Chapter 7

The Third Intermediate Period

The Twenty-first Dynasty

The end of the New Kingdom marked a fundamental change in both the Egyptian state itself and royal burial arrangements. First, the unity of the country fluctuated with time. Upper Egypt (and Thebes) had its own king for a time at the beginning of the new Third Intermediate Period, and eventually became a separate state for over a century. Other parts of the country also became independent polities from time to time.¹ Second, the role of Western Thebes as the default royal cemetery ended. Although the royal residence had been moved definitively to the north under Rameses II, royal corpses were still returned to the ancient burial ground at Thebes for burial (although neither Rameses X nor XI seem ever to have been interred in their Valley of the Kings tombs). Now, each royal residence-city would have its own royal necropolis.

At the beginning of the Twenty-first Dynasty, two former high priests of Amun, Herihor and Panedjem I, successively obtained royal titles in Thebes. Nothing is known of Herihor’s posthumous fate, although the body of his wife, Nedjmet A, was eventually reburied in TT320.² Similarly, the mummy of Panedjem I, in an extensively reworked coffin of Thutmose I, was also found in that cache, together with those of his own wife, Henttawy A, and offspring Masaharta and Maatkare A (respectively high priest and God’s Wife of Amun),³ but without evidence of their primary sepulchre(s). As noted above, Panedjem seems to have contemplated the appropriation of Rameses XI’s unused KV4, but did not go so far as to complete doing so. Since no material referable to Herihor’s tomb has ever come to light, it is likely that the tomb remains untouched. Similarly, the burial places and funerary equipment of the Twenty-first Dynasty Theban high priests Menkheperre, Djedkhonsiufankh I, Nesibanebdjedet II and Pasebkhanut III/IV are also unknown, suggesting that a highest status cemetery of the period remains hidden somewhere in the Theban hills – conceivably in the little-explored southern wadis where, however, there is graffiti-evidence of Twenty-first Dynasty interest.

For the Twenty-first Dynasty and the first part of the Twenty-second Dynasty, however, the primary king of Egypt ruled from the city of Tanis (San el-Hagar) in the northeastern Delta. Because the topography of the Delta did not provide for the desert cemeteries found in the Nile valley, and exemplified on a monumental scale by the Memphite and Theban necropoleis, Delta necropoleis had been placed on relatively high ground within settlement zones, in particular within temple precincts, since the earliest times.⁴ Thus, at Tanis the substructures of the royal tombs were built from masonry in back-filled cuttings in the ground within the enclosure of the Great Temple of Amun (fig. 24; pl. LXVIb). It seems likely that chapels of mudbrick were erected on the surface above them, but any traces of these were destroyed without record when the tombs were excavated. To judge from later tombs of similar form at Thebes (p. 117, below), such superstructures would have resembled miniature temples; it is conceivable that these might have incorporated small pyramids, often found as part of such ‘temple-tombs’ during the New Kingdom.⁵

The first king to rule from Tanis was Nesibanebdjedet (Smendes) I, and although the only known traces of Nesibanebdjedet I’s burial are a pair of his canopic jars, obtained on the antiquities market,⁶ it seems certain that he was the original owner of NRT-I in the Tanite necropolis which was, on the basis of its location, the earliest of the royal tombs built there (part of its north wall had been cut back to make room for the adjacent monument of Nesibanebjedet’s successor).⁷ However, NRT-I was later usurped and rebuilt by the Twenty-second Dynasty king Osorkon II (see pp. 110-12, below).

There appears to be no doubt as to Pasebkhanut I’s original ownership of tomb NRT-III,⁸ a structure built of limestone, with the exception of two granite burial chambers, and decorated in relief. Entry was by way of a shaft (fig. 24/III[1]) at the eastern end of the tomb, which led into an antechamber (2). On the north and west walls (pl. LXXVIIa), processions of genii surmounted scenes of the king offering to Osiris and Isis while, on the east, Pasebkhanut offered to Re-Horakhty, above which scene was a series of demons.⁹ In the south wall, a doorway surrounded by bands of texts led to a chamber almost completely filled with a sarcophagus intended for the king’s son, Ankhefenmut (3); this was evidently never used, the prince’s disgrace being suggested by the erasure of his figures, names and titles from the walls of his chamber, where he had been depicted adoring the gods. Directly to the east lay another chamber, completely embedded in masonry and accessible only from above (4). Here was found the untouched burial of the General Wendjebaendjed, lying inside granite, gilded wood and silver coffins, a gold mask on his face. On the walls of the chamber, the favoured courtier did homage to Osiris, Horakhty and Apis. His coffin had been made for a Nineteenth Dynasty Third Prophet of Amun Amenhotep and, like many such items found at Tanis, had been salvaged from a plundered Theban tomb for re-use in the north.

