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Tomb 291 at Deir el-Medina

The Theban tomb 291 was discovered by the French Institute in the middle of its 1922 season. It is located in the north-western part of the main cemetery of Deir el-Medina, at an altitude of 115 m. It is about 90 m from the south-western corner of the enclosure wall of the main Ptolemaic temple.
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The owner of the tomb was Nakht-Min.
Late 18th dynasty
Nakht-Min's titles:  1. Servant in the Great Place
                                    2. Servant in the Place of Truth
The picture on the left is taken from the courtyard, looking west, the Theban hills are behind the tomb. The tomb shaft is visible in the foreground.
Below is the picture taken from behind the pyramidion of the of the tomb, looking east towards the settlement on the right, the temple enclosure wall in the distance on the left.
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Dating of the tomb

  The exact dating of the tomb is difficult.

  • The epigraphic style of this tomb is more elaborate and less cursive and is undoubtedly older than the style in the tombs of the 19th and 20th dynasties at Deir el-Medina

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  • he title "Servant of the Great Place" is more characteristic of the 18th dynasty than of the Ramesside period
     

  • The depiction of the god Amun is intact and is located in a prominent and visible position, suggesting that the tomb predates the reign of Akhenaten

 

  • The style of painting also provides good clues: the frieze consists of a series of lotus flowers alternating with bunches of grapes - an ornamental motif characteristic of the 18th dynasty

 

  • The human figures have large heads for the size of their bodies. The figure of the two women in the 2nd register of the west wall can be well studied because their transparent clothes show their silhouette: the stomach is too big, the thighs are round, the arms are slender. These characteristics do not correspond to the Ramesside style, but rather to the Amarna style. The painted reliefs of the tomb seem comparable in style to those of the tomb of Ay in the Western Valley

 

The now missing relief depicting the god Osiris in his shrine, the offering table and the person offering to the god can be seen in this picture. The graffito mentioned at the end of this page may be the one visible just above the lotus flowers on the offering table.
In view of all these chronological indications and stylistic similarities, Bruyère dated the tomb to the end of the 18th dynasty, or more precisely to the period immediately following the reign of Akhenaton.

The interior of tomb 291
I found a black and white picture of the interior of this tomb in a 1926 publication: to my horror the missing relief on the right side was still in place! The relief on the right (northern) side of the chapel had clearly been removed - cut out!
TT291_010-3.jpg
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The now missing relief depicting the god Osiris in his shrine with the offering table and the person offering to the god can be seen in this picture. The graffito mentioned at the end of this page may be the one visible just above the lotus flowers on the offering table.
The tomb belongs to the category of chapel tombs. It had the following layout: a small open courtyard at ground level,
a one-room vaulted chapel surmounted by a brick pyramid topped by a stone pyramidion, and a large funerary stele beyond. The vaulted chapel was very richly decorated. The shaft near the courtyard leads to the underground passage and two burial chambers.
A plan of the tomb of Nakht-Min, no. 291. Drawn by Lenka Peacock, after a
drawing of Bernard Bruyère, in Tombes Thebaines I. Tombe de Nakht-Min.
dem_tomb-4.jpg
In the chapel of the tomb a graffito in black ink echoes a 21st dynasty message left by Ankhefenamun, "a scribe of the Tomb", son of Butehamun.
"Yours is the West, ready for you, all blessed ones are hidden in it, sinners do not enter
nor any unjust. The scribe Butehamun has landed at it after an old age, his body being
sound and intact. Made by scribe of the Tomb Ankhefenamun".
To view and browse the digitised version of The Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings, (also known as Porter & Moss or TopBib) for this tomb, go to
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/topbib/pdf/pm1-1.pdf#page=392
Material for the Bibliography is gathered from an ever-expanding range of multi-lingual sources, encompassing both specialist and semi-popular Egyptological and Near Eastern publications, periodicals, museum guides, exhibition and auction catalogues, together with the growing wealth of web resources. The Bibliography also analyses a range of unpublished manuscripts, including those housed in the Griffith Institute Archive. Published in May 2014 by the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, the volumes are constantly revised and augmented.
The text on this page was written by Lenka Peacock
Photography © Lenka and Andy Peacock
With many thanks and gratitude to the late Douglas James Peacock for the translations of the French text
Sources:
1. Taylor, John H.: Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt London : British Museum Press, 2001.
2. Shaw, Ian: British Museum dictionary of ancient Egypt. London : British Museum Press, 1995.
3. Bruyere, Bernard : Tombes Thebaines. La Necropole de Deir el-Medineh. Tom 1. Cairo : 1926.
4. Černý, Jaroslav: A community of workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside period
Cairo : Institut Francais d'archeologie Orientale du Caire, 1973.
Further bibliography
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