TT1
TT1 is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian official Sennedjem and members of his family in Deir el-Medina, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. The funerary complex consists of three pyramid-shaped chapels dedicated to, from south to north, Sennedjem's father or brother, Sennedjem himself, and Sennedjem's son Khonsu. Of the three shafts associated with the chapels, only the shaft in front of Sennedjem's chapel was unrobbed. It leads to a series of underground rooms, including the extensively decorated burial chamber.
The undisturbed tomb was discovered in January 1886 in excavations by Gurnawi local Salam Abu Duhi and three others. The single room contained 165 objects, including over 20 burials belonging to family members of Sennedjem. Nine members of Sennedjem's immediate family were placed in coffins while the rest were placed on the floor. Sennedjem and his son Khonsu had the most elaborate burials, both being provided with a sarcophagus or outer rectangular coffin in addition to mummiform coffins, mummy boards and masks; these larger coffins were found disassembled and placed against a wall. For the other 11 people buried there, their exact relation to Sennedjem is unclear due to the lack of inscriptions.
The tomb was cleared quickly by Eduardo Toda y Güell and Jan Herman Insinger on behalf of Gaston Maspero, the head of the Antiquities Service. The burial goods included many ushabti, canopic chests and pieces of furniture. The contents of the tomb were transferred to the Boulaq Museum in Cairo. From there, some of the objects, including the coffins and mummies of Iyneferti, Khonsu, and Tamaket, were sold to museum and private collections around the world to fund further excavation work in Egypt. The most important items outside Egypt went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Egyptian Museum of Berlin; the exact locations of other pieces are now largely unknown.
Sennedjem and family
Sennedjem was an ancient Egyptian official during the reigns of the pharaohs Seti I and Ramesses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty in the early 13th century BC. He bore the title "servant in the Place of Truth", which indicates he was part of the community of royal tomb builders at Deir el-Medina. He may have been a scribe, based on the presence of an ostracon of the Story of Sinuhe placed near his coffin. Sennedjem was involved in the cult of the goddess Hathor, bearing the title "servant of Hathor". His father was Khabekhnet, who was titled "servant of Amun in the southern City". Tahenu is thought to be his mother. Khabekhnet and Tahenu are depicted with an additional woman named Rusu whose relationship to the couple is not specified. She may have been a second wife of Khabekhnet or Khabekhnet's own mother. Sennedjem had three brothers: Tutuya, Messu, and an elder brother, Tjaro.Sennedjem's wife was Iyneferti. She was titled "lady of the house" and "singer of Hathor". Little is known of her family but her mother may have been named Mutnofret. Sennedjem and Iyneferti had at least 10 children, many of whom are depicted in their tomb and also worked in the royal necropolis. Their eldest son Khabekhnet, named for his paternal grandfather, was the owner of the nearby tomb TT2. A younger son, Khonsu, had a pyramid chapel within the TT1 complex and was buried in his father's tomb. Sennedjem and one or two of his sons lived in a cluster of houses in the newly built southern part of Deir el-Medina, close to the family tomb.
Chapels
TT1 is located on a low terrace at the southern end of Deir el-Medina's western necropolis. The funerary complex contains three pyramid-shaped chapels within a walled courtyard. The court is rectangular and measures. While it was probably entered via stairs through a gateway shaped like a pylon, excavations by the Egyptologist Bernard Bruyère found no trace of them. A mudbrick bench was located against the north wall of the courtyard, likely to hold funerary offerings on festive occasions.Sennedjem's chapel is the central of the three. It was constructed of a mix of mudbrick and stone, as was typical for the Nineteenth Dynasty. It has a projected restored height of tall and width of and was capped with a pyramidion of limestone, now fragmentary, depicting Sennedjem adoring the sun god Ra on his journey across the sky. The chapel was entered through a single doorway on the eastern side; the lintel depicts Sennedjem and Iyneferti worshipping the crocodile god Sobek. A stele was set into the face of the pyramid above the entrance depicting Sennedjem worshipping the rising sun. The chapel itself is a single barrel-vaulted room with a further funerary stele set into the rear wall. The entire interior was painted with colourful scenes but little trace remains.
