TT139
The Tomb of the Nobles TT139 is located at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, in the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor in Egypt. The Tombs of the Nobles was intended for the burials of nobles and officials connected to the ruling houses, especially of the powerful New Kingdom of Egypt from the 18th dynasty to the 20th dynasty. However, the area had already been used as a burial necropolis since the Old Kingdom of Egypt and, subsequently, up to the Saite period and Ptolemaic period.
It is the tomb of Pairy or Pairi, a wab-priest of Amun, overseer of the peasants, dating from the reign of king Amenhotep III. Pairy also held the title of "High Priest of Ptah at Karnak under Amenhotep III. One of the tomb's chapel walls shows Pairy making offerings to his parents; Pairy's father is identified as a certain Shuroy who was a serving priest and servant of the gods Ptah and Hathor at Thebes.
Placement of Tomb TT139
Megan O'Neil observes that "while the tombs of the northern part of the hill predominately belong to the nobility of the early eighteenth dynasty, the southern enclosure was a popular location for tombs of the latter half of the dynasty. TT139 is fairly isolated, with the closest neighboring tombs belonging to the late eighteenth-dynasty governor and vizier under Amenhotep IV, Ramose, the nineteenth-dynasty "Wab-Priest in Front of Amun", Bekenamun and the "First Kings Son", Amenhotep of the mid-eighteenth dynasty." As the High Priest of Ptah at Karnak, Pairy was permitted to enter Ptah’s holy sanctuary daily, look upon the god’s effigy, and perform the sacred cult ritual.O'Neil notes that:
Melinda Hartwig states that "In order for the ka or the soul of the deceased to survive in the afterlife it required nourishment through offerings, prayers, and cult rituals performed by priests and relatives, as well as through the recitation of prayers and offering formulas by the tomb’s visitors.
O'Neil concludes:
The Tomb
The entrance to the tomb opens into a courtyard; a short corridor, on whose walls the deceased, Pairy with his wife Henutnofret and his family pour ointments in libation, leads to a transversal room whose wall paintings are somewhat damaged. However, it is possible to see the son Ptahmose with papyrus flowers; a little further on the sons Amenhotep and, perhaps, Ptahmosi, offering bunches of flowers to the deceased and his wife, and the deceased offering lists of offerings to his parents. On four superimposed registers, the deceased and his wife with rows of bearers offering to Osiris, scenes of the funeral procession with the transport of the sarcophagus and the funerary furnishings, the rite of the opening of the mouth officiated by two priests on the mummy and the pilgrimage to Abydos. Above a door the Sons of Horus are hieratic texts dated to Year 3 of the female king Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, with hymns to the god Amun by Pawah, Scribe of the divine offerings of Amun in the temple of Ankhkheperure. A last still legible relief represents scenes of the funeral banquet with the son Ptahmose offering lists of offerings to the deceased and to his mother.Archaeological evidence suggests that "the rectangular courtyard of TT139 was once surrounded on all sides by a wall that provided entrance to the structure at the east side.93 Although none of the original façade remains intact, the presence of mud brick and limestone fragments, and the architecture of comparable eighteenth-dynasty tombs, support this assumption.
The Year 3 date of the female king [Neferneferuaten]
Tomb TT139 is also well known for being the only tomb in Egypt to bear a Year 3 date--or any other known date--of the short lived late Amarna female pharaoh named Neferneferuaten--who many other Egyptologists today also believe is Nefertiti such as Chris Naunton,Nozomu Kawai in the American Research Center in Egypt and Aidan DodsonAidan Dodson writes in a 2020 article that the inscription for the female king is written as "Year 3, III Akhet 10, Dual King, Lord of the Two Lands, Ankhkheperure-beloved-of-, Son of Re,
Neferneferuaten-beloved-of- Dodson concludes his article with this passage:
Some other scholars agree that Neferneferuaten was Nefertiti but think that Neferneferuaten actually had a short sole independent reign of 2 years before being succeeded by Tutankhamun since Tutankhamun promptly abandoned Amarna for Thebes, Egypt after becoming pharaoh...such as Athena van der Perre, and Nozomu Kawai.
James Peter Allen, in "The Amarna Succession Revised", in GM 249 : pp. 9–13 does not take a position whether Neferneferuaten has a sole reign based on her Year 3 date and simply writes below: