 The two ostraca here discussed were found in the course of excavations sponsored by Theodore M Davis in the Valley of the Kings during the season 1905/6. Although both have been known for many years, their true significance seems to have been overlooked. The identification of both as sketch plans of elements from two royal tombs - those of Ramesses IV (KV2) and (probably) Sethos II (KV15) - effectively doubles the total number of such plans that are at present known (1).
I. Limestone flake, maximum dimensions 11 X 16 inches (approx. 27.5 X 40 cm). Presumably in the Cairo Museum, museum number not known (2) (Fig. 1).
The sketch on this ostracon, evidently executed in black, represents a flight of steps and a level platform before the jambs and lintels of a doorway fitted with a pair of double-bolted doors which are pivoted at both top and bottom. When originally published, it was interpreted as the «plan-elevation of the door of a shrine approached by a double flight of steps» (3), a description undoubtedly owing more to modern ideas of perspective and to a misleading orientation of the published photograph (4) than to any intention on the part of the ancient draftsman. The sketch is indeed a plan view, with the door added in elevation in the usual Egyptian manner; but a comparison with the tomb plan of Ramesses IX (KV6) on another ostracon now in Cairo (5) is sufficient to indicate that the so-called shrine and its ascending stairway are actually the descending stepped ramp and entrance doorway of a royal tomb. This interpretation is confirmed by the presence of two lines projecting beyond the door elevation, which doubtless indicate a continuation of the corridor as in the plan of KV6.
In publishing this ostracon, Clarke and Engelbach gave no specific provenance beyond «from the Valley of the Kings at Thebes» (6). The piece had, however, been referred to some years earlier by Davis and Ayrton in their brief notice of work carried out in 12 feet of masons` rubble in front of KV2 during the season 1905/6 (7). The excavators at that time identified the subject as «a sketch plan of the door of a tomb (probably No. 2)», noting in addition that on the reverse there was «a design showing a lion holding a captive`s head in its mouth» (8). There is little reason to doubt the correctness of Ayrton and Davis`s conclusion as to the tomb depicted; KV2 is, indeed, the only known tomb in the Valley of the Kings to possess both a tripartite sarcophagus slide and a level platform at the entrance. The ostracon thus preserves a part of the ancient plan of KV2 that is not included on the famous Turin papyrus, to which, in its details, it bears a close resemblance (9).
II. Limestone flake, maximum dimensions 7 1/2 X 10 inches (approx. 18.75 X 25 cm). In the Cairo Museum, JE 51936 (10) (Fig. 2).
Since this ostracon was found in the Valley of the Kings in 1905 (11), its attribution to the excavations of Theodore Davis is reasonably certain (12). On one face of the flake a plan has been sketched in red, which, in view of the provenance of the piece, is likely to be of an underground chamber `with four supporting columns (13). Access to this chamber is gained through a simple doorway (represented in elevation) without defined jambs or lintel. No other doorway is shown. Since, however, the work of quarrying a royal tomb proceeded element by element (14), the absence of an exit need not necessarily indicate that we are here dealing with an end chamber.
The wall directly opposite the doorway is labelled in hieratic «breadth: 15 cubits», whilst the longer wall immediately below the axis line of the sketch preserves the hieratic group :::: - doubtless the remains of a second label reading «[length: 1] 8 [cubits]» which was later erased and subsequently broken. Each of these walls carries in addition a series of «ticks» which evidently specify the precise layout of the interior, each tick representing one cubit. These secondary notations may be transcribed as in Fig. 3. As Engelbach has observed (15), the sum of the ticks on the longer wall seems not to tally with the length originally specified in the (now broken) hieratic label - which presumably would explain why the latter had been scratched out. The architect`s divisions across the width of the chamber have similarly been erased, in this case because they did not correspond with the specified breadth.
A firm identification of the tomb for which this pillared hall was intended is thus complicated by the fact that the ostracon plan had clearly not been finalised either in its overall dimensions or in the proportions of its component parts. As it stands, the sketched chamber does not correspond precisely with any element in any known royal tomb. Nevertheless, relatively few tombs in the Valley of the Kings possess four-pillared chambers (16), and it is perhaps worth reviewing the more likely candidates.
The tendency towards a progressive expansion of corridor width in New Kingdom royal tombs is well known (17), and may be employed to give a general idea of the date of the chamber depicted on JE 51936. Although this tomb chamber does not preserve the dimensions of the corridor leading into it, it seems as a rule that corridor width is reflected in the distance between opposing columns in the through chambers. Thus, for the plan in question a minimum distance between the columns of three cubits may be suggested, extending to a maximum of five cubits or so if the architect`s width for the chamber did not exceed the specified fifteen cubits. On this basis, the tomb should be earlier rather than later in the sequence of development, since its corridor must have been relatively narrow.
The narrowest corridor in the series of tombs with four-pillared chambers is that of KV47 (Siptah) with a width of approx. 2.61 m, closely followed by those of KV10 (Amenmesse) and KV15 (Sethos II) at 2.70 and 2.82 m respectively (18). By converting these measurements to cubits on the usual basis of 1 cubit = 0.523 m (19), we arrive at the following corridor widths : KV47 - 4.99 cu; KV1O - 5.16 cu ; KV 15 -
5.39 cu. Of these three tombs, it is KV15 that corresponds most closely in the size and proportions of its hall F (20) with the overall layout and dimensions of the chamber sketched on the Cairo ostracon. It is conceivable, therefore, that the final design of F represents a compromise solution of the difficulties faced by the architect at the time of his original draft. Cf. Fig. 4 (21).
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The precise find-spot of JE 51936 is unfortunately not recorded (22). If, however, the plan does indeed relate to KV15, I doubt that we should be very far wrong in supposing it to be one of the several ostraca recovered from the site of KV47 in 1905/6 - an area which, as the excavators note, was covered by masons` tailings from the tombs of Sethos II and Tawosret (23).
Notes
(*) An earlier draft of this paper was read and commented upon by Prof. JR Harris and Prof. HS Smith, to each of whom I extend my thanks.
(1) Cf. J Cerny, The Valley of the Kings (1973), 23 ff., where the material relating to royal tomb plans is well summarised; also E Thomas, The Royal Necropoleis of Thebes (1966), 273 ff. What would appear to be a further sketch plan, again on an ostracon, was noted on exhibition in the Cairo Museurn (Room P24, Case 14) during a brief visit in December 1982; as yet, however, I have been unable to secure a photograph of this piece.
(2) First published by S Clarke - R Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian Masonry (1930), 52 and fig. 52.
(3) Ibid., fig. 52 ; cf. p. 52. Followed by A Badawy, Le dessin architectural chez les anciens Egyptiens (1948), 195 and fig. 232.
(4) Clarke - Engelbach, Masonry, fig. 52.
(5) G Daressy, Rev. Arch. 32 (1898), 235 ff. ; id., Ostraca (1901), 35, CG 25184, pl. 32; WH Peck - JG Ross, Egyptian Drawings (1978), 196, fig. 130.
(6) Clarke - Engelbach, Masonry, 51 and fig. 52.
(7) ThM Davis, The Tomb of Siptah (1908), 6 f. The identification is confirmed by reference to a Davis expedition photograph (no. 2) recently located in the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society, which clearly labels this as one of several ostraca «from rubbish of Rameses IV». Cf. Reeves, MDAIK 40 (1984), 228.
(8) Davis, Siptah, 7.
(9) For which cf. H Carter - AH Gardiner, JEA 4 (1917),130 ff.; and, for a good colour photograph, E Scamuzzi, Egyptian Art in the Egyptian Museum of Turin (1965), pI. 87. The only notable difference between the two plans is the transposition of the two bolts on the doors.
(10) First published by Engelbach, ASAE 27 (1927), 72 ff. Note that Clarke - Engelbach, Masonry, 52, give the dimensions as 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches (approx. 18.75 X 23.75 cm). Additional bibliography: E Brunner-Traut, Die altaegyptischen Scherbenbilder (1956), 121, n. 1.
(11) Engelbach, ASAE 27 (1927), 73.
(12) It is perhaps less likely to have come from the excavations carried out by Emile Chassinat in the West Valley during the Winter of 1905/6, for which cf. EEF Arch. Report 1905-6, 82 f.; also Chassinat, BIFAO 10 (1912), 165 ff.
(13) Engelbach, ASAE 27 (1927), 73: «probably one of the auxiliary chambers of a royal tomb»; followed by Badawy, Dessin, 194 and fig. 231. Clarke - Engelbach, Masonry, 51, refer to the subject of the plan rather more vaguely as «a building whose roof was to have been supported by four columns of rectangular section».
(14) As is clear from the often abbreviated plans of certain New Kingdom royal tombs: cf., for example, the EI-`Amarna tomb of Akhenaten, where the pillared hall beyond the well had been adapted for use as the main burial chamber (J. Romer, Valley of the Kings [1981], 226). The excavation of the tomb of Ramesses IV was similarly brought to a premature conclusion (ibid., 281) - in the light of which it is worth restating that the Turin plan of this latter tomb (above, note 9) cannot have been a working drawing (pace, for example, Peck - Ross, Drawings, 196), and must have been executed after the work had been completed (as concluded on other grounds by Cerny, Valley, 24).
(15) Engelbach, ASAE 27 (1927), 73 ff.
(16) Namely: KV3 (temp. Ramesses Ill); KV4 (Ramesses XI) ; KV6 (Ramesses IX) ; KV10 (Amenmesse) ; KV11 (Ramesses Ill) ; KV15 (Sethos Il) ; KV47 (Siptah).
(17) Thomas, Necropoleis, 65 ; E Hornung, ZAeS 105 (1978), 59 ff.
(18) Cf. Hornung, ZAeS 105 (1978), 61, Tabelle l.
(19) Carter, JEA 3 (1916), 150; but cf. below, p. 49, n. 2.
(20) The lettering is that of Thomas, Necropoleis, 94, fig. 12.
(21) My thanks are due to Catharine Roehrig of the Berkeley Theban Mapping Project for generously supplying me with a copy of the as yet unpublished plan of this tomb, from which Fig. 4 has been redrawn; it should be noted that the dimensions as read from the plan vary slightly from the on-site measurements made by Hornung (above, note 18). The fact that the metre dimensions in Fig. 4 do not convert into whole cubits suggests, perhaps, that the cubit originally employed by the KV15 architect was nearer to 0.539 m than Carter`s mean of 0.523 m (above, note 19).
(22) If the ostracon could be re-examined the question of its find-spot might be resolved, since Ayrton seems to have marked a good proportion of the more important finds with the pertinent site code in ink or pencil. For a partial listing of these site designations, cf. Cerny, Ostraca hieratiques (1930-5), 126 ff., Index VI, and cf. the Davis expedition sketch map published by Romer, Valley, 245.
(23) Davis, Siptah, 11. Cf., for example, Cerny, Ostraca hieratiques, 82, CG 25766,95*, pl. 98, the context of which is considered in Reeves, MDAIK 40 (1984) (forthcoming).
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Fig.1. Ostracon Cairo, JE 51935. Entrance to KV2 (Ramesses IV) (Reproduced from Clarke - Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian Masonry)
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Fig. 2. Ostracon Cairo JE 51936. Chamber F, KV15 (Sethos II) (Reproduced from Clarke - Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian Masonry)
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Fig. 3. Drawing of Ostracon Cairo JE 51936
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Fig. 4. Chamber F, KV15 (Sethos II)
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