The Tombs of the Nobles at Thebes

While the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were being buried in the hidden chambers of the Valley of the Kings, the officials who served them were being buried in painted tombs cut into the cliffs of the Theban hills. These Tombs of the Nobles are among the most important sources we have for the daily life, the religious beliefs, and the artistic conventions of the New Kingdom. The walls of more than four hundred tombs have been preserved, decorated with scenes of agriculture, of feasting, of hunting, of offering, and of judgment in the afterlife.

The term “nobles” is a modern convenience. The Egyptians buried in these tombs were not aristocrats in the European sense. They were high officials of the state: viziers, treasurers, high priests, generals, scribes, and overseers. They were the bureaucratic class that ran the New Kingdom state, and their tombs reflect both their status and the Egyptian conviction that the afterlife was available to anyone who could afford a proper burial.

The Location of the Tombs

The Theban west bank is a desert plateau cut by a series of wadis. The cliffs at the edge of the plateau, facing the Nile, were the favored location for the non-royal tombs. The most important sites are at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, at Deir el-Medina, and at Qurnet Murai. The cliffs are made of soft limestone, easy to cut but subject to erosion, and the tombs often lie in tiered rows above the floodplain.

The site of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna is particularly important. The cliffs there contain the tombs of viziers, treasurers, and high priests from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. The most famous tombs include those of Senenmut, the architect of Hatshepsut; Useramun, the mayor of Thebes and overseer of Upper Egypt; and Neferrenpet, the high priest of Amun. The decoration of these tombs is among the most refined in Egyptian art.

The site of Deir el-Medina is the location of the workmen’s village, where the artisans who built the royal tombs lived with their families. The tombs of the community, cut into the surrounding hills, are smaller and simpler than those at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, but they are also more numerous. They give us a vivid picture of the lives of the men who built the royal tombs and who decorated them with some of the most beautiful art in Egyptian history.

The Architecture of the Tombs

A typical Theban noble’s tomb consisted of a courtyard cut into the cliff, with a portico and a T-shaped or L-shaped inner chamber. The courtyard was used for offerings, and the inner chamber was the burial and ritual space. The walls of the inner chamber were plastered, painted, and inscribed with the funerary literature and with scenes of the deceased’s life.

The plan of the tomb is itself a theological statement. The T-shape is sometimes interpreted as a representation of the primordial mound of creation, with the crossbar representing the upper world and the stem representing the passage to the underworld. The entrance of the tomb is often aligned to a particular direction, and the position of the offering niche is meant to face the sun.

The construction of the tomb was the work of a team of craftsmen, often the same men who worked on the royal tombs at the Valley of the Kings. The work was done on a contract basis, with the tomb owner paying the craftsmen in goods and in land. The most elaborate tombs could take several years to complete, and the decoration was often done after the burial, with the tomb owner shown as if already deceased.

The Decoration: Scenes of Daily Life

The walls of the noble’s tombs are covered with scenes of daily life, scenes that, at first glance, seem to have little to do with the afterlife. The deceased is shown presiding over the harvest, supervising the granaries, hunting in the marshes, sailing on the Nile, receiving foreign tribute, and sitting at a banquet with his family.

The function of these scenes is to ensure that the deceased could continue to enjoy these activities in the afterlife. The Egyptian vision of the afterlife was concrete: the deceased would continue to farm, to hunt, to sail, and to feast, just as he had done in life. The tomb walls, painted with these activities, were a kind of magical insurance: by depicting the action, the Egyptians ensured that the action would continue in the next world.

The scenes of daily life are also a record of the deceased’s status. The most elaborate tombs show the deceased presiding over international trade, receiving foreign tribute, and accompanying the king on military campaigns. The visual program of the tomb was a statement of identity: who the deceased was, what he had done, and how he expected to be remembered.

The Decoration: Religious Scenes

In addition to scenes of daily life, the tombs contain religious scenes that depict the deceased in the presence of the gods. The deceased is shown making offerings to Osiris, to Ra, to Anubis, to Hathor, and to other deities. The most elaborate religious scene is the weighing of the heart, in which the deceased is shown being judged in the Hall of Ma’at.

The religious scenes are particularly important for understanding the Egyptian vision of the afterlife. The deceased is shown passing through the gates of the underworld, navigating the dangers of the night, and emerging into the presence of the gods. The scenes are usually accompanied by spells from the Book of the Dead and from other funerary texts.

The religious program of the noble’s tomb is closely related to that of the royal tomb, but it is more compact and more accessible. The noble’s tomb contains, in essence, a summary of the royal tomb’s program, scaled to the budget and the needs of a non-royal owner.

The Funerary Texts in the Noble’s Tombs

The most important texts in the noble’s tombs are the Book of the Dead, the Amduat, the Book of Gates, and the Litany of Ra. The Book of the Dead is the most common, often inscribed on papyri and placed in the coffin, and sometimes also inscribed on the tomb walls. The other texts are usually inscribed on the walls.

The choice of texts depended on the wealth of the tomb owner, the skill of the scribes, and the religious preferences of the period. The earliest noble’s tombs, from the early Eighteenth Dynasty, often have only the opening of the mouth spell and a few offering formulae. The later tombs have more elaborate texts, sometimes including the entire Book of the Dead.

The text of the noble’s tomb was meant to be read in a particular order, beginning with the entrance and proceeding into the inner chamber. The reader would encounter the offering scene, the daily life scenes, the religious scenes, and the final judgment, a visual program that recapitulated the entire Egyptian vision of death and the afterlife.

The Offering Formula and the Sustenance of the Dead

The most important text in the noble’s tomb is the offering formula, the ḥtp-di-nsw, “an offering which the king gives.” The formula was a request to the king (or to the gods) to provide offerings of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, alabaster, and linen to the deceased. It was usually inscribed at the entrance of the tomb or on the offering niche, and it was often accompanied by a list of the specific offerings to be provided.

The offering formula was a magical act. To speak the formula was to ensure that the offerings would be made; to inscribe it was to ensure that the deceased would receive them. The formula was also a social statement: only those with the appropriate status could be the subject of such a request, and the size of the offering was a measure of the deceased’s importance.

The Statue of the Deceased

A particularly important feature of the noble’s tomb is the statue of the deceased. The statue was placed in a niche, sometimes called a serdab, in the inner chamber. The statue was a substitute for the mummy: if the body was destroyed, the statue could receive the offerings on behalf of the deceased. The statue was also a point of contact between the living and the dead: relatives could come to the tomb, recite the offering formula, and the deceased, present in the statue, would receive the offering.

The statues of the nobles are among the most beautiful works of Egyptian art. The most famous is the statue of Senenmut, the architect of Hatshepsut, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The statue shows the deceased in a simple kilt, with his name and titles inscribed on the base. The pose is calm, the expression is serene, and the craftsmanship is exquisite.

The Family and the Tomb

The noble’s tomb was not just a place for the deceased. It was also a place for the family. The family is shown in the tomb paintings, participating in the offering, in the banquet, and in the rituals. The wife is often shown seated at the banquet table, and the children are shown making offerings to their parents. The tomb was, in this sense, a family monument, intended to perpetuate the family across generations.

The family aspect of the tomb is also seen in the location. The noble’s tomb is often placed near the tombs of his ancestors, and the inscriptions often mention the parents, the grandparents, and the ancestors of the deceased. The tomb is a way of linking the family to the land, to the gods, and to the eternal cycle of life and death.

The Decline of the Noble’s Tomb

The Theban noble’s tomb was a feature of the New Kingdom, and it declined with the end of that period. By the Twenty-first Dynasty, the high priests of Amun had taken over much of the country from a base at Thebes, and the central administration had moved elsewhere. The noble’s tomb did not entirely disappear, but the elaborate tradition of painted tombs at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna came to an end.

The late period tombs, particularly those of the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties at sites like Thebes and Abydos, are often simpler in form but more elaborate in decoration. The late period saw the rise of the “archaizing” style, in which the artists imitated the forms of the Old Kingdom and the early New Kingdom.

The Modern Study of the Tombs

The Tombs of the Nobles have been studied since the early nineteenth century, and they have been the subject of intensive investigation by the Theban Tomb Project and by other archaeological missions. The tombs are fragile and have been subject to damage from flooding, from salt crystallization, and from human action. Several have had to be closed to the public to preserve their decoration.

The study of the tombs is not just a matter of art history. The texts inscribed on the walls are important for the history of the Egyptian language, for the study of Egyptian administration, and for the reconstruction of the religious beliefs of the New Kingdom. The scenes of daily life are important for the history of agriculture, of craftsmanship, and of daily life. The names of the tomb owners are important for the reconstruction of the genealogy of the New Kingdom official class.

The Tombs in Modern Egypt

The Tombs of the Nobles are a major tourist attraction, and several are open to the public. The tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens is the most famous, but the tombs at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna and at Deir el-Medina are also well known. The Egyptian authorities have worked hard to preserve the tombs, and several have been restored with the help of international partners.

The Tombs of the Nobles are, in many ways, the most accessible part of the Egyptian past. They were built by people who are not remembered in the great monuments, and they show us the lives of the people who made the monuments possible. The paintings on the walls are a vivid record of the daily life of the New Kingdom, and they remain a powerful witness to a civilization that took both life and death with the utmost seriousness.