd-el-Rassoul family stood north of the German dighouse, on the southwestern slope of the hill of
Sheikh Abd el-Gurna, and incorporated tomb Kampp -550- (Baraize 1904: feuille 32). Its approximate location is also
indicated in the sketch plan showing the 1916 IFAO concession limits, drawn by Bruyère in one of his notebooks
(MS_2004_0153_009).
50
Letter to the Minister of Education, 24 August 1905, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n9. See also Moiso
(2008b: 218).
51
Letter to the Minister of Education, 24 August 1905, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n9, partly quoted
in Moiso 2008b: 218–219.
52
Original text: La caratteristica singolarità di questa necropoli e numerosi frammenti di iscrizioni mano mano rinvenuti
non lasciano dubbio che quella era la sede dei “Sodem ash”, specie di confraternita, la cui esistenza fu intuita dal
Maspero dietro lo studio che egli fece di una categoria di monumenti del Museo di Torino, ma sulla quale nuove,
inattese e interessanti indicazioni possono aversi dallo scavo or ora fatto e dal materiale (Letter to the Minister of
Education, 24 August 1905, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n9).
53
He joined the rest of the team only later, around mid-March, in order to work at the site of Qau el-Kebir in Middle
Egypt (Consonni, Quirino & Sesana 2012: 146–148) and subsequently a few days at Heliopolis.
Aldobrandino Malvezzi de’ Medici (1881–1961) and the archaeologist Roberto Paribeni (1876–1956),
apparently did not prove themselves up to the task.
The report-letter of the following season, dated 9 October 1906,54 opens with a summary of the
work done during the previous one. The summary confirms the location of the excavated areas (north
and south of the Hathor temple) and the nature of the explored structures (tombs of village
community members and chapels for deified dead pharaohs),55 but also adds a note about a very
important discovery: “In the ruins of a Ptolemaic house a group of 52 Demotic and Greek papyri
dating to the reign of Cleopatra III was found.”56 The same letter continues with a brief description of
the landscape surrounding the Hathor temple and an overview of the work carried out during the
1906 campaign. The Egyptian workforce and the team were split in two groups and assigned different
areas of the site. The first one, under the supervision of count Alessandro Casati (1881–1955), engaged
in the removal of high heaps of debris along a wide trench dug across the southernmost part of the
little valley of Deir el-Medina. The second group instead worked within a natural amphitheatre
located to the West of the temple precinct, on the slope of the western mountain.
Excavation in the southern area showed the presence of a thick deposit — named kom after the
Arabic word for “mound” — originating from what had been originally the ancient village dump.
Schiaparelli decided to dig a series of test pits along the perimeter of the small settlement in order to
exactly determine its limits. At the same time, he had the main trench extended eastwards to the foot
of the Qurnet Murai hill. In this area, Schiaparelli’s team identified a number of infant and child
burials made of palm-fibre baskets deposited in shallow pits, which had been later covered by the
dump and were hence tentatively ascribed by Schiaparelli to the first phase of occupation of the village
during the Eighteenth Dynasty. In the report submitted to the ministry, among the various interesting
finds collected from the kom, Schiaparelli only mentions the numerous fragments of Mycenaean pots,
for their importance as a proof of commercial routes connecting the Aegean area and Egypt between
the thirteenth and tenth centuries BCE.57
The exploration of the second area, located on the lower slope of the western mountain, was
conducted over a period of about four weeks with a workforce of more than 200 men. It yielded one of
the most impressive achievements in Schiaparelli’s career as an archaeologist, viz., the discovery of the
intact tomb of Kha and Meryt, made on 15th February 1906. That year almost all the funerary
assemblage from Kha’s tomb was granted to the Italian mission for exportation.58 A total of 93 crates
full of objects were shipped from Deir el-Medina to Turin in Italy.
54
Cited in Moiso (2008b: 226).
55
Letter to the Minister of Education, 9 October 1906, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n10.
56
The complete passage reads: L’anno passato la nostra Missione già aveva lavorato esplorando la zona ai due lati del
medesimo tempio, e vi aveva trovato la necropoli a cui era addetta la Confraternita dei Sodem-ash, le cappelle in onore
dei faraoni defunti, e, in una casa tolemaica rovinata, un gruppo di 52 papiri demotici e greci, del tempo di Cleopatra III
(Letter to the Minister of Education, 9 October 1906, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n10). For a more
precise location of the find-spot of the group of papyri, see below.
57
Letter to the Minister of Education, 9 October 1906, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n10, also cited in
Moiso (2008b: 226).
58
In the report-letter to the Ministry, Schiaparelli makes a rather obscure reference to “reciprocal concessions” made
during the partage of the objects. He is presumably alluding to the granting of permission to transfer the whole lot to
Italy.
The next season at the site (1908–1909) was a particularly intensive one, as the main objective was
to complete the exploration of the area. According to Schiaparelli’s report-letter, dated 12 May 1909,
the first few weeks were employed to unearth as much as possible of the remains of the village. The
houses still retained their column bases in situ, as well as items of domestic furniture. The walls still
showed traces of the ancient paintings and one room in particular, located in one of the better
preserved houses, was decorated with human and animal figures.59 In the letter, Schiaparelli also states
that, judging from various fragments of papyri and other objects retrieved from these domestic spaces,
the village had to date back to the 20th Dynasty.60 He then goes on to report that the excavation had
also been continued in the necropolis and that many tombs had been found, although they had all
been plundered in ancient times and yielded only sparse objects. 61 Among the most significant finds of
this last campaign Schiaparelli mentions a papyrus with the so-called “Ritual for Amenhotep I,”62 a
conspicuous number of hieratic ostraca,63 and a few fragments of musical instruments.64
In order to gain more detailed information about the areas, structures or tombs excavated by the
Italian team during the three seasons spent in Deir el-Medina in 1905, 1906 and 1908–9, careful and
patient study of every piece of paper and every photo kept in the Turin museum archive will be
needed. The few examples given below are only meant to show the potential of a research which is still
in progress.
4.1. Temple area and votive chapels

