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Valley of the Nobles. The Tomb of Amenemopet (TT-41)
The Tomb of Amenemopet (TT-41), is located on the west bank of the Nile opposite to the modern city of Luxor, between El-Kokha and Sheikh Abd el-Qurnah in the Theban Necropolis in the Valley of the Nobles.
Amenemopet lived in the period of the XIX Dynasty during the reign of Ramesses I, Seti I and Ramses II and was the Chief Administrator of Amun in the Southern City, the Supervisor of the granaries of the North and South and the Chief Prophet of Min and Isis.
Interest to his heritage arose almost 3 thousand years later when the British Egyptologist William John Bankes has purchased the granite sarcophagus of Amenemopet during his trip to Egypt in 1815 - 1819. The antropomorphic sarcofagus, made of red Aswan granite was brought to England to the castle of Kingston-Lacy in Dorset, where it is exposed until today in the cortyard of the castle.
Source: Kingston Lacy © National Trust / Simon Harris (http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk)
А French explorer, mineralogist and naturalist Frederic Cailliaud has visited the Tomb of Amenemopet in 1821 and copied almost all the inscriptions and drawings that have survived on the walls of the tomb. A few years later, British Egyptologist James Barton made exact copies of the drawings, using camera-lucida. The sketches of the tomb scenes were also done by such researchers as John Gardner Wilkinson, Jean-François Champollion, Ippolito Rosellini, Emile Prisse and Karl Richard Lepsius.
According to the researches of the American Egyptologist Theodore Davis, who sponsored excavations in Theban Necropolis, the massive destruction of the walls of the Tomb of Amenemopet occurred between 1820 and 1920, while the ancient tomb was used as a stable and also from the fires, happened inside of it's rooms from time to time. Moreover, two late burials of the Ptolemaic era have badly damaged the original interior of the tomb, which subsequently led to the destruction of the decor.
In the 1920s, a metal gate was installed at the entrance of the tomb and major restoration work under the auspices of the mission "Tombs of Ramessid Officials in the Theban Necropolis" was carried out. The German Egyptologist and historian Jan Assmann has headed five campaigns of restoring and cleaning of the tomb between 1979 and 1984, during which the Tomb of Amenemopet was carefully studied and documented.
Below are photographs of the interior of the tomb TT 41, made in April 2018 by the team of ISIDA Project researchers.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
SOURCES:
Author: Jan Assmann
Das Grab des Amenemope (TT 41)", in Theben III, Mainz, Von Zabern.
Year: 1991
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