Gttinger Miszellen 238 (2013): 19-24

On the burials and reburials of

Ahmose I and Amenhotep I
Aidan Dodson
University of Bristol
ABSTRACT
In the light of Astons recent demonstration (GM 236: 720) that TT320 was most
probably originally the tomb of Ahmes-Nefertiry, the long-standing equation of
Dra Abul-Naga B with her place of burial falls. It is therefore proposed to revert
to the earlier attribution of the tomb to Amenhotep I, but retaining the proposal
(Dodson, Studies Weeks, 2533) that the extension of the burial chamber should
be linked with a re-burial of Ahmose I following an interim interment in his
pyramid complex at Abydos.

he question of the burial place of Amenhotep I has been a subject of

discussion since the first publication of the description of his tomb in
pAbbott back in 1859.1 This located his tomb mH 120 m mDwt m pAy.st
aHay pA a-qAi xr.tw r.f mHt pr Imn-Htp a.w.s. n pA pA kAmw.2 The problem with this
is the lack of any unanimity over how aHay and pA a-qAi should be translated,
although both seem to imply some form of elevated elements.
For some years a leading candidate was a tomb behind Dra Abul-Naga
(dubbed AN B by Elizabeth Thomas fig. 1, with location at fig. 2),
investigated by Howard Carter in 1914.3 However, in more recent years AN
B has become generally accepted as the sepulchre of Amenhoteps

For an overview of the state of the debate down to the mid 1990s, see D. Polz,
The Location of the Tomb of Amenhotep I: A Reconsideration, in R.H.
Wilkinson (ed.), Valley of the Sun Kings: New Explorations in the Tombs of the
Pharaohs (Tucson: The University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition), 821, with
references. Excavation of KV39 (J. Rose, Tomb KV39 in the Valley of the Kings: A
double archaeological enigma [Bristol, 2000]) has now shown that this was most
likely a royal family tomb of the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty (cf. Dodson The burial
of members of the royal family during the Eighteenth Dynasty, in Z. Hawass
and L. Pinch Brock (eds), Egyptology at the dawn of the twenty-first century:
proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists [Cairo, 2003], II,
18889; D.A. Aston, TT 320 and the qAy of Queen Inhapi A Reconsideration
Based on Ceramic Evidence, GM 236 [2013], 1617), and is thus no longer a
candidate for the sepulchre of Amenhotep I.
2
pBM EA10221 recto 2.24.
3
B. Porter and R.L.B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian
Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, I: The Theban Necropolis. 2nd edition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press/Griffith Institute, 196064), 599600.

mother, Ahmes-Nefertiry,4 with Amenhotep Is tomb to be sought

elsewhere. The present writer accepted this attribution of AN B when he
proposed that the mummy of Ahmose I5 might have been reburied there
after its translation from an initial interment in Abydos.6 However, in a
recent number of the present journal, David Aston presented a
compelling case7 for equating the tomb of Ahmes-Nefertiry with TT320
the future Royal Cache near Deir el-Bahari.8 In light of this, there is a
need to look once again at the ownership of AN B.

FIG. 1
Plan and section of Dra Abul-Naga B
(adapted from H. Carter, Report on
the tomb of Zeser-ka-Ra Amenhetep I,
discovered by the Earl of Carnarvon in
1914, JEA 3 [1916], pl. xx).

Cf. Porter and Moss, Top. Bib., I, 599.

Although Nebpehtyre Ahmose has now been shown to be actually the second
king of the name, priority belonging to Senakhtenre Ahmose (S. Biston-Moulin,
Le roi Snakht-en-R Ahms de la XVIIe dynastie, gypte nilotique et
mditerranenne 5 [2012], 6171), for reasons of clarity it seems best to retain his
traditional ordinal, rather than re-number him (and Amasis of the 26th
Dynasty). Following the model adopted with the discovery of Akheperre
Osorkon of the 21st Dynasty, Senakhtenre thus becomes Ahmose the Elder.
6
A. Dodson, The Burials of Ahmose I, in Z. Hawass and S. Ikram (eds), Thebes
and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Kent R. Weeks (Cairo: Conseil Suprme des
Antiquits, 2010), 2533.
7
In particular correcting the dating of the pottery found in the tomb and the
presence there of the queens canopic jars: no other 18th/19th Dynasty royalty
cached in TT320 had anything of their funerary equipment brought with them.
8
Aston, GM 236, 720. I am most grateful to Dr Aston for an advance copy of
this paper and discussing the issues with me.
4

FIG. 2
Map of Dra Abul-Naga
(author).

The inscribed material from AN B comprises a mix of fragments of

stone vessels naming Ahmose I, Amenhotep I and Ahmes-Nefertiry,9
making the date of the tombs original occupation seemingly clear.10 They,
along with the scale of the tomb, also make its royal ownership difficult to
doubt. However, the presence of a mid-point protective shaft as part of
the plan has led to doubts as to the tombs date, since such a shaft is not
found in the Valley of the Kings until the reign of Thutmose III.11 On the
other hand, a shaft is present in TT358, the sepulchre of Amenhotep Is
wife Meryetamun,12 a tomb that also shares with AN B a shaft entrance, as
against the stairways found in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It may
thus simply be that TT358 and AN B represent the work of different
architects from those responsible for the first Valley of the Kings
sepulchres, with their feature of a protective shaft only subsequently
adopted for work in the Valley.
Along with the aforementioned inscribed material, AN Bs location was
a key aspect of its original identification with Amenhotep Is tomb,
certainly lying north of the temple of Amenhotep I and Ahmes-Nefertiry
in front of Dra Abul-Naga indeed almost on its north-south axis (see fig.
2). This would thus be the House of Amenhotep-of-the-Garden of
pAbbott although all extant data gives this building the name Mn-is(w)t.13

H. Carter, Report on the Tomb of Zeser-ka-ra Amenhetep I, discovered by the

Earl of Carnarvon in 1914, JEA 3 (1916), pl. xxi.
10
Cf. J. Romer, Royal tombs of the early Eighteenth Dynasty, MDAIK 32 (1976),
2034 and Polz, Sun Kings, 1112 on items of later date found in the tomb or
alleged to come from it.
11
Romer, MDAIK 32, 2045, suggests that the well was added (and the burial
chamber enlarged) in the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty to allow for a joint
reburial of Amenhotep I in with his mother, but given that this would surely
have required the emptying of the tomb first (the quarrying required can hardly
have been done while the queen still lay in the tomb in view of the dust
generated and scope for damage and robbery) this seems unlikely. In any case,
Romer made his proposal while TT358 was still misdated to the time of
Amenhotep II (cf. ibid. 19496).
12
Porter and Moss, Top. Bib., I, 421; on the tombs dating to the reign of
Amenhotep I, rather than II, see Z. Wysocki, The results of research,
architectonic studies and of protective work over the North Portico of the Middle
Courtyard in the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el Bahari, MDAIK 40 (1984), 338.
Reevess suggestion (Valley of the Kings: The decline of a royal necropolis [London:
Kegan Paul International, 1990], 1819) that the tomb might actually have been
that of Thutmose II seems unlikely at best.
13
C.C. Van Siclen, III, The Temple of Meniset at Thebes, Serapis 6 (1980), 183
207. It is worth noting, however, that this is the only one of the candidates for
4

