History of Deir el-Bahari cache

• 16 / 5 / 2023

Maritime monastery

Deir el-Bahri is an archaeological site and a complex of funerary temples and tombs, located on the Western Bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor in Egypt, it is a Bay of cliffs east of the valley of the Kings, one of the oldest and most famous Egyptian monuments, and includes three temples inside, the first for King Mentuhotep II, The Second Temple is the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and the third dates back to Thutmose III, these three temples are connected by long bridges, the site includes some other important 1075 and 656 BC the site of Deir el-Bahri was used as a private cemetery, Deir el-Bahri is part of the Theban Necropolis, named The maritime monastery is a reference to a monastery built on this place in the VII century AD, it is also called the northern monastery.

Monuments of the maritime monastery

The three temples located in Deir el-Bahri are its most famous archaeological monuments, dating back to the early Middle Kingdom until the Ptolemaic era, and the temple of Hatshepsut is the most famous of them. Below is a description of these three temples and other monuments located in the monastery:

Temple of Hatshepsut

The temple of Hatshepsut was built between 1473 and 1458 BC, and it is in much better condition than other temples, it is still preserved in its condition and construction, Hatshepsut is a queen who ruled Egypt, and is considered one of the most feared Queens in the civilization of ancient Egypt, after her husband King Thutmose II died, she became regent until the accession of his infant son Thutmose III to the throne, who would later become the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and Hatshepsut's rule of Egypt lasted about 22 years Hatshepsut is built of limestone, which makes it different from other temples built of sandstone, and the temple consists of three Terraces,  and in it a shrine to the god Amun, chapels to Anubis and Hathor, on the walls of which there are paintings and scenes depicting the birth of Hatshepsut.

Temple of nehbetri Mentuhotep II

there is an unfinished tomb and contains a seated statue of King Mentuhotep II, in addition to other monuments and statues belonging to Senusret III; The King of the Twelfth Dynasty, along with six funerary churches and columnar tombs built by the ancient Egyptians for the wives and daughters of the Pharaoh,  located in the temple is the oldest funerary Tomb.

Temple of Thutmose III

This temple was built in the last decade of the reign of King Thutmose III, i.e. around the year 1435-1425 BC, and apparently the temple was subjected to a strong earthquake at the beginning of the Twenty-First Dynasty that led to its destruction, but a large part of it is still standing today and the remains of walls covered with prominent decorations have been found, as for the design of the temple is similar to the design of other temples found in Deir el-Bahri, Thutmose III is a pharaoh and Ruler of Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty, ruled between 1479 and 1425 BC after his stepmother Hatshepsut, but as commander of the armies of Egypt during the reign of his stepmother, and after she died, he took over the rule after her.

Other attractions of the maritime monastery

Royal and non-royal tombs: Deir el Bahri includes tombs where kings and non-Kings were buried, so a cache containing forty royal mummies was revealed, and these mummies were likely transported from the valley of the Kings to this cache by the priests of the Twenty-First Dynasty, and mummies of Ramses I, Ramses II, Ramses IX and others were found.
Stone box: archaeologists have discovered a large stone box in Deir el-Bahri, dating back to 3,500 years ago, containing treasures along with three bundles of linen, one of which contains an ibis egg, which had a symbolic meaning for the ancient Egyptians, and in another package they found a small box with ornaments and bearing the name of King Thutmose II.

Temples of the maritime monastery

Deir el-Bahri is a grave area on the West Bank of the Nile opposite the ancient city of Thebes, Luxor, today, and is located north of it. Several rock-carved graves have been found in that area, including the newly found tomb of a cache in which 40 mummies were found. Deir el-Bahri is located in a mountainous area, and behind it is the Valley of the Kings, where the most famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt are located. Egyptian tourism also allows visitors to fly balloons over that spot and enjoy watching what is higher than the eras that preceded us by about 3,500 years.

Temple of Mentuhotep

The first to exploit that area was the pharaoh of Egypt Mentuhotep II of the eleventh dynasty, where he ordered the construction of a temple near his tomb, The temple of Mentuhotep is distinguished by its unique design, and at the same time, it is the first temple built on the West Bank of Thebes during the Middle Egyptian state.

The funerary temple itself consists of a front courtyard and an entrance gate, surrounded by walls on three sides, and a terrace on which stands a large square structure that may represent the primitive Hill that arose from the waters of chaos. In the eastern part of the front yard, there is an opening called the horse door leading to an underground passage, an unfinished tomb or a monument containing a seated statue of the King, on the West Side Tarifa and sycamore trees are planted next to the slope leading to the terrace, The worship of the dead king was concentrated on the small mausoleum located at the back of the column Hall.

The terrace-like structure on the terrace is surrounded by a colonnaded Rotunda along the Western Wall, where the figurative mausoleums and tombs of many wives and daughters of Kings were found. Although there are few remains of the King's burials, six coffins have been recovered from the tombs of the royal ladies Achait, Hahnant, Kawit, Kemsit, MoIT, and Sadhi. The room contained a mausoleum that once held the wooden sarcophagus of nehbepter Mentuhotep, a large tree-lined courtyard was reached by a processional bridge leading from the valley temple below the courtyard, a deep shaft was cut that led to unfinished rooms believed to have originally been a tomb of the King, a wrapped portrait of the Pharaoh was discovered in this area by Howard Carter, the temple complex also includes six funerary chapels and column tombs built for the wives and daughters of the Pharaoh.

This temple is located between the temples of Hatshepsut and the temple of Mentuhotep II in their background, which is much Smaller than them, and currently there are few remains of it. This temple was built on a high plateau relative to the other two temples, as there was no space between them to build his temple. according to the design of this temple of Thutmose III, its axis is exactly in the direction of the Karnak Temple located on the East Bank of the Nile.

Royal and non-royal cemeteries

The big surprise at Deir el Bahri was the discovery of the Tomb DB320 (also known as TT320) discovered by Ahmed Abdul Rasul in 1871, and the family kept the secret of its discovery of the tomb, which is from the twenty - one family. They were selling what they found little by little until the head of Egyptian Antiquities learned about this tomb. 

It was found in this cache Ramses I, Seti I, Ramses II, and Ramses IX. And in a separate room, the high priests of the Twenty-First Dynasty and the Pharaohs benjem I, benjem II, and Siamon were found. The discovery of the cache of mummies was filmed in the Egyptian film The Night of Counting the Years 1969.

In 1891, a larger cache of 153 mummies of the priests themselves was also found reburied in a cemetery on the site, known today as the spy's door or the priests ' door is also referred to as the priestly cache or the second cache, and the first recorded canopic jar with a human head. The second, the secret tomb of sennemut, sennemut's tomb was vandalized in ancient times, but some outstanding works of art are still intact, which was supposed to be a very large tomb with a length of more than 100 yards is equivalent to 92 meters, however, it was never completed and sennemut was not buried there, . There is a large area of non-royal tombs in this area called Sheikh Abdul Qurna.

In March 2020 archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, led by Andrzej Nowinski, discovered a treasure chest and a wooden box dating back 3500 years at the site of the Egyptian maritime monastery, the stone box contains several objects, all covered with linen cloth, three bundles of linen were found during the excavation, inside one of them was found a skeleton of a goose that was sacrificed for religious purposes, the second includes goose eggs, it is believed that what the third package contained was an ibis egg, and it had a symbolic meaning for the ancient Egyptians, in addition to so, a small wooden trinket box was discovered inside the package, it is believed that the box contains the name of Pharaoh Thutmose II, according to Andrzej Niwiński the box itself is about 40 cm long, with a slightly smaller height,