TT139

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Theban tomb  TT139
Burial site of Pairy or Pairi
TT139.jpg
Floor plan of TT139
Location Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Theban Necropolis
LayoutT-shaped
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The Tomb of the Nobles (Theban tomb) TT139 is located at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, [1] 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 (with the 26th dynasty) and Ptolemaic period.

Contents

It is the tomb of Pairy or Pairi (Pȝ-jrj), a wab-priest [2] of Amun, overseer of the peasants, dating from the reign of king Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty of Egypt). Pairy also held the title of "High Priest of Ptah at Karnak under Amenhotep III. [3] 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. [4]

Placement of Tomb TT139

Megan O'Neil observes that "while the tombs of the northern part of the hill [at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna] predominately belong to the nobility of the early eighteenth dynasty [of Egypt], the southern enclosure was a popular location for tombs of the latter half of the dynasty. [Tomb] TT139 is fairly isolated, with the closest neighboring tombs belonging to the late eighteenth-dynasty governor and vizier under Amenhotep IV [or Akhenaten], Ramose (TT55), the nineteenth-dynasty “Wab-Priest in Front of Amun,” Bekenamun (TT135) and the “First King’s Son,” Amenhotep (TT345) of the mid-eighteenth dynasty." [5] [6] 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. [7]

O'Neil notes that:

The location and direction in which Pairy chose to situate his tomb amidst his peers was deliberate, and functioned magically to ensure his survival in the afterlife. His final resting place upon the hill [at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna] looked north across the river towards the great temple of Karnak where he loyally served as priest to the gods. This theoretically allowed him to continue to oversee and participate in their cult worship even in death, and to receive offerings reverted to the dead from the god’s temples. The placement of Pairy’s tomb was also influenced by its accessibility to living visitors upon whom he relied for commemoration essential for his transfiguration. [8]

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. [9]

O'Neil concludes:

Once Pairy could no longer depend on family or priests to visit and renew his rites, he relied upon the position of his tomb, which was oriented towards a festival gathering place believed to be located in the vicinity of Ramose's tomb (TT55) south-east of TT139. By situating his tomb chapel here, he hoped to appeal to passersby who had the power to ensure his cycle of rebirth by leaving offerings and reciting the necessary prayers. Text on the right door jamb pleas to the living “...may he give everything good and pure, wine and milk, for the ka of the wab-priest of Amun, Pairy.” [10] The location of TT139 along a processional path enabled Pairy to continue to receive provisions long after the passing of all who knew him, and allowed him to participate eternally with his ancestors in the festivals of the gods as leading porter. [11] [12]

The Tomb

A Barque bringing goods to Pairy in the afterlife Journey to Abydos, Tomb of Pairy MET DT10886.jpg
A Barque bringing goods to Pairy in the afterlife
The funeral of procession of Pairy Funeral Procession, Tomb of Pairy MET 35.101.3.jpg
The funeral of procession of Pairy

The entrance to the tomb opens into a courtyard; a short corridor, on whose walls (1 in the plan) the deceased, Pairy with his wife Henutnofret and his family (including a girl indicated as a "royal concubine") pour ointments in libation, leads to a transversal room whose wall paintings are somewhat damaged. However, it is possible to see (2) the son Ptahmose with papyrus flowers; a little further on (3) 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 (4), 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 (5) 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. [13] A last still legible relief represents (6) scenes (unfinished) of the funeral banquet with the son Ptahmose offering lists of offerings to the deceased and to his mother[1].

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 (fig. 2.3).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. [14]

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 Egyptologists today believe is Nefertiti. [15] [16] [17]

Aidan 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-[...] [18] Dodson concludes his article with this passage:

The present writer has discussed the identity of Neferneferuaten and the way in which her reign relates to those of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, and Tutankhaten in a number of recent works (Dodson 2009; 2014, 140–146; 2018, 34–51). In these, he has argued that (with most—but not all—current researchers) Neferneferuaten was none other than Nefertiti, who transitioned to full female pharaoh during Akhenaten’s Year 16, and (more controversially) that she moved directly from being her husband’s coregent to ruling with Tutankhaten, sharing the latter’s regnal years. On this basis, the writer takes the view that the graffto most likely dates to shortly before the end of Neferneferuaten’s career, to be placed just before Tutankhaten’s change of name to Tutankhamun. [19]

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. [20] [21]

James Peter Allen, in “The Amarna Succession Revised,” in GM 249 (2016): pp.9-13 does not take a position whether Neferneferuaten has a sole reign based on her Year 3 date and simply writes below:

The evidence indicates Smenkhkare ruled only about a year at most....Smenkhkare's premature death probably no later than Akhenaten's Regnal Year 14 left only the one-to-four year old heir Tutankhuaten as putative heir....Tutankhamun must have been considered too young to be named coregent in his father's stead....To safeguard Tutankhamun's accession, Akhenaten also appointed a female coregent Ankheperure Neferneferuaten, to oversee the transition and probably to instruct him in the new religion. In 2009, I argued that this coregent was Akhenaten's fourth daughter, Neferneferuaten, both because it seemed a logical progression in his attempts to produce a son within each of his daughters as they reached puberty, and because evidence was lacking that the other Neferneferuaten, Nefertiti, was still alive in Akhenaten's final years. The Year 16 inscription noted [for the existence of Akhenaten's wife] at the beginning of this article solves the latter problem, and I (and my students) now think it likeliest that the coregent was in fact, Nefertiti....Since Nefertiti was still chief queen in Regnal Year 16 [of Akhenaten], her Year 3 as pharaoh must have occured two years after Akhenaten's death.... [22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ TT39-Pairi
  2. ↑ Herman te Velde, "Theology, Priests, and Worship in Ancient Egypt" in: Jack M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Vol. III (New York, 1995), 1731–1735, 1740–1745, 1747–1749. Reprinted: Peabody, MA, 2001. p.1734
  3. ↑ Emily Teeter, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.193
  4. ↑ Sheila Whale, The Family in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (Australia: Australian Centre for Egyptology, 1989), p.235
  5. ↑ O'Neill, Megan C., The Decorative Program of the Eighteenth-Dynasty Tomb of Pairy (TT 139), Georgia State University Thesis, May 9, 2015 PDF, p.22]
  6. ↑ O'Neill, Megan C., The Decorative Program of the Eighteenth-Dynasty Tomb of Pairy (TT139), Georgia State University Thesis, May 9, 2015 PDF p.10]
  7. ↑ Barbara Mertz, Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt (New York: CowardMcCann, 1966), p.286
  8. ↑ O'Neill, Megan C., The Decorative Program of the Eighteenth-Dynasty Tomb of Pairy (TT 139), Georgia State University Thesis, May 9, 2015 PDF, p.22]
  9. ↑ Melinda Hartwig, “Tomb Painting and Identity in Ancient Thebes, 1419-1372 BCE,” in Monumenta Aegyptiaca X, ed. Reine Elisabeth (Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2004), p.11 PDF p.22
  10. ↑ Jean-Vincent Scheil, “Le tombeau de Pârj,” Mémoires publiés par les membres de la Mission archaéologique français au Caire 5, pt. 2 (1894): p.588
  11. ↑ O'Neill, Megan C., The Decorative Program of the Eighteenth-Dynasty Tomb of Pairy (TT139), Georgia State University Thesis, May 9, 2015 PDF, p.23
  12. ↑ Melinda Hartwig, “Tomb Painting and Identity in Ancient Thebes, 1419-1372 BCE,” in Monumenta Aegyptiaca X, ed. Reine Elisabeth (Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2004), p.103
  13. ↑ William Murnane, Texts from the Amarna Period, Atlanta: Scholars Press (1995). Note: Gardiner, JEA 14 (1928), pp. 10–11 and pls. 5–6;, Reeves (False Prophet, 2001. p.163) and Murnane all give the date as 10th Day, Month 3, Akhet. Dodson (2009) reports the date as "unequivocally" 3rd day, Month 4, Akhet.
  14. ↑ O'Neill, Megan C., The Decorative Program of the Eighteenth-Dynasty Tomb of Pairy (TT 139), Georgia State University Thesis, May 9, 2015 PDF, p.25
  15. ↑ January 28, 2020 Twitter/X post by Chris Naunton, a British Egyptologist
  16. ↑ Female Pharaohs Part II by the American Research Center in Egypt September 2021,, pp.2 (on Neferneferuaten)
  17. ↑ On the Graffito in Theban Tomb 139 by Aidan Dodson in Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of Zahi Hawass, edited by Janice Kamrin, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner & Mohamed Megahed, Prague, Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Volume 1, 2020, pp.357-365
  18. ↑ On the Graffito in Theban Tomb 139 by Aidan Dodson in Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of Zahi Hawass, edited by Janice Kamrin, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner & Mohamed Megahed, Prague, Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Volume 1, 2020, pp.357-365
  19. ↑ On the Graffito in Theban Tomb 139 by Aidan Dodson in Guardian of Ancient Egypt Studies in Honor of Zahi Hawass, edited by Janice Kamrin, Miroslav Bárta, Salima Ikram, Mark Lehner & Mohamed Megahed, Prague, Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Volume 1, 2020, pp.357-365
  20. ↑ A. van der Perre, The Year 16 graffito of Akhenaten in Dayr Abū Ḥinnis. A Contribution to the Study of the Later Years of Nefertiti, Journal of Egyptian History 7 (2014), pp.95-96
  21. ↑ Nozomu Kawai, "Neferneferuaten from the Tomb of Tutankhamun Revisited" in Wonderful Things Essays in Honor of Nicholas Reeves, Lockwood Press, (2023), pp.116-117
  22. ↑ James P. Allen, “The Amarna Succession Revised,” in GM 249 (2016): p.11

Bibliography

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