As for AN Bs position vis vis that of Amenhoteps sepulchre in the order

of tombs Abbott itinerary, as Winlock long ago put it:14
The tomb of Amenophis I was that of the most prominent king and was
also the most inaccessible. The inspection was made in September, and
we may quite safely assume that the eleven officials, many of whom may
well have been old and corpulent, would prefer to puff their way up the
desolate little valley to the [a-qAi] before the sun shone down upon it in
the fierceness of full mid-day heat. The first tomb examined and the
findings dictated to the scribes, the commissioners and their
accompanying police scrambled down the hill to the second tomb,
nearly a mile away. With these two outlying tombs disposed of, [the
Seventeenth Dynasty royal tombs] lay on their direct path to Dr elBar, fully two miles distant. Therefore the party crossed its own tracks
and followed along the foot of the Dir Abu'l-Nag, visiting the little
pyramids in their list until they reached the great avenues leading to the
temples of Zeseret, where lay the last remaining tomb which they had to
examine.
In this, AN B scores over most of the other candidates, all of which
require the itinerary to be subverted to some greater or lesser degree. On
the other hand, the unlikelihood of Carters attempt to make the pAbbott
120 cubits below the a-qAi notation relate to the interior dimensions of the
tomb, rather than its position in the landscape, has often been used to
condemn the tomb as a candidate for Amenhotep Is. However, as
Nicholas Reeves has pointed out,15 there are various cairns extant on the
vicinity of the tomb, one of which, or one now lost, could have been the
point of reference for the pAbbott commissioners in locating the tomb of
Amenhotep I.16
Also on the same north-south axis from the Amenhotep I/AhmesNefertiry temple is the rock-cut tomb-chapel K93.11 at the top of Dra
Abul-Naga, Daniel Polzs favoured candidate for Amenhotep Is tomb.17
the pAbbott house both definitely belonging to Amenhotep I and demonstrably
likely to have still been extant during the late New Kingdom.
14
H.E. Winlock, The Tombs of the Kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty at
Thebes, JEA 10 (1924), 22324.
15
Valley of the Kings, 5.
16
Polzs objections (Sun Kings, 1213) do not allow for changes in the landscape
since the New Kingdom, nor the possibility that a system of markers did indeed
exist to allow navigation by the necropolis authorities.
17
Polz, Der Beginn des Neuen Reiches: zur Vorgeschichte einer Zeitenwende (Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 17297.
5

However, no material contemporary with the king appears to have been

recovered from the tomb, while the extensive building-work at the tomb
and the adjacent K93.12 by the high priests of Amun Ramesesnakhte and
Amenhotep G and the Gods Wife of Amun Iset E18 all active during the
reign of Rameses IX sits uneasily with it being the sepulchre of
Amenhotep I reported by pAbbott as being intact in Year 16 of the ninth
Rameses. While one could argue that the rebuilding was not intended as a
private usurpation, but rather as a new memorialisation of Amenhotep I,
since the inner rooms seem to have been untouched by the
reconstruction, the extant fragments of the latter do not seem to support
such a conclusion.
Accordingly, it seems most likely that AN B was indeed the tomb of
Amenhotep I. An interesting feature is that the burial chamber was
apparently constructed in two phases, to judge from the discontinuity in
the walls in line with the further pillar, which is also smaller than the
nearer example (fig. 2). The present writer had previously suggested, in the
context of the tomb being that of Ahmes-Nefertiry, that this might have
been done to make space for a reburial of Ahmose I from his tomb at
Abydos.19 The reasoning behind this proposal remains valid in spite of the
changed suggested ownership of AN B and, in view of the unlikelihood
that renewed quarrying would have taken place subsequent to the
interment of Amenhotep I, it would place the putative translation of
Ahmose Is body from Abydos within the reign of Amenhotep I, perhaps
with a view to his re-interment at the time of the younger kings own
funeral.

18

Polz, The Ramsesnakht Dynasty and the Fall of the New Kingdom: A New
Monument in Thebes, SAK 25 (1998.), 25793; U. Rummel, Grab oder Tempel?
Die funerre Anlage des Hohenpriesters des Amun Amenophis in Dra Abu elNaga (ThebenWest) in D. Kessler (ed.) TexteThebenTonfragmente: Festschrift
fr Gnter Burkard, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 34860; id. Two Re-Used
Blocks of the Gods Wife Isis at Deir el-Bakhit/Dra Abu el-Naga (Western
Thebes), in M. Collier and S. Snape (eds), Ramesside Studies in Honour of K.A.
Kitchen (Bolton: Rutherford Press, 2010), 42331; id. Ramesside tomb-temples at
Dra Abu el-Naga, Egyptian Archaeology 42 (2013), 1417.
19
Dodson, Studies Weeks.
6