Five loose sheets of paper are particularly interesting as they show sketchy drawings of structures and
mud-brick walls,65 which can be identified66 with chapels and other buildings later re-excavated and
59
This is most likely a reference to the so-called “chapel of the Opet Festival,” which is adjacent to the NE corner of the
village and might have been easily misinterpreted as being part of the domestic structures (further evidence
supporting this idea is presented below).
60
Here is the original passage: Nelle prime settimane di lavoro si misero in luce i resti della piccola città della necropoli
colla sua via principale, e i ruderi delle case. Queste avevano ancora al posto i piedistalli delle colonne, ed oggetti di
arredamento domestico; le pareti sia interne che esterne conservavano tracce dell’antica coloritura; una delle camere, in
una delle migliori case, si rinvenne decorata con pitture non prive di pregio, esibenti figure di uomini e di animali. Dai
frammenti di papiri che si trovarono dispersi in alcune camere, e da altri oggetti rinvenuti pure dispersi, si poté inferire
che quella piccola città, doveva riferirsi alla ventesima dinastia, circa il secolo decimosecondo avanti l’era cristiana
(Letter to the Minister of Education, 12 May 1909, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n13, also cited in
Moiso 2008b: 234).
61
See original text in Moiso (2008b: 234).
62
This papyrus (S. 10125 = CGT 54041) — which only comprises the bottom section of the original scroll and is
completed by a papyrus that is now in the Cairo museum (CGC 58030) — contains an important text describing
offering rituals of the New Kingdom. The original papyrus was probably stolen from the Italian dig, split and sold on
the market in two separate moments: Schiaparelli was able to buy back one half of it as early as 1909, while the Cairo
museum acquired the top part of the scroll in 1913 (Botti 1923: 23; Bacchi 1942: 13–14).
63
At least 324 ostraca (figured and textual) are recorded in the handwritten inventory for the 1909 season.
64
Probably including the two reed flutes S. 9939 and S. 9940.
65
Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M4 n7. These undated and unsigned pages might be either the only
preserved part of the documentation produced in 1905 by Paribeni and Malvezzi de’ Medici, or possibly sketches
subsequently made by Ballerini in 1906 in a desperate attempt to record the contexts explored while he was absent
during the previous season.
66
I wish to express all my gratitude to Cédric Gobeil, director of the IFAO excavations at Deir el-Medina, for his
invaluable help in identifying many of the structures.
properly documented by Bruyère during the early years of the systematic French exploration of the
site (Fig. 9).
Figure 9. DeM plan (from Castel & Meeks 1980: plan 1),
with thicker black lines indicating the structures documented in the Turin archive sketchy drawings
Three plans also bear helpful annotations about the location of the structures (“Buildings within the
precinct of the Deir” or “Shrine near the northern corner of the precinct”), a drawing scale, the depth
under the modern ground level, or elements characterizing the structures (such as pillars, benches, or
decorated walls). These valuable documents allow us to finally locate some of the areas excavated by
Schiaparelli’s team during the 1905 season, when, according to the above-mentioned report-letter,
work was concentrated to the north and south of the Hathor temple enclosure wall, and inside it. The
buildings drawn in the sketches include:
– the small votive chapels and surrounding structures immediately outside of the south-western
inner corner of the temple precinct, in the area of C.V. (Bruyère’s “chapelle votive”) 1225;67
– the funerary and cultic structures enclosed in a strip of land approximately 25m long and 12m
wide, extending between tomb 1238, outside the SW corner of the temple wall, and C.V. 2;68
– the chapels built within the sacred precinct to the south of the temple proper, and in particular
the two side rooms of Bruyère’s Chapel 2, dedicated to the cult of deceased pharaoh Thutmosis
III (Fig. 10), and the northernmost room of Chapel 3;69
– Chapel C and part of the forecourt of Chapel D, located immediately outside of the NW
corner of the temple enclosure wall.70
67
Bruyère (1934: pl. I). The excavation of these structures seems to be also confirmed by the fact that they appear in the
plan published by Baraize (1907: feuille 41) one year after Schiaparelli’s exploration.
68
Bruyère (1934: 49, 56–61, pl. I). The wall remains unearthed in the westernmost edge of this trench are already plotted
in Baraize’s plan (1907: feuille 41).
69
Baraize (1907: feuille 41) and Bruyère (1948: 15–16, fig. 9; 92–96, figs. 47–49; pls. XI-XII). Turin stela S. 6137
(= CGT 50004, Tosi & Roccati 1972: 35–36), dedicated by a royal scribe Amenemope to pharaoh Thutmosis III might
originate from this area.
Figure 10. One of the loose sheets with sketch plans of excavated structures.
Upper half: part of the small Chapels 2 and 3, within the Ptolemaic temple precinct;
lower half: chapel C, located to the north of the NW corner of the temple precinct
(Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M4 n7)
Sometimes photographs from the archive confirm and complement the information provided by the
drawings. This is the case, for instance, with the remains of buildings found south of the temple
precinct (Fig. 11), or with Bruyère’s Chapel 2, within the temple precinct (Fig. 12).
Figure 11. The area of Bruyère’s C.V. 2 and structures located to the North of it,
being excavated by Schiaparelli’s workforce in 1905 (C00921, Archivio Museo Egizio)
70
Cf. Bruyère (1948: 105–106). As mentioned above, a wooden statuette of queen Ahmose Nefertari (S. 6128) might
have been found in this area, as Chapel D was supposedly dedicated to the cult of Amenhotep I and his mother. On
this statuette and Chapel D, see now also El Shazly (2015: 173–175, 183–185).
Figure 12. Chapel 2 with decorated niche wall bearing cartouches of Thutmosis III (Bruyère 1948: 93, fig. 48)
and southernmost vaulted room of Chapel 1, inside the temple precinct,
in a photo taken by Schiaparelli probably in 1905 (C00927, Archivio Museo Egizio)
In other cases, the excavation photos are the only preserved documents we can rely on in order to
reconstruct the archaeological vestiges found by Schiaparelli. One picture, for instance, shows a mud-
brick wall in the foreground, a flight of steps in the centre, a great number of workers removing a high
slope of debris, and children carrying the baskets (Fig. 13). On the back of a printed copy of this
image, kept in the Turin State Archive with other prints and papers relating to Deir el-Medina, the
whole scene is captioned simply as the “place where the papyri were discovered.” The caption clearly
refers to the Greek and Demotic papyri found in two sealed jars in 1905. A careful comparison with all
the structures subsequently cleared by Bruyère and a second photograph from the museum archive
showing a later stage in the clearance of the same building (Fig. 14) allows the structure to be
identified as chapel “G,” located at the northernmost edge of the cult building cluster north of the
temple enclosure wall. This second photo is even more relevant, as it also shows how the chapel was
originally found: an inscribed block graces the bottom wall of the sanctuary and a foundation deposit
or later burial was found under the stela dais. The removal of the inscription by the Italian team left
the chapel void of any evidence about its date or dedicator.71 Luckily, the stela in the photo is clearly
identifiable with a relief in two fragments presently kept at the Museo Egizio (S. 6136/01–02 =
CGT 50246, Fig. 15), meaning that we can now at once assign a precise provenance to this object72 and
put a name on the dedicators of chapel “G.” The inscription bears the cartouches of king Sethi II
71
Bruyère (1952: 21).
72
Previously published in Tosi & Roccati (1972: 202–203), without any information about its provenance.
superimposed on those of rival ruler Amenmesse, and thus confirms Bruyère’s dating to the
19th Dynasty of chapel “G” on the basis of building technique, plan, and a few painted decoration
fragments.73
Figures 13 and 14. Bruyère’s chapel G, to the North of the Hathor temple precinct, in two photos taken by
Schiaparelli during the exploration of the area in 1905 (C00933 and C00897, Archivio Museo Egizio)
Figure 15. Turin, relief S. 6136/01–02 (= CGT 50246), now provenanced from chapel “G” at Deir el-Medina
This relief usurped by Sethi II is at the origin of the confusion about which areas were actually
excavated by Schiaparelli to the north of the temple precinct. In his first reports and summaries about
the work done in Deir el-Medina, Schiaparelli writes about a chapel of Sethi discovered in this area
and describes it as being close to the place where he found the two jars containing the Greek and
Demotic papyri. Bruyère’s reports refer repeatedly to a photographic album with photos showing the
site, the structures and the retrieved artefacts, which was available to the public visiting the Turin
museum.74 After the discovery of the Hathor chapel of Sethi I during the 1939–1940 season, Bruyère
recalls in his report Schiaparelli’s earlier discovery of a religious structure of the same pharaoh to the
north of the Ptolemaic temple, but expresses his perplexity about the fact that the remains he himself
had found did not resemble in any way those showed in Schiaparelli’s photograph, and were also
73
Bruyère (1952: 24).
74
The use of this album testifies to the importance that Schiaparelli placed on the contextualisation of museum artefacts.
apparently located elsewhere.75 The recent re-discovery of the photographic album mentioned by
Bruyère among the holdings of the Museo Egizio library helps clarify what was actually a
misunderstanding: the two structures excavated by the French and the Italian teams looked different
because they were actually two different buildings, one built by Sethi I (the chapel dedicated to
Hathor) and one appropriated by Sethi II (Chapel G). Besides, all archive documents available so far
seem to confirm that the area of Sethi’s chapel of Hathor was never excavated by the Turin
archaeologists, probably also due to the position of this structure at the foot of the hill slope and hence
under a massive stack of debris. Nevertheless, the plan published by Baraize (1907: feuille 41) just one
year after the Italian mission had been active at the site shows the northern outer wall of the chapel
and transversal dividing walls pertaining to its north annexes, partially exposed; we hence cannot
definitely rule out that Schiaparelli’s team actually did explore the spot.
Another interesting case testifying to the importance of the Museo Egizio’s photographic archive is
offered by a group of three photographs showing mud-brick walls with white plaster coating and
remains of painted decoration (Fig. 16–18). The walls pertain to a cultic structure, which is identifiable
as the so-called “Chapel of the Opet Festival,” a brotherhood chapel built immediately outside of the
NE corner of the village and adjoining its external wall.76 The photos demonstrate that the structure
was actually found and partially excavated by Schiaparelli’s team, most likely during the 1909 season
— along with some village houses that were the main focus of the work — and subsequently re-
excavated (but not discovered for the first time) and restored by Bruyère in 1934. The two screen walls
dividing the main hall from the naos
are decorated with images of men
bringing floral offerings and leading
big festooned oxen and may well be
the decorations Schiaparelli refers to
in his 1909 report, when he states that
one of the best preserved buildings77
still showed painted images of men
and animals on its walls.
Figure 16. The so-called Chapel of the Opet Festival in Deir el-
Medina. In the foreground, to the left, part of the northern bench.
In the centre, a displaced round stone, probably a column base
(C00081, Archivio Museo Egizio)
75
“D’après une photographie de fouilles contenue dans un album du musée de Turin et d’après les souvenirs de
Schiaparelli, une chapelle de Seti Ier se trouvait au nord de l’enceinte (…) Nous avons bien découvert une grande chapelle
de Seti Ier, mais rien qui ressemblât à la photographie prise en 1904–1906. Il est vrai que depuis cette époque les ravages
du temps et des hommes ont complété ceux de l’archéologue de Turin” (Bruyère 1948: 97–98).
76
Bruyère (1939: 36–39). This chapel has been recently restored and tentatively attributed to a male god (Gobeil 2015: 14).
77
Being adjacent to the domestic buildings of the village and only partially unearthed by the Italian team, the chapel was
mistakenly interpreted as part of a house.
Figure 17–18. The two screen walls with their painted decorations showing a man holding a floral offering
and accompanying festooned cattle (C00091 and C00089, Archivio Museo Egizio)
4.1.1. A family archive

One of the greatest discoveries of the first working season of the Italian mission in Deir el-Medina in
1905 was surely the Greek-Demotic archive presently in the Turin collection.78 A total of 54 papyrus
scrolls (41 Demotic, 9 Greek, 4 bilingual) were found inside two jars (S. 6121 and S. 6122) still
preserving their original sealing (Fig. 19). The documents, dating to the 2nd century BCE, are part of
the family archive of Totoes, a priest of the temple of Hathor and Maat in Deir el-Medina, of his wife
Tatehathyris and of her brother Pikos, and contain receipts, accounts and contracts for the purchase of
goods or days of religious service in the temple.79 The scanty information we have about the finding
place of the jars containing the papyri can be gathered from the report-letters Schiaparelli wrote to the
Ministry at the end of the seasons, and from a few other sources. In the letter dated 24 August 1905,
Schiaparelli states that “during the removal of a Ptolemaic small house, which had been built over the
chapel dedicated to pharaoh Sethi I (sic), two big sealed vessels were found which were filled with
papyri.”80 In another letter written after the next season, as already mentioned above, he confirms that
the jars were found among the remains of a Ptolemaic house. In a newspaper article published in 1908,
the spatial relationship between the chapel usurped by Sethi II and the jars containing the archive is
confirmed, although not as accurately.81 Finally, in the introductory paragraphs of the first main
publication of the group of Greek papyri, a quote allegedly excerpted from Schiaparelli’s notes,
reporting about the finding place of the two jars, once again mentions the domestic context.82 The two
vessels containing the papyri were found, one next to the other and still closed by their original
ligatures, a few dozen meters from the temple enclosure wall, among the ruins of a Ptolemaic house of
a certain importance, probably owned by someone connected with the temple. In accordance with the
above proposed identification of the chapel excavated by Schiaparelli with Bruyère’s Chapel G, it
78
For the first main editions of the papyri, see Vitelli (1929) and Botti (1967).
79
Lorenzo Uggetti, Research Associate at the École Pratique des Hautes Études of Paris, is presently working on a re-
publication of the whole lot of papyri, which will offer for the first time a translation of the Greek papyri, new
corrections to the previous translation of the Demotic ones, and a new prosopographical study.
80
Moiso (2008b: 219).
81
“Tra le meraviglie dell’Egitto dissepolto. Un colloquio col prof. Schiaparelli”, article published in the newspaper La
Stampa, 15 October 1908.
82
Vitelli (1929: 15).
seems plausible that the Ptolemaic domestic structure in which the two jars were found stood in the
same area where House H was later unearthed by the French team, immediately to the south of
Chapel G.83 Totoes’ house, then, may have been erected on top of an earlier domestic building or even
be the exact same structure later re-excavated by Bruyère, who found it in a much worse state of
preservation.
Figure 19. The two sealed jars (S. 6121 and S. 6122) that contained the 54 Greek and Demotic papyri
4.1.2. Stone seats

