A Spanish mission working at Dra Abu El-Naga on the West Bank at Luxor has discovered a second, painted burial chamber in the tomb of Djehuty (TT11). Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced the discovery, adding that the Spanish team, led by Dr. José Galán of the National Research Center, Madrid, has been working at the site since 2002.

At the end of their 2008 season, the mission came across a 3 meter-deep shaft inside the burial chamber of Djehuty, an overseer of the treasury and overseer of works during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (ca. 1479-1458 BC). At the beginning of 2009, they discovered a second burial chamber at the bottom of this shaft. The chamber is decorated on two of its walls, mostly with texts from the Book of the Dead. (photo on the left, larger photo) An image of the goddess Nut adorns the ceiling. (photo)

The discovery is remarkable, as only four other decorated burial chambers dating to this period are known. Although the names of Djehuty, his father, and his mother were intentionally erased in the upper part of the monument, they are intact in the newly discovered lower burial chamber. At the entrance to the lower chamber, the Spanish team found five gold earrings and two gold rings, which date to the early- to mid-18th Dynasty and probably belonged to Djehuty or to a member of his family.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, commented that only a few other objects from the tomb are known, as most of Djehuty’s funerary equipment was destroyed by fire in antiquity. Galán added that the discovery of this decorated chamber adds to our understanding of the religious and funerary beliefs of the mid-15th century BC, and of the elite of Queen Hatshepsut’s court.