Sennedjem's chapel is flanked on the north side by the smaller pyramid-chapel of Khonsu. Due to lack of space, its walls are initially vertical before sloping to become a pyramid. The pyramidion of Khonsu's chapel depicts Khonsu, his wife Tamaket and their son Nekhenmut; it is now in the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy. This is the only one of the three chapels to preserve painted decoration. The decoration on the interior of the door frame depicts Khonsu's brother Khabekhnet and his second wife Isis. Another preserved piece of decoration depicts two fragmentary underworld deities. The scene was likely similar to that seen in the burial chamber of TT1, where the deceased couple appear in adoration of a series of gods. The south wall featured the funeral procession. The lower register shows the funerary sledge pulled by men and two oxen and accompanied by women. The scene continued onto the rear wall, where the mummy, supported by a kneeling man, stands before a pyramid chapel; priests administer funerary rites. A band of hieroglyphic text, preserved only in small sections, gave Khonsu's name and title, and served to divide the wall decoration from the ceiling all around the chapel.
A wall divided the chapels of Sennedjem and Khonsu from the larger southernmost pyramid chapel. It is the oldest of the three, being constructed entirely of mudbrick and therefore dating its construction to the Eighteenth Dynasty. The southern pyramid chapel is assigned to Tjaro, thought to be Sennedjem's elder brother or Khabekhnet, Sennedjem's father. The southern chapel was never used as the burial shaft is unfinished. The Egyptologists Kathrin Gabler and Anne-Claire Salmas suggest that this is intended, as Khabekhnet did not live in Deir el-Medina and worked outside of the necropolis; his title "servant of Amun in the Southern City" indicates he worked in the temple complexes on the east bank. They suggest that the chapel was non-functional, given its separation from the others by a wall and its apparent lack of decoration, and was instead a physical representation of the familial line of descent.
Three burial shafts were dug in the courtyard in front of the chapels. The central shaft, numbered P1182, is located at the very front of the enclosure and is long and contains two adjoining subterranean rooms. Based on finds of fragments of statuary and pottery with inscribed names, this seems to have been the burial place of Sennedjem's older brother Tjaro and Sennedjem's son Bunakhtef. The other shaft, numbered P1183, in front of the southern chapel is unfinished and unused. The northernmost shaft located from Sennedjem's chapel led to his burial chamber.
Tomb
Discovery and clearance
The intact burial chamber of TT1 was discovered in January 1886 by Gurnawi local Salam Abu Duhi and three others. They had obtained permission from Gaston Maspero, the director of the Antiquities Service, to look for tombs in Deir el-Medina. After seven days of excavation, they found an intact burial shaft that led to a series of underground rooms. The tomb descended further, via a concealed shaft, to a painted doorway closed with a decorated door; the door was sealed with a moulded clay seal in the shape of the head of the god Anubis. On 31 January, Maspero was informed of the find and visited with Urbain Bouriant, Eduardo Toda y Güell and Jan Herman Insinger on 1 February. They made copies of the decorated doorframe before dismantling it to preserve the door and entered the room. Toda described the space as "covered with bodies and masses of ceramics, bread, fruit, furniture and bouquets at the corners". The painted burial chamber contained the burials of at least 20 people and were accompanied by a wide variety of objects. Both coffined and uncoffined mummies were placed against the west wall of the chamber, while the disassembled funerary sarcophagi were placed against the east wall; funerary equipment such as canopic chests, and ushabti were mixed with work tools, boxes, vases, furniture, food, and bouquets.Eduardo Toda y Güell became responsible for the clearance of the tomb and Jan Herman Insinger for photography. The tomb was cleared in three days by Toda and seven workers. No plan was made to record the positions of objects and few photographs were taken during the clearance. Having bought the discoverers out of their half of the find, the entire contents of the burial chamber, some 165 objects by Toda's count, were loaded onto the Antiquities Service's dahabeah Boulaq for transport to the Boulaq Museum in Cairo. A stool was broken and the uncoffined mummies were damaged during transport to the boat, prompting Toda to only keep their heads. Once in Cairo, a sample of representative or unique items were kept for the museum while the rest was sold.
After the clearance of the tomb in 1886, the Antiquities Service closed the base of the shaft with a metal mesh door. In 1917, Jacques Lecomte du Nouÿ cleared the two other shafts in the courtyard. The complex as a whole was excavated by Bernard Bruyère between 1924 and 1930. He partially cleared the courtyard in 1924-25 and re-excavated the associated shafts in 1928. A full report of his work was published in 1959.