During the systematic exploration of the site carried out by the French mission, many fragments of
limestone seats were found. They have a convex top surface and often a rounded side, and sometimes
bear inscriptions with names of village workers and a dedication to a god (Fig. 20). They were
apparently installed on mud-brick benches built in the forecourts or in the rooms preceding the
sanctuary of many of the votive chapels identified in Deir el-Medina. These seats were probably meant
to be used during gatherings of small community groups, possibly on the occasion of religious
festivals. Already before the French excavations, fragments or complete examples of these stone seats
had been found by Schiaparelli’s workmen, brought to Turin, and entered in the museum inventories
of the objects retrieved in Deir el-Medina during the fieldwork of 1905–1906 (15 fragments, pertaining
to 12 seats) and 1909 (2 fragments and 1 complete seat).84 Unfortunately, no documentation on the
exact provenance of the Turin fragments is preserved and one can thus only guess their provenance by
cross-checking all the available data on the structures excavated by the Italian mission. In his report
about the 1931–1932 season, Bruyère, while discussing the seats, mentions the fact that the Turin ones
might have come from the benches of C.V.1, the chapel next to the southern enclosure wall of the
Hathor temple, where he had found four more seats, yet uninscribed, still resting in place.85 As
Bruyère himself had clarified in a previous report though,86 Schiaparelli had personally admitted he
could not remember (and had not recorded) the finding place of the seats. The Italian archaeologist
could only vaguely recall the fact that his workers had found them one next to the other on some sort
83
Bruyère (1952: 32–33).
84
The Turin stone seats, already published in Tosi & Roccati (1972: 204–210, CGT 50248–50262), recently received a
complete reassessment by Sweeney (2014).
85
Bruyère (1934: 57–60).
86
Bruyère (1930: 46).
of bench inside a large hall. Anyway, the plan drawn by Baraize87 in 1907, between two of Schiaparelli’s
field campaigns, seems to support this provenance for at least some of the stone seats retrieved in
1905–1906, because the room with benches of C.V. 1 is plotted in it as completely excavated.
The available archive material also offers a second candidate for the actual finding place of these
seats: Chapel C, which, situated in the area to the north of the Ptolemaic Temple enclosure, was
unearthed precisely during the 1905 season.88 In particular, one of the archaeological sketches drawn
on loose sheets, also kept in the Turin archive, shows the layout of the walls of Chapel C (Fig. 10), and
along the side walls of the hall preceding the sanctuary two long benches (indicated with the Greek
letter γ) are visible. Some of the twelve fragmentary seats89 found during the 1905–1906 seasons may
therefore also originate from this community chapel.
Moreover, since more benches were later identified by Bruyère also in the chapels built within the
sacred enclosure,90 immediately to the south of the Ptolemaic temple, which had already been
excavated by the Italian mission, a provenance of the stone seats in the Museo Egizio from this third
area cannot be ruled out either. In this respect, it is worth noting that more fragments of a stone seat,
joining a small piece now in the Turin museum (S. 6251 = CGT 50252), were found by Bruyère in the
area immediately to the east of the Ptolemaic temple enclosure wall.91
As for the three seats retrieved during the 1909 campaign,92 their original location should most
likely be traced back to the so-called chapel of the Opet Festival, outside the NE corner of the
workmen’s village. As one of the archive photographs clearly shows (Fig. 16), at least part of the
northern bench, built in the main hall of this chapel, was uncovered during Schiaparelli’s 1909
excavation. Additional evidence of a possible connection between the Turin stone seats and this chapel
is offered by the retrieval, during the recent IFAO restoration work of the structure, of a wall painting
fragment containing the expression “(…) in your arm (…),”93 which might well link with references to
“the arms of Amun” contained in the inscriptions found on two of the Turin 1909 seats.94
87
Baraize (1907: feuille 41).
88
A note pencilled on the bottom-right corner of the sheet seems to confirm the year when this sketch was drawn and
the hypothesis put forward here regarding the structures excavated in that year. “See journal of February 22nd” can in
effect hardly refer to the 1906 campaign, when the Italian mission would have been totally absorbed by the
exploration of the intact tomb of Kha, discovered just a few days before.
89
Corresponding to inventory numbers S. 6241–6253 (= CGT 50248–50249, 50251–50252, 50254–50258 and 50260–
50262).
90
Especially chapels 1–3 (Bruyère 1948: 92–96).
91
Valbelle (1981).
92
The seats are S. 9488 (= CGT 50250) with an inscription by a worker Userhat son of Aanakht, S. 9490 (= CGT 50253)
mentioning “Amun, king of the Ennead” but no workman’s name, and S. 9489 (= CGT 50259), with a barely legible
black ink inscription.
93
Communication of Cédric Gobeil at the present conference.
94
Inventory numbers S. 9489–9490 (CGT 50259 and 50253), on which see Sweeney (2014: 224–225).
Figure 20. An inscribed stone seat now in the Turin Museo Egizio (CGT 50248),
made of three joining fragments (S. 6241, S. 6245 and S. 6254)
4.1.3. Large jars with painted decoration