Two concealed doorways in the west wall of the antechamber, sealed with granite plugs and then covered with limestone reliefs, gave access to a pair of parallel chambers, prepared for Pasebkhanut himself (5) and his wife, Mutnedjmet (6). The king’s burial was found intact, with his canopic jars and the debris of their chest at the foot of the sarcophagus, together with shabtis, whose boxes had decayed in the humidity of the tomb, vessels of metal and stone, and the skeleton of an animal, whether a sacrifice or a pet. On the rear wall of the chamber, the dead king was depicted as a mummy before a table of offerings. The sarcophagus, as noted above, had been usurped from Merenptah, while the black granite anthropoid coffin found within proved likewise second-hand. The silver inner coffin was, however, an original, together with the gold mask and mummy-board over the mummy within – reduced by the damp to a skeleton.

Mutnedjmet’s chamber, while unrobbed, held not her burial, but that of Pasebkhanut I’s successor, Amenemopet. That this was his primary burial is suggested by the fact that the doorway leading to the chamber from the antechamber had been filled with blocks carved with a scene of Amenemopet designed to match the adjacent decoration of Pasebkhanut: a significantly later reburial is unlikely to have taken such care. Amenemopet’s name now replaced the queen’s on the lid of her sarcophagus and on her chamber’s wall, where it now incongruously accompanied Mutnedjmet’s carved female figure. It is possible that Mutnedjmet was actually buried in Amenemopet’s original tomb, NRT-IV (see just below), as remains of a coffin were found there.¹⁰

Amenemopet’s burial was less rich than that of Pasebkhanut I, the coffin being of gilded wood, rather than silver, with the gold mask that covered the decayed mummy’s face far less massive than that of the earlier king. At the foot of the sarcophagus stood the canopic jars and other vessels, while beside it were the remains of a further gilded coffin, bearing Amenemopet’s name. Perhaps too large to fit into the borrowed sarcophagus, the coffin may have been simply dumped. Amenemopet had previously constructed NRT-IV, a small tomb of but one chamber just to the west, containing a Middle Kingdom sarcophagus reinscribed for the king.¹¹

Nothing is known of the burial of the next king, Osorkon the Elder, but the last two kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty, Siamun and Pasebkhanut II were buried in the antechamber of NRT-III, on a low podium erected directly outside the burial chamber of Pasebkhanut I. Each burial comprised no more than the mummy and a gilded wooden coffin, plus usurped canopic jars, but both bodies and coffins were utterly decayed when found, the attribution of the interments being possible only on the basis of shabtis belonging to the kings that lay nearby.¹²

Royal Family tombs of the Twenty-first Dynasty

As noted above, the tomb of Pasebkhanut I incorporated burial places for a wife and a son, but nothing else is known of royal family burial arrangements in Tanis during the Twenty-first Dynasty. At Thebes, as has also been noted, the original burial places of the two local kings and their wives are unknown, but those of some of the offspring of Panedjem I are known from primary burials.¹³

Like those of lesser families of the period, these did not take place in purpose-built individual tombs, but in collective and/or reused sepulchres. Thus, Djedmutesankh A (possibly the wife of the High Priest of Amun Djedkhonsiufankh, son of Panedjem I) and Henttawy B (daughter of Panedjem I) and Henttawy C (daughter of High Priest Menkheperre, another son of Panedjem I) were buried together in a small tomb at Deir el-Bahari (MMA60).¹⁴ A further likely daughter of Panedjem I, Nauny, was buried in the outer part of TT358,¹⁵ the old Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Meryetamun B, wife of Amenhotep I (p. 79, above), which lay close to MMA60 and a number of other tombs of similar date

Although not kings, the high priests of Amun during the Twenty-first Dynasty were all descendants of Panedjem I – who was also the father of King Pasebkhanut I at Tanis. Only one original burial place of any high priest is known – Panedjem II, grandson of Panedjem I; in this he was accompanied by his two wives, a daughter and a son-in-law. This tomb, TT320 just south of Deir el-Bahari, appears to have been cut in the early Eighteenth Dynasty as the sepulchre of Queen Ahmes-Nefertiry, (p. 79, above), whose body was allowed to remain in the company of the new occupants.

As already noted, when found in modern times TT320 also contained a large number of New Kingdom kings, members of the royal family and a number of other individuals, together with some of the royal/high priestly family of the first half of the Twenty-first dynasty. The date of introduction of these bodies has been a matter of debate, but it seems most likely that Panedjem II and his family were interred between the reigns of Siamun (when the high priest himself and one wife were definitely buried, as evidenced by dockets) and Shoshenq I (by dated linen on the mummies of Panedjem II’s daughter and son-in-law) in the innermost part of the tomb, with the earlier royal mummies added subsequently.¹⁶ However, another suggestion has been that the bulk of the royal mummies were placed in TT320 before the Panedjem II group began to be buried in the tomb, with only a small group of royal mummies added later.¹⁷

The Twenty-second Dynasty

No trace of actual tombs belonging to the first kings of the next, Twenty-second, Dynasty have been indentified at Tanis. Later tradition linked the new line with the city of Bubastis (Tell Basta), and it is not impossible that a new royal necropolis was founded there.¹⁸ On the other hand, other sites are possible, with suggestions including another area at Tanis itself, Herakleopolis, and the precinct of Ptah at Memphis, both of which latter sites later received high status burials of the period. Indeed, Memphis hosted a ‘House of Millions of Years of Shoshenq-meryamun’ – by its name apparently a mortuary establishment of the dynastic founder, Shoshenq I.¹⁹ One clue is that a body probably originally buried in this ‘new’ cemetery was later reburied at Tanis, and showed clear indications that it had lain for a while in standing water (see just below) – for which there is no evidence in the known tombs at Tanis. It also suggests that the ‘new’ necropolis may have ultimately been abandoned owing to flooding problems.

Nevertheless, the canopic chest of Shoshenq I survives – unfortunately having come from the antiquities market with no evidence for its original provenace.²⁰ The chest is interesting in that it was clearly inspired by prototypes of the mid-New Kingdom, and has no obvious Third Intermediate Period parallels. Since the reign of Shoshenq I probably saw the final reburials of New Kingdom pharaohs in the TT320 cache (see p. 109, above) one wonders whether his canopic chest was based on a piece seen or retrieved by reburial commissioners at this time.

Datable by the formulation of his names to the first part of the Twenty-second Dynasty is King Shoshenq IIa, although his exact place in the royal succession remains problematic.²¹ His coffin and mummy, accompanied by shabtis and canopic equipment,²² were placed between Siamun and Pasebkhanut II in the antechamber of NRT-III after they had lain for a period in standing water – and the coffin having had its trough broken.²³ It may have been the implied inundation of the ‘new’ necropolis that led to a resumption of the use of the original Tanis necropolis under Osorkon II.

As already noted, Osorkon II took over what had originally been the tomb of Nesibanebdjedet I (NRT-I).²⁴ This may have followed the plundering of the tomb during the hiatus in the area’s use as the royal cemetery, or perhaps had been undertaken during the building of NRT-III, especially in view of the work required on NRT-I to accommodate NRT-III. The full extent of Osorkon’s rebuilding of this sepulchre is unclear, but certainly involved the tomb’s complete decoration and the provision of a new entrance from the west (fig. 24/I[a]), replacing an original shaft on the east.

The new doorway contained an unusual tableau in which the general Pashereneset son of Hori is shown mourning and reciting an elegy for the late king Osorkon:²⁵ that a king should be mourned like a mortal is a new departure.²⁶ Beyond this entrance lay what was initially a single antechamber (1, 1a), decorated with extracts from various mortuary books, including the Books of the Earth, the Day, the Night and the Dead. The latter included the weighing of the heart (pl. LXVIIb) and the Negative Confession – elements that were quite new to a kingly tomb: no longer is the king a god on earth gone to join his brothers in heaven, but one who must now submit to judgment like a mere mortal. The first king known to have been so depicted is Panedjem I,²⁷ on his Book of Dead papyrus, the change seemingly the final manifestation of the development first seen in the chapel of Rameses III at Medinet Habu, where that king was depicted in the Fields of Iaru (pl. LXXb). A very similar vignette is also found in chamber 2, along with other material taken from the Book of the Dead and from the Books of Amduat and the Earth. More of the Book of the Dead adorned the adjacent square room, which had probably been the Twenty-first Dynasty entrance shaft, along with elements from the Book of Amduat.

Side-room 2, although primarily decorated for Osorkon II himself, was employed as a burial chamber for his father Takelot I – whose intended tomb was presumably either too liable to flooding or otherwise untenable. The room was equipped with an appropriated Twelfth Dynasty sarcophagus of one Ameny (pl. LXXVIIIa).

