Duauneheh

last update: 26.03.2008

Historical Data

Name Title   Origin Tomb
Duauneheh
_wAwj-r-nHH
1. Herold, Overseer of the Estate of Amun     TT125 (P&M I-1, 237; at Scheikh Abd el-Qurna)
Parents        
Father:         
Mother: Ta(u)runet        
Brother(s):        
none known        
Sister(s):        
none known        
P&M = Porter and Moss
 


Floor plan of the tomb of Duauneheh, TT125, at Scheikh Abd el-Qurna (P&M, Vol. I-1)

The tomb of Duauneheh, TT125, is located in the southern area of Scheikh Abd el-Qurna and consists of a transverse hall, a long corridor which ends up in a chapel with a niche. Today, the tomb is not only closed to the public but also there are obviously no new publications about it. Due to the references given in Porter and Moss, Vol. I-1, the last complete description was obviously published by Säve-Söderbergh, T., in "Private tombs at Thebes", Oxford Univ. Pr., 1957-1963. Therefore, no modern photos of the tomb are available.

The transverse hall impresses by a false-door on the left side wall (position 4) and a stela on the right side wall (position 8). Both, false-door and stela were directly hewn into the rock (Hermann, 1940). The stela in the transverse hall of the Theban rock-tomb of the New Kingdom was obviously the important place of "Offering Water" to the deceased - as illustrated the basin found in the tomb of Duauneheh in situ in front of the stela (see photo below).
 

Wall with stela (Position 8 in the floorplan of P&M), the photo shows the lower part of the wall with the basin for "Offering Water" in situ (photo: Hermann, 1940, plate 9b).


Among other the relief in the traverse hall show the deceased and his family, e.g. at the position 2 of the floorplan above the deceased is shown hunting hippopotamus (see photo above; from Säve-Söderbergh, 1958; plate I)


The passage to the chapel shows at positions 10 and 11 several registers with the funeral procession to the Goddess of The West (pos. 10), among them a relief with a teknu (see photo above, today in the Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum, Hildesheim, Germany), and the Abydos pilgrimage (pos. 11).


This relief with two offering bearers originates from first from two registers which are to be find on both sides of the doorway to the chapel (positions 15 and 16). Today this relief is exhibited in the collection of the Kestner-Museum, Hanover, Germany (No. 1935.200.175). Everyone of the men carries a container locked with ribbons. The inscription running vertical in front of each man describes the procedure:

right text - "Bringing the stj-Hb-oil for the First Speaker Duauneheh"

left text - "Bringing the Hknw-oil for the Chief of the factories at the temple of [Amun] Duauneheh".

.
In the left inscription the name of Amun has been chiseled away which, since e.g. the name of the tomb owner was not destroyed, points to the iconoclasts of the Amarna period - obviously up to this time the tomb of the Duauneheh was accessible and probably intact.


Among the decorations found in rock-tombs at Thebes the "ritual washing/cleaning" of the deceased is very rare. In this presentation the deceased is shown standing in an alabaster slab purified by priests pouring water and acclaimed by other priests. Although testified only in a few tombs (from that time only from the tombs of Pui-em-Re, TT39, and Amenmose, T42) the procedure was obviously not irrelevant as indicated by the huge number of priests participating (below). 

"Purification of the deceased on alabaster slab", purified and acclaimed by priests (position 20 in  the floorplan of P&M; photo: Hermann, 1940, plate VIc). The inscription accompanying this scene says "O Osiris Duauneheh, purified now you are in your rock-tomb" (Hermann, 1940).

Due to Hermann the inscription indicates that this ceremony was part of the introduction of the deceased into his tomb. By this ceremony the deceased took the possession of the tomb. Since the deceased was already mummified when he was introduced into the tomb the ceremony was "executed" on the mummy, although the scene shows him as a living person.

Niche in the chapel of TT125 with statues of deceased and two women (P&M position 21 in the floorplan above, with small painted figures between the legs of the statues ((photo: Hermann, 1940, plate Ib)

Part of the biography of Duauneheh, based an the German translation of Helck, Urkunden 17, No. 149, 1961:
....[I have been the overseer of all work] in the holy temple "r.j-Hr-mrw-[Imn], whose walls, pillars, and doors were made of ivory, ebony, and SSD-wood, with metal fittings of the finest gold of the foreign countries supplied by the southern foreign country, the favorite place of her father, the Lord of Gods, where many goods are aside to him and her garden, too. I watch closely and did not sleep; I did not miss what I had been asked to do. So I have been promoted to the Director of the Business, to lead the slaves, the herds, the fields, the gardens, endowed with real estates, calculated by efficiency, counted by it-grain, and calculated by bd.t-grain of the tribute given every year to the temple of Amun for life, [welfare, health of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, MAat-kA-Ra, may she live forever.

I have been in charge of the iwA-cattle, wnDw-cattle, Xt-aA-gees, Sd-geese which were innumerable, many supplies of the best of (?), white fabric, pk.t-fabric, fabric of any kind, [as well as things, which had been in charge of the Director of the Business, Director of the Barneries and the First Herold, Duauneheh, justified.



Copyright: Dr. Karl H. Leser (Iufaa)