As mentioned above, while detailing the main results for the 1906 fieldwork season in his letter to the
Ministry, Schiaparelli reports the discovery of a large number of shards of Mycenaean pottery in the
village kom, a big dump located to the south of the settlement.95 Thanks to the research of Cultraro on
the imported vessels kept in the Turin museum storerooms, an unpublished essay on this subject,
written by Schiaparelli in the 1920s and later copied by Botti, has been identified in the library of the
Museo Egizio.96 In this essay, Schiaparelli focuses his attention in particular on 120 fragments of
reddish or yellowish clay with a polished surface and a painted decoration in black, belonging to large
storage vessels, about 1.5 m wide and up to 2 m high. These jars were found, according to the
archaeologist, near 18th Dynasty plundered tombs. Thanks to this unpublished essay, we also know
that, unlike the Mycenaean pots retrieved from the big village dump, these jar fragments were found
in various parts of the necropolis, clustered in small groups. The largest assemblage comprised at least
35 shards, including 26 joining pieces from the same jar, found close to a looted tomb. Three
photographs in the museum archive show these fragments and the attempted reconstruction of the
original vessel (Fig. 21). In general, these large jars have an ovoid shape and handles with rectangular
projections at mid-length. The decoration shows geometric patterns, with Aegean-style running
spirals, alternating with big lotus flowers, animal figures (ox, antelope), and hieroglyphic inscriptions
including royal cartouches.97
95
Letter to the Minister of Education, 9 October 1906, Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M1 n10 (Moiso
2008b: 226).
96
Schiaparelli, Di alcuni nuovi elementi che illustrano i rapporti della civiltà egiziana con quella dell’Egeo, undated and
unpublished paper presented at a conference on the Hellenic and Italic civilizations. On this typescript document and
the imported or imitation Aegean pottery from the Italian excavations in Deir el-Medina, see also the paper of
Cultraro & Facchetti (this volume).
97
The texts painted on the jars contain parts of royal protocols, the name of Thutmosis III, and the toponym
“Khepeshet,” of doubtful translation but also used as a designation of Egypt (Wb. III, 270,12).
Figure 21. One of the large jars, recomposed (C00286, Archivio Museo Egizio)
Many pottery shards pertaining to vessels of exactly the same type were later found by Bruyère and
published in his archaeological memoir on the fieldwork done during the 1931–1932 season.98 Not
only were the fragments found by the French mission of the same type and carrying the same
decoration as those previously excavated by the Italians, but a careful examination of the published
shards even revealed a join between Schiaparelli’s and Bruyère’s pieces (Fig. 22). This unforeseen
result once more stresses the importance that the later French reports can have in attempting a
reconstruction of the original find contexts of the Turin objects excavated in Deir el-Medina.
Figure 22. Two fragments from one of the storage jars retrieved by Schiaparelli’s team in 1906 (above)
joining four fragments found by Bruyère (1934: pl. VI) twenty-five years later (below)
98
Bruyère (1934: 75–79, pl. VI).
Although the memoir does not link the published fragments to a precise spot, Bruyère (1934: 75–79)
clearly connected the use of these jars to the water supplies provided for the votive chapels frequented
by the workmen. Remains of these vessels or traces of their circular emplacements were mainly found
inside or in proximity to the forecourts of religious or funerary structures, where the jars were half-
buried in the ground.99 Two contexts in particular are mentioned by the French archaeologist: votive
Chapel 1211 (also known as the “Three-Naos Chapel”), immediately South of Tomb 291, where five
jar lodgements were identified, and the area in front of Tomb 1241,100 where the bottom part of one of
these storage jars was also found. Turning to Bruyère’s manuscript notes, which the IFAO
praiseworthily made available online, we can shed more light on the exact provenance of the shards
published in the report plate.101 In December 1931, the work of the French mission was concentrated
in the area roughly running east-west from the temple precinct corner to the superstructures of Tombs
290 and 291. As repeatedly stated in the notebooks, the area had been thoroughly searched by the
Italian mission and the sequence of debris heaps and dry-stone retaining walls left by the previous
diggers even indicated the direction of the clearance.102 This same area is where most of the fragments
of these storage jars came from, as evident from multiple entries in the archaeologist’s diary:
3 Xbre: fgts de grande amphore vernissée de Thotmès
5 Xbre: On recueille chaque jour des fragments de zir épais en terre vernissée peinte de dessins
bruns: cartouches de Thotmès, antilopes, lotus, volutes.
11 Xbre: fgts de zirs vernissés avec cartouche de Sèti I.
14 Xbre: fgts de zirs vernissés, fgts de bouchons de jarres estampillés
15 Xbre: Dans le kom peu d’ostraca mais de nombreux fragments des zirs vernissés
(cartouche…)
4 Jan: Chapelle à trois loges, le fond d’une grande amphore vernissée dont le diamètre
interne est de 1m40 à une hauteur de 1m50. Elle est semblable à celle qu’on voit en haut de
la rampe 216 et devant l’entrée de la cave 1241.
The explicit mention, on the 5th of December, of an antelope figure among the decorations painted on
the surface of a few jar fragments invites the assumption that these diary entries refer to the shards
later published in the memoir plate, in particular those joining the Museo Egizio pieces, thus
suggesting at the same time a likely provenance for the latter.
4.2. The village