The granite-lined main burial chamber (pl. LXXVIIIb) had minimal decoration, comprising two vignettes from the Book of the Earth. The eastern end was later rebuilt to take the sarcophagus of the king’s son Hornakhte C, while most of the remainder was occupied by a large granite sarcophagus – by its form apparently an original Twenty-second Dynasty piece of work (albeit reusing a Ramesside slab for the lid), rather than a usurped Middle or New Kingdom piece as had been the case in the interments of many earlier kings of the Third Intermediate Period. Unfortunately, NRT-I had been robbed in antiquity, and thus only fragments of the funerary equipments of the occupants survived. Of the burial of Osorkon II himself, only the eyes from his cartonnage and the remains of a gilded coffin survived, together with canopic jars, shabtis and various other debris.

Like Pasebkhanut I, Osorkon and his family did not retain sole occupancy of their tomb for long. A large sarcophagus was introduced into the northern half of the antechamber (1a), and the ‘new’ room sealed off by a wall bearing figures of Osorkon II and Shoshenq III offering to divine figures. It is unclear who was the intended occupant of the sarcophagus, as while fragments of shabtis of a King Shoshenq were found, Shoshenq III had his own tomb some distance away (see below). These might represent a later intrusive interment of Shoshenq V, replacing a member of Shoshenq III’s family, perhaps after a robbery. Alternatively, the shabtis may relate to NRT-VII, an annexe of uncertain date built in front of Osorkon II’s entrance to NRT-I.²⁸

The successor of Osorkon II, Shoshenq III, built his own tomb (NRT-V)²⁹ to the northwest of the earlier sepulchres, at a significantly higher level – perhaps a reaction to the putative flooding of the ‘new’ necropolis. Compared with the tombs of Pasebkhanut I and Osorkon II, it was of a much simpler design, comprising a single compartment, divided into an antechamber and a burial chamber (pl. LXXIXa). The entire structure was of reused blocks, its decoration largely derived from the Amduat, supplemented by various less-usual scenes. The south wall of the burial chamber was adorned with scenes of the king’s reawakening, including his welcome into the boats of the Sun God (pl. LXXIXb). The cornices of the vaulted chamber bore vignettes from the Book of the Dead. Two sarcophagi were found within the chamber, one belonging to Shoshenq III himself, and bearing a very shallow recumbent figure on the lid. The other was associated with fragments of canopic jars, which belonged to Shoshenq III’s successor, Shoshenq IV.³⁰

An undecorated tomb (NRT-II)³¹ of very similar plan was built against and shared a wall with NRT-I (pl. LXXXa). It contained a limestone sarcophagus and the debris of three coffins, one of silver and two of wood, plus canopic fragments, one bearing the prenomen Usermaetre-setpenamun. This identifies the owner as Pamiu, successor of Shoshenq IV, as all other users of this prenomen of the period have otherwise-known tombs and canopics.

During the reign of Osorkon II, Thebes once again acquired a king of its own. The first of these was Horsieset I, apparently a grandson of Osorkon I and son of a recent high-priest, Nesibanebdjedet III.³² He built his tomb (MH1 – fig. 26a; pl. LXXXb)³³ within the enclosure of the memorial temple of Rameses III at Medinet Habu, just south of Eighteenth Dynasty temple there (see pl. LXXI). The sepulchre was once surmounted by a chapel, the substructure comprising a sandstone construction sunk in the floor of the courtyard and made up of a single undecorated chamber approached by a stepped ramp, and equipped with niches for the canopic jars, now placed flanking the body, rather than at its feet as had formerly been the custom. The tomb contained, apart from the remains of a skeleton, a set of canopic jars, a set of shabtis and a stone anthropoid coffin, the trough removed from the tomb of Henutmire, sister wife of Rameses II (QV75). The lid was a Twenty-second Dynasty original, showing the king with the head of a raptor. This avian visage is also found on the coffin and cartonnage of Shoshenq IIa, and seems to be distinctive of the Twenty-second Dynasty.

After a short hiatus, the independence of Thebes was reasserted by Takelot II, but the region soon fell into civil war, the ultimate winner of which was his son, Osorkon III. No tomb of any of these kings of Thebes (sometimes referred to as the ‘Theban Twenty-third Dynasty’) has yet been identified, but Theban documents of the Twenty-sixth-and-seventh Dynasties mention a ḥwt (temple/tomb) of a king Wsrtn that seems likely to have been that of Osorkon III.³⁴ Given that Horsieset I had his tomb at Medinet Habu, and that the God’s Wives of Amun, the effective rulers of the Thebaid during the Twenty-fifth/sixth Dynasties has their tombs there (see p. 117, below), it seems likely that this lost tomb was also located there.

Royal family tombs of the Twenty-second Dynasty

It is difficult to discern any clear pattern for burials of the royal family during the Twenty-second Dynasty.³⁵ A son of Osorkon II was buried with him in NRT-I, but this seems very much to have been a makeshift arrangement; a nameless sarcophagus in the same tomb’s antechamber may have been inserted for a member of the family of Shoshenq III, but this is uncertain.

Away from Tanis, a Queen Kama was buried in a stone-built tomb of the Tanite type at Tell Moqdam (Leontopolis);³⁶ it had two chambers, one containing a broken limestone sarcophagus, and another holding the queen’s intact granite example. Kama’s room had been decorated in relief, unfortunately in poor condition, while her water-rotted mummy had been equipped with an extensive set of jewelry. It is uncertain who was the other occupant of the tomb, as no name was preserved there; it might have been Kama’s husband, or another relation, but this remains problematic while her own antecedents remain uncertain.³⁷

Under Osorkon II, the high priesthood of Ptah at Memphis passed to one of his sons, his descendants holding the post for a number of generations. Their necropolis lay just outside the southwest corner of the precinct of the temple of their god at Kom Rabia.³⁸ Comprising the sepulchres of Shoshenq D (eldest son of Osorkon II), Takelot B, Pedieset A and Horsieset H (Shoshenq’s direct descendants), they broadly resembled the royal tombs of Tanis in form (pl. LXXXc). That of Pedieset A was a two-floored structure, with both levels (each comprising two chambers) having pointed ceilings. The upper level, embedded in brickwork, housed the two reused sarcophagi of Amenhotep-Huy, city steward under Amenhotep III, with the silver coffin of Pedieset himself. That of Shoshenq D was similar (pl. LXXXIa), the lower level being elaborately decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead, but ground water had badly damaged its contents.

At least two princely tombs were built at Abydos during the late Twenty-first/early Twenty-second Dynasties. One belonged to Pasebkhanut A, a son of the Theban high priest Menkheperre, and was a brick mastaba (D22 – map 10, in area D of the North Cemetery), containing a chapel and burial shaft, and from which came a fine stela.³⁹ The other belonged to the High Priest of Amun Iuput A, son of Shoshenq I and interestingly enough points directly towards the Early Dynastic royal necropolis at Umm el-Qaab. It was a fairly remarkable structure built in a long, narrow pit, with a chamber of granite, decorated with scenes from the Amduat.⁴⁰

At Thebes, following the re-establishment of a local monarchy under Takelot II, the area around the old mortuary temple of Rameses II, which had in any case become an important cemetery during the Twenty-second Dynasty, became a place of burial for members of the royal family.⁴¹ Among royal children and relations buried there were Osorkon G (son of Takelot III, in B27), Ankhpakhered ii (great-grandson of Takelot II – B29) and Tabeketenasket B (granddaughter of Takelot II – B28), as were probably Shepensopdet A (granddaughter of Osorkon II) and God’s Wife of Amun Karomama G. The tombs were simple shaft graves, some of which may have had some form of offering place attached to them. Medinet Habu also hosted similar tombs, some under the floors of the Rameses III temple, including that of Nesterwy, a daughter of King Rudamun.⁴²

The Twenty-fifth Dynasty

At the end of the New Kingdom, Egyptian control over Nubia (Kush) was ended and a new native, but Egyptianised, polity grew up, centred on the former Egyptian colonial capital of Napata, close to the holy mountain of Gebel Barkal, sacred to Amun. By the mid eighth century, southern Upper Egypt had come under the control of the kings of Kush; finally by the end of the century, the Kushite king had seized control of the whole of Egypt, establishing a formal dual monarchy with Kush.⁴³

By now, the Kushite royal cemetery had been established for some time at El-Kurru, a few kilometres from the Kushite religious capital of Gebel Barkal (fig. 25; pl. LXXXIb), but there remains a debate as to how far back an unbroken series of tombs can be traced.⁴⁴ The earliest tombs on the site were tumuli, which were then succeeded by a series of mastabas that continues through to the Kushite expansion into Egypt under Kashta, who may have been the owner of the largest of the mastabas, Ku8 (pl. LXXXIIa).⁴⁵

These mastabas were followed by a sequence of pyramids, the first being built by Piye, who was the first Kushite king to penetrate into the Delta and receive the allegiance of the majority of the Egyptian local rulers. Now numbered Ku17,⁴⁶ the pyramid was only 8 m square and is now wholly vanished; to judge from later Kushite pyramids, it is likely that it had a high angle of elevation, appearing tall and slender. The substructure was approached by a stairway, once covered by the now-destroyed chapel, the burial chamber being a corbel-roofed room (fig. 26b; pl. LