Position 68 - Looking South Over The Theban Plain And The Temples Of Medinet Habu, From The Cemetery Of Abd El-kurna

We have climbed the western cliffs and stand in the midst of the innumerable tomb openings which we saw from the Ramesseum below. This particular locality is known to the natives as Shekh Abd el-Kurna, and you will find it so called near the centre of Map 9. We look almost due south, but a little west of south, and just over the head of the native sitting on the spur of rock you see the mass of buildings making up the group of Medinet Habu, which we are to visit soon.

We shall later return to this spot and examine the details of this beautiful landscape; now we shall merely locate ourselves and the tomb which we are to visit. Behind us is Der el-Bahri, which we have not yet visited, on our left Karnak and the river, flanking the plain over which we have come (Map 8). The southern extension of that plain is before us.

Here at our feet are a few of the tombs with which this cemetery is filled. You observe that the face of the cliff has been smoothed and so cut in as to produce a perpendicular wall, with a court in front. In the middle of the perpendicular wall is a door leading to the chapel chamber of the tomb, which is excavated in the solid rock. It was these doors which you saw in long rows from the Ramesseum pylon a little while ago. In front of the forecourt, Theban gentlemen of wealth were accustomed to lay out a garden in which the deceased was supposed to divert himself, lying about under the trees and enjoying himself as he had been accustomed to do in his garden down in the city.

There was not always room for such an addition, but in some cases it must have been of considerable size, for the architect who put up those obelisks of Thutmosis I tells us how many trees he had in his tomb garden, and all the various kinds; and they were so numerous that they must have formed a fine grove. Here all around us, then, sleep the great of ancient Thebes; or we should more fittingly say slept, for these tombs have all, with rare exceptions, been robbed in antiquity.

The particular tomb which we shall next visit is yonder over this spur of rock on which these natives are perched; its entrance at present, owing to the débris gathered about it, is a mere hole in the ground, like that one which you see over the head of the standing Egyptian. Our tomb opening is very close to that one, but is not quite in range from our present standpoint. We shall presently stand in the tomb chapel which has so long served as the abode of an Egyptian officer, who lived in the 16th century B. C.