As stated above, apart from the exploration of the Deir el-Medina necropolis, the main focus of the
1909 season was the workmen’s settlement. The areas of the village that were actually explored by the
99
Interestingly, the fragmentary jars of this type preserved in the Turin museum storeroom are all lacking their bottom
parts, as if the latter had been left behind by not-too-meticulous excavators.
100
As recalled by Bruyère (1934: 42), and now confirmed by a sketch plan preserved in the Turin State Archive, the three
first underground chambers of this tomb had been already investigated and cleared by Schiaparelli’s team. Further
confirmation of Italian activity in this tomb is given by a 1907 plan (Baraize 1907: feuille 41) where the stepped access
to the tomb is indicated as completely exposed.
101
Bruyère (1934: pl. VI).
102
Samedi 5 Xbre. De place en place la fouille fait retrouver des murs de pierres sèches faits par les italiens. Ces murs,
parallèles à la falaise nord montrent que Schiaparelli a fouillé jusqu’au roc tout le secteur nord et indiquent la direction
de sa fouille (http://www.ifao.egnet.net/bases/archives/bruyere/, MS_2004_0153_002).
Italian archaeological mission can be reconstructed today from both the photos in the museum
archive and the references in Bruyère’s reports, which only partially overlap.
A few photos clearly show the domestic structures just after the clearance had been completed:
these correspond to the entire surface of Houses NW I-III and V (Fig. 23), to the first room of Houses
NW VI-VIII, to all of Houses NW IX-XI (Fig. 24), and to most of House NW XX. Other photos in the
archive are panoramic views showing the northern part of the village with Houses NE VI-XIX freed
from debris, except for their first room (Fig. 25).103
Figure 23. North-western corner of the village with Houses NW I-III and V in 1909
Figure 24. Houses NW IX-XI in 1909 (C00944, Archivio Museo Egizio)
103
Bruyère was later able to attribute a few among them to specific workmen: NE VIII to Qaha, NW IX to Wennakht,
and NW X to Irynefer.
According to Bruyère, who in 1934–1935 excavated the whole village, the houses already explored by
Schiaparelli were: NE I to VI, NW II,104 NW III, IV, and VIII-XIV.
We still do not know how to explain the slight discrepancy between the two lists, partly because
there is no information about the source Bruyère used to reconstruct the digging activity of the Italian
team. If his knowledge derived, as he affirms elsewhere in his reports, from the traces left by the dry
stone walls built by Schiaparelli’s workmen to retain the collapsing debris, then his list should be
considered more reliable. It is also possible that the discrepancy in the number of NE houses excavated
is due to the photos showing this sector of the village having been taken at a later date. In fact,
Schiaparelli’s team went back to the site in 1913 for a last brief visit in order to complete the
photographic documentation. It is thus possible that some of the panoramic views were taken after the
German mission directed by Georg Möller had excavated most of the NE quarter of the village earlier
that same year.105
Figure 25. The partially excavated village at the foot of the Qurnet Murai hill seen from the West, 1909 or 1914
(E00258, Archivio Museo Egizio)
Among the objects probably retrieved from the village in 1909, besides numerous wooden door-locks,
mats, baskets, ropes, combs, moulds for figurines (Fig. 26), and locally-made or imported vessels,
there were more than 300 figured (Fig. 27) and text ostraca,106 and maybe also the papyrus with the so-
called “Ritual for Amenhotep I.”107
104
According to the French archaeologist: Schiaparelli y découvrit quelques ostraca et papyrus, qui lui firent penser que les
deux grandes salles étaient plutôt des bureaux de l’administration que des chambres d’habitation (Bruyère 1939: 280). It
is thus possible that some of the ostraca found during the 1909 campaign and maybe papyrus S. 10125 (the “Ritual for
Amenhotep I”) or papyrus fragments S. 10126 came from this house.
105
Anthes (1943: 1–67), Gobeil (2015: 3).
106
Inv. nos. S. 9530, S. 9532–9859.
107
S. 10125. Cf. note 62.
Figures 26 and 27. A mould for the production of Bes figures (S. 9527)
and a figured ostracon with a female swimmer (S. 9547)
4.3. The tombs

As clearly stated in one of Schiaparelli’s reports to the Ministry, during the 1906 season the team was
split in two: while one group was engaged in the removal of great piles of debris from the slopes of a
small lateral wadi, which led to the discovery of the painted chapel of Maya (TT 338) and the chapel
and intact burial chambers of the tomb of Kha and Meryt (TT 8), a second group worked at the foot of
the Qurnet Murai hill, uncovering infant and child burials laid in palm fibre baskets inside shallow
pits.
Thanks to different sources, then, one can assume that other funerary structures were excavated or
explored by the Italian mission. Indeed, one of the sketch plans drawn on loose sheets108 shows the
first three chambers of the underground spaces of Tomb 1241, south of the Hathor temple enclosure
wall. Another sketch of structures, dated 9 February 1909 and kept among other loose pages at the end
of one of Ballerini’s notebooks, is recognizable as Bruyère’s Tomb 1069, which the French
archaeologist attributed to the workman Any. A limestone right door-jamb in the Turin collection
bearing Any’s and Ipuy’s names (S. 9524) and found during the 1909 campaign most likely
corresponds to the door-jamb highlighted in Ballerini’s drawing (Fig. 28).
108
Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M4 n7. See also note 100 above.
Figure 28. Sketch by Francesco Ballerini of the mud-brick structures of Tomb 1069
In other cases, the photographs taken by Schiaparelli or by his collaborators during various phases of
the excavations assist scholars in the arduous task of identifying the areas explored by the Italian team.
As regards the necropolis, a number of pictures arguably taken in 1906 clearly show extended work
being carried out simultaneously on two levels on the mountain slope (Fig. 29) immediately north of
Tombs 290 and 291. These are the caves later named “Spéos du Nord” by Bruyère and corresponding
to funerary shafts 1186–1189.
Figure 29. Photograph probably taken in 1906 and showing Tombs 1186–1189
and the area in front of them being excavated (B00076, Archivio Museo Egizio)
Figure 30. Sketch plan and section of the tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1) from Ballerini’s 1909 notebook
Other extremely interesting documents preserved in the archive are the various dossiers compiled by
Ballerini during his 1909 investigation of some of the most important tombs of the Deir el-Medina
necropolis and collected in one large-format notebook.109
Figure 31. Two pages of Ballerini’s 1909 notebook showing texts and scenes from Theban Tomb 3 of Pashedu
109
Archivio di Stato di Torino, MAE, 2o vers., M4 n5.
These dossiers are invaluable for the amount of information they preserve: in most cases the date of
the exploration is also noted and is followed by the name of the tomb owner, a detailed and precise
plan and section of the tomb (Fig. 30), the transcription of all hieroglyphic texts according to their
position on the walls, and sketch drawings of the main scenes (Fig. 31).
The tombs described by Ballerini in his notebook are the following (according to the present
order of the dossiers):
1) Tomb of Qen (TT 4), 25 February 1909
2) Tomb of Khabekhnet (TT 2)
3) Funerary chapel of Kha (TT 8)
4) Tomb of Neferhotep (TT 216), 20 February 1909
5) Tomb of Penbuy and Kasa (TT 10)
6) Tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1), 31 January 1909
7) Tomb of Pashedu (TT 3), January 1909
8) Tomb of Ipuy (TT 217), 17 February 1909
9) Tomb of Amenmes (TT 9), January 1909
10) Tomb of Amenemipet (TT 215), 15 February 1909
11) Tomb of Paneb (TT 211), 10 February 1909
12) Tomb of Neferabu (TT 5), 28 February 1909
13) Tomb of Ramose (TT 7), 16 February 1909
14) Tomb of Neferhotep and Nebnefer (TT 6)
15) Tomb of Reweben (TT 210)
16) Tomb of Ramose (TT 212)
Many dossiers are also complemented with lists of the
scenes or walls that were photographed. These
pictures, now part of the Museo Egizio archive, are
likewise important, among other reasons because they
often show damaged walls before and after small
restorations made by the Italian team or, as in the case
of the tomb of Pashedu, fragments of the original
decoration that were later removed or lost (Fig. 32).
Figure 32. View of the inner room of the tomb of

Pashedu (TT 3) in 1909, with numerous fragments
of the built-in limestone sarcophagus still piled up
5. THE WAY FORWARD

The above investigations exemplify some of the paths the Museo Egizio intends to follow in the future
in studying its holdings from Deir el-Medina. Much work has been done on the museum’s treasure of
papyri and ostraca, although so much more remains to be done. A few important studies on some
object categories (most notably stelae and offering tables and basins) have seen the light in the past.
The informative potential of the documentary and photographic archives of the Italian Mission,
however, has remained largely untapped, as is shown above. Studying and making available this
material is one of our current priorities. This kind of approach goes hand in hand with a new
emphasis on material culture and style, which, especially when combined with prosopographical and
other textual evidence, can go a long way in helping to restore the context of objects and weave a story
around them that can make them more interesting not only to scholars, but also to the general public.
Finally, it is self-evident that the formation of museum collections is an artificial process, causing
an equally artificial insulation of objects. The potsherd of one of the large storage jars discussed above
(see Fig. 22), which fits another shard found by Bruyère, may be regarded as a paradigmatic example
of the need for this kind of research to transcend museum and archaeological-site boundaries.
Cooperation with other museums and institutions to promote studies taking in entire corpuses of
evidence, regardless of where they are physically stored, and making their results available through
online platforms should play an important role in the Museo Egizio’s future research planning.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANDREU, Guillemette. 2006. À la recherche d’un atelier de sculpteurs à Deir el-Médineh, in: Andreas DORN &
Tobias HOFMANN (eds.), Living and Writing in Deir el-Medine. Socio-historical Embodiment of Deir
el-Medine Texts, Basel (= Aegyptiaca Helvetica 19), 9–19.
ANDREU, Guillemette & Anna Maria DONADONI ROVERI (eds.). 2003. Gli artisti del faraone: Deir el-Medina e le
Valli dei Re e delle Regine (catalogue of the exhibition, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 15 April-22 July 2002;
Bruxelles, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 10 September 2002–12 January 2003; Torino, Palazzo
Bricherasio-Museo Egizio, 14 February-18 May 2003), Milano.
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OLLECTION OLLECTION
ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA ÆGYPTIACA ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA
LEODIENSIA
11
Outside the Box

La collection Ægyptiaca Leodiensia — dirigée par Dimitri Laboury, Stéphane Polis et Jean Winand — a pour vocation de
Outside the Box — Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS

publier des travaux d’égyptologie dans les domaines les plus divers. Elle accueille en son sein des monographies
ainsi que des volumes collectifs thématiques.
This volume represents the outcome of the confer- vative technological solutions. Accordingly,
ence “Deir el-Medina and the Theban Necropolis “Outside the box,” can be read both as a plea
in Contact: Describing the interactions within for making the fascinating material from Deir Selected papers from the conference
and outside the community of workmen” held
in Liège in 2014 (27-29 October). The goal of this
el-Medina more broadly available, and as a
shout of admiration regarding the creativity “Deir el-Medina and
the Theban Necropolis in Contact”
conference was to encourage a wider perspective and tireless inventiveness of scholars working
on Deir el-Medina, bringing together scholars on the sources stemming from this exceptional
from all egyptological fields and disciplines who socio-cultural setting.
are interested in studying the many types of
interactions that the ancient community of Deir Andreas DORN is professor of Egyptology at
Liège, 27-29 October 2014
el-Medina developed both internally and at the the University of Uppsala (Sweden). He spe-
broader (supra-)regional level. cializes in cultural history, archaeology and
The title of the volume, “Outside the box,”
refers to two important dimensions touched
architecture. He focuses mainly on the contex-
tualisation of artefacts in order to investigate
on by the papers in this volume. First, it points micro-historical phenomena. His research pro-
to the fact that a vast quantity of documents jects include the burial equipment of king Sety
from Deir el-Medina and, more broadly, from I, the architecture and archaeology of the tomb
the Theban Necropolis has been available for of king Siptah, graffiti in the Valley of the Kings
a long time to some restricted academic cir- and Western Thebes as well as the publication
cles, but are now to be taken outside the box: of hieratic texts from Deir el-Medina.
this holds true not only for the publication of
papyri and ostraca preserved in many collec- Stéphane POLIS is research associate at
tions across the world, but also for archival the National Fund for Scientific Research
material describing the excavations at the site (Belgium). His fields of research are ancient
itself, and more broadly for the monuments Egyptian linguistics, and Late Egyptian phi-
that remain there still, but are not available to lology and grammar. His work focuses, on
scholars or the general public. Second, most the one hand, on language variation and lan-
of the papers collected in this volume share a guage change in Ancient Egyptian, and, on the
common feature, namely their attempt to think other hand, on the publication and analysis of
outside the box, using new theoretical frame- hieratic material from the community of Deir
works, cross-disciplinary approaches, or inno- el-Medina.
PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE LIÈGE
ISBN : 978-2-87562-166-5

Deir El-Medina in The Egyptian Museum of Turin

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OLLECTION OLLECTION

ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA ÆGYPTIACA ÆGYPTIACA LEODIENSIA

Outside the Box

Outside the Box — Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS

PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE LIÈGE

Dépôt légal D/2018/12.839/16

Tous droits de traduction et de reproduction réservés pour tous pays.

Outside the Box

Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS (eds.)

Presses Universitaires de Liège

An Overview, and the Way Forward

Paolo DEL VESCO & Federico POOLE

3. THE DROVETTI COLLECTION

3.1. Stelae and other epigraphic evidence from tombs

– Stela Cat. 1609 of the chief craftsman Huy (TT 361).7

Figure 1. Presumed provenance of funerary items in Drovetti collection (TT numbers),

3.2.1. The family of Nebenmaat

3.2.2. Amenemheb and Mutemuia

Figure 3. Shabtis of Amenemheb and Mutemuia

3.2.3. Members of Sennedjem’s family

Figure 4. Shabti of Iynofreti (Cat. 2588).

3.2.4. A shabti gang of a scribe of the tomb Amennakht

Figure 6. Shabtis of Amennakht (Cat. 2538, 2536, 2532, 2535)

3.3 Votive objects

Figure 8. Statuette of Ahmose Nefertari (Cat. 1369)

4. SCHIAPARELLI’S EXCAVATIONS IN DEIR EL-MEDINA

4.1. Temple area and votive chapels

4.1.1. A family archive

4.1.2. Stone seats

4.1.3. Large jars with painted decoration

4.2. The village

Figure 24. Houses NW IX-XI in 1909 (C00944, Archivio Museo Egizio)

4.3. The tombs

Figure 32. View of the inner room of the tomb of

5. THE WAY FORWARD

Outside the Box

Outside the Box — Andreas DORN & Stéphane POLIS

PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE LIÈGE

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