Temples, houses, and tombs, animal worship and human necropolis – Tuna el-Gebel is a fascinating site located about 270 km south of Cairo and 10 km west of the ancient city of Hermopolis Magna, a metropolis of Middle Egypt. For more than 100 years archaeologists have attempted to discover the secrets in the sand of the desert. Most of the buildings belong to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods between 300 BC and 300 AD.
Some of the tomb houses excavated by Sami Gabra as well as their associated parts of buildings with wall paintings, photographically documented by Bernd Harald Krause, are now digitally available as datasets in Arachne.
The Petosiris-necropolis
Tuna el-Gebel, Petosiris-necropolis, GB 1 (NLM-Tuna-001)
© Projekt Tuna el-Gebel
Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover.
To the south of the site a large cemetery is located, the so-called Petosiris-necropolis. After the erection of cult sites for the god Thoth, especially active during the Ptolemaic period, around 300 BC the first tombs were erected in this area. Built of local shell-limestone and having a temple-like structure, the excavator Sami Gabra called them `temple tombs´. The most famous being the tomb of Petosiris, a Lesonis priest of the god Thoth.
The early Roman period, if not before, saw the building of the first mud brick tombs at the site called `house tombs´ according to the material and the design. While the stone tombs had one story only, the later tombs built of mud brick had up to four different levels constructed one after the other. Not only is the horizontal expansion interesting, but also the vertical development of the necropolis is extraordinary. The ‘material turn’ in Tuna el-Gebel is marked by the change from stone to mud brick used for the later buildings, obviously a lower cost alternative compared to stone monuments.
As a result of the new building technique, the accumulation of tombs in the cemetery increased, and more and more people were buried here. Instead of stone monuments for a single person of high social rank, the mud brick buildings now offered a cheaper (and faster) alternative, with burial space for numerous individuals. Therefore the use of different building material not only had a religious significance but also a social one. As a consequence, the necropolis developed in a city-like layout from north to south, with the tomb of Petosiris at its core.
Tuna el-Gebel, Petosiris-Necropolis, Map of excavation area. © Projekt Tuna el-Gebel – Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover.
Initially, the theory of the excavator Sami Gabra seems plausible, that the so-called temple tombs belonged to the Ptolemaic period, while the tombs built of mud brick were not earlier than the Roman period. Our studies, however, have shown that this is only partially true: there are certainly tombs built of stone belonging to the Roman period, and it is also possible that the first mud brick tombs were built during the reign of the Ptolemies.
Not only the architecture changed considerably but we also observe a development from Egyptian themes to Roman iconography. Like the stone tombs of Petosiris and Padjkam, the first funerary houses built at the site also display Egyptian rituals and gods. During the 2nd and 3rd century AD, however, Greek mythological scenes and imitations of precious stones such as alabaster and porphyry dominate the decoration of the tombs.
Tuna el-Gebel, Petosiris-Nekropole,
Rekonstruktion der Vorhalle von GB 16
mit Wandmalereien.
© Projekt Tuna el-Gebel
Landesmuseum Hannover.
Tuna el-Gebel, Petosiris-Nekropole,
Rekonstruktion des Hauptraums von GB 16
mit Wandmalereien.
© Projekt Tuna el-Gebel
Landesmuseum Hannover.
A recent geophysical survey conducted by the Institute of Geophysics of Kiel University has provided new insights about the area. While in the northern sector two broad streets with several narrow by-roads lead from the Nile valley to the sanctuary of Thoth and its underground galleries, the southern sector, the so-called necropolis of Petosiris, is situated south of a processional way leading to a temple with a saqiya in its courtyard, a water well of the Roman period.
The survey came to the conclusion that only about 10 % of the area have been excavated and that the unexplored area of the necropolis covers about 20 hectares. It is therefore one of the largest Graeco-Roman necropoleis in Egypt known so far.
History of excavation and exploration
Many of the unprovenanced mummy masks housed in museums worldwide were likely found at Tuna el-Gebel during the 19th century.
The official archaeological exploration of the site, however, started only at the beginning of the 20th century. After a first season led by M. A. Gombert from the Institut Français d´Archéologie Orientale (IFAO) in 1902/03, a survey of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG) by W. Honroth followed in 1913. In only ten days of exploratory excavation, he found different types of tombs constructed during the Roman period. In only ten days of exploratory excavation, he found different types of tombs constructed during the Roman period. In 1919, the tomb of Petosiris was found, excavated, and reconstructed within two years.
From 1931 to 1952 Sami Gabra, professor at Cairo University, excavated at Tuna el-Gebel. Throughout his first years, he concentrated his investigations on the necropolis south of the tomb of Petosiris, while in the 1940s, he started to explore the underground galleries full of animal burials.
Mummy mask of a man from Tuna el-Gebel
aus Tuna el-Gebel
© DAI Kairo
(D-DAI-KAI-F-7197_215234)
Further excavations have been carried out by Alexander Badawy since 1949. It focused on the temple of Thoth with a saqiya in its second court and on the southeastern area of the necropolis, discovering among other things the now destroyed `Graffiti Chapel´.
In the 1970s two German teams started to work at Tuna el-Gebel. While Dieter Kessler from Munich University explored the northern sector, concentrating on the underground galleries and their aboveground structures, the team of Günther Grimm, Bernd Harald Krause, and Michael Sabottka from Trier University surveyed the southern sector with the necropolis around the tomb of Petosiris. The results of this project remained unpublished.
Since 2005 another German team of the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, and since 2011 of the Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover, guided by Katja Lembke, has continued the work of Trier University. Thanks to the assistance of land surveyors and architects from Cottbus University and geophysicists from Kiel University, the team has been able to draw a map for the entire site, including the unexcavated areas and a detailed plan of the architectural development.
In 2017, under the direction of Katja Lembke the interdisciplinary project “Celebrating with the dead. Concepts of space and funeral rituals in the necropolis of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel” started with grants of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This project combines methods of archaeology, geophysics, and land surveying. Since 2018, excavations have taken place at the site in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (Egypt).
The Krause Archive
After his time as scientific speaker at the Cairo Department of the German Archaeological Institute, Günther Grimm was professor of Classical Archaeology at Trier University from 1975 until his retirement in 2008. His main research area was Graeco-Roman Egypt.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, he successfully obtained third party funding from the DFG for a field research project at Tuna el-Gebel, in which Michael Sabottka and Bernd Harald Krause were significantly involved. While the architect and building researcher Michael Sabottka dealt with the stone buildings, it was Bernd Harald Krause´s task to document the mud brick graves with their wall paintings.
Tuna el-Gebel, Excavation team, late 1980s.
In the first row right of center B. H. Krause with drawing pad and pencil.
© Projekt Tuna el-Gebel – Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover.
His comprehensive documentation remained unpublished, including an extensive photo archive stored at the Archaeological Institute of Trier University, which Günther Grimm handed over to Katja Lembke in 2004 for processing and publication after the death of Bernd Harald Krause. This archive is now published within the datasets of the necropolis of Tuna el-Gebel.
The illustrator of the institute, Ulrike Denis, was also involved in the project. Under the guidance of Günter Grimm and Bernd Harald Krause, she reconstructed numerous wall paintings in the tomb houses. This documentation also remained unpublished but it is now digitally available through Arachne as well.
