Going underground – unearthing more burials at Amara West
Along with Michaela and Carina, I’m working in cemetery C at Amara West, currently in the western chamber of Grave 201.
This tomb has a central shaft and two chambers to the east and the west. It had already been partially excavated in 2009, but this year we removed the alluvium from above the western chamber, to avoid the possibility of it falling in while we were excavating.
A lot of the bones had been crushed by earlier collapse, but five articulated burials were found at the rear of the space. As they lay one on top of the other, I had to be very careful to separate them – finding a place to stand was the first issue, and then I could remove the more recent burials at the front, after recording them.
From the way the skeletons are arranged, it is possible to tell that some of the individuals had been tightly bound for burial. They were buried in an extended position, laid out with their hands beneath them and their feet crossed. In some cases, however, the binding was tight and thick, leading to bodies being placed face down, perhaps accidentally.
I didn’t find any traces of cloth, although some of the individuals had wood pieces associated with their remains, which may once have been a coffin or funerary bed.
In addition to wood fragments, three scarabs have been found in the grave – one individual had two faience scarabs associated with them, clutched in the left hand, and lying under the crushed skull.
One scarab bore the prenomen cartouche of Thutmosis III, a pharaoh of the mid-18th Dynasty, which is much earlier than the use of this cemetery for burials. However, objects like these were kept for long periods of time, and scarabs with this royal name were still being made centuries later.
The final task in this grave is drawing a cross-section of the chambers and shafts, and I have already started work in the eastern chamber of Grave 234, which is a similarly constructed chamber tomb.
Though the bones are again crushed, there is a large amount of relatively intact wood along the back of the chamber, and ceramic jars and bowls are visible at the sides and centre. One burial seems to have been placed in the chamber after it had already partially collapsed. It appears that there are at least 10 individuals in the chamber, so the excavation of Grave 234 will likely occupy the remainder of the season for Carina and I.
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