Asyut - Rock Tombs

The view from the Rock Tombs is very fine. To the left, lower down, is the Arab cemetery; in the fertile plain is the widely spreading town with its minarets and palms and the lbharimiya Canal with its busy boat traffic; and in the distance can be seen the edge of the desert. A still more extensive and more attractive view can be enjoyed from the tombs higher up the hill. Here can be seen three adjoining tombs (the most northerly of which is ruined) dating from the Heracleopolitan period (ninth and 10th Dynasties) of the Middle Kingdom.

From a court in front of the tomb we enter a surprisingly high longitudinal chamber, the vaulted ceiling of which was decorated with painted stars. On the right hand wall is a figure of the dead man, with a long and barely legible inscription. From this chamber a doorway, on each side of which is a figure of the dead man with a long staff, leads in to a transverse chamber. On the right hand entrance wall is a long inscription containing the text of ten contracts concluded by the dead man with various priesthoods in his native town in order to secure the proper sacrificial offerings to himself and to provide for the performance of other ceremonies. The corresponding inscription on the left hand entrance wall contains invocations to visitors to the tomb and a recital of the dead man's merits. The flat ceiling is decorated with a variety of colored spiral, meander and woven patterns.

At the foot of the Rock Tombs is the badly ruined Tomb of Hapidjefa III, with harvest scene painted on stucco and a decorated ceiling.

From the Tomb of Kheti an underground passage leads into the third tomb in the row, which belonged to Tefyeb, a Prince of the nome.

In the rear wall of the Longitudinal Chamber, between two niches, is a door leading into a vaulted passage and beyond this into a second transverse hall with three niches. In the middle niche, on the rear wall, was a figure of the dead man, with four women holding lotus flowers in front of him; the side walls show him at table, with three files of priests and servants bringing him gifts or performing sacred ceremonies. The left hand niche leads to the mummyshaft.