Shrine No. 6

Shrine No.	Name / Transliteration	Date	Distance to the Speos of Haremhab [~ m]	Remarks
6	Ahmose, JaH-msw	joined reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III	249

From right to left and side by side the shrines No.: 6 (Ahmose) and 7, both built during the joined reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III. Today both shrines are a few meters away from the river bank. (photo: E. Noppes)

The entrance of the shrine is largely damaged, both jambs have been destroyed almost entirely. What remains of both jambs indicate that the doorway was about 70 cm wide. The room behind the doorway is about 2.20 wide, 1.75 m deep and 1.75 m high.

The photo above shows the actual state of the door lintel, the drawing below was taken from Caminos (963). The lintel is divided into 4 registers carefully carved in incised relief.

The 1st register shows the usual winged sun-disk (BHdtj). Its name "[The] Behedeti, the great god" had been carved on either end.

The following three registers contain the titles of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III. All three registers are decorated around a central anx-sign. The destroyed titles of Hatshepsut occupy the north (right) sight of each register, the titles of Thutmosis III the south (left) side.

The titles of Hatshepsut read from top to bottom:

"Life [to] the Horus (fem.) 'Powerful of Ka (wsr.t-kAw)', the Two Ladies 'Flourishing of years (wADt-rnpwt)' ";

"Life [to] the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maat-ka-Ra (MAat-kA-Ra), beloved (fem.) of Amun-Ra";

"Life [to] the daughter of Ra, Hatshepsut, united-with-Amun (@At-Spswt-xnmt-jmn), may she live forever".

The titles of Thutmosis III. read from top to bottom:

"Life [to] the Horus 'Strong bull arising in Thebes', the Two Ladies 'Enduring of Kingship' ";

"Life [to] the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Men-kheper-Ra, beloved of Sobek, Lord of Silsilah";

"Life [to] the son of Ra, Thutmosis, beautiful-of-forms, may he live forever".

The decoration of the inner walls and the ceiling had been completely painted, only the text on the lintel of the doorway and the text surrounding the niche in the west wall hade been carved. All walls had been whitewashed and then the scenes were painted with yellow as the background color. The scenes are bordered with colored rectangles. All scenes are badly preserved, however, in most cases the accompanying inscriptions allow to identify the depicted persons.

The south wall (the photo above shows the actual condition, below the photo a drawing prepared by Caminos) shows on its west (right) side a couple seated before a table with offerings. The table and the offerings are more or less lost. The inscription above the couple identifies the man as Ahmose, the owner of the shrine, and his beloved wife ...Nufe (?).

On the east (left) side of the offering table a man is depicted with a raised hand making an invocation. The text above him suggests that he is proffering the usual text "...a boon which the king gives to ...".

The north (right) wall of the shrine shows on its west (left) side again a couple seated before a table with offerings. The remaining inscription above them starting with "A doubly pure boon which the king gives to...." identifies them as User (Woser) and his beloved wife, Aberui, who were most likely the parents of Ahmose.

The register below the couple shows three persons, a woman between two men, who can not be identified anymore - perhaps these were other children of the couple.

Cut into the middle of the rear (west) wall is a niche about 77 cm wide, 102 cm high, and at maximum 40 cm deep. The niche holds the statue of a man seated on a bench (see photo above). The statue is damaged but shows still some traces of a red paint.

The niche is surrounded by a framed inscription bearing incised hieroglyphs painted blue. The drawing above (prepared by Caminos) shows the inscribed frame and the remaining decoration of the west wall.

The horizontal inschription is divided into two parts and reads from the center to right (northern half):
"A boon which the king gives to Sobek, Lord of Silsilah" and from the center to the left:

"A boon which the king gives to Haroëris, Lord of Ombos".

Also the vertical inscriptions bear offering formulas, the one on the right (north) wall reads:
"A boon which the king gives to Osiris, that he may give an invocation-offering consisting of bread, beer, and all things good and pure to the spirit of the scribe of the nome, Ahmose".

The offering formula on the left (south) side reads:
"A boon which gives the king to all the gods of ta-meri, that they may give what is praised and what is loved to the spirit of the controller of works, Ahmose".

The panels on each side of the niche had been originally decorated with male and female offering-bearers, arranged in two registers one above the other. Today, only scanty traces have survived, but it seems that four offerings-bearers, two by two, had been depicted on each side.

The ceiling was prepared to be decorated but only the southern half has been finished. Die decorations consists of spirals alternately painted in brown and white with blue and green centers. Occasionally, the centers are surrounded by a circle of deep purple spots. The space between the spirals are also painted deep purple and contain little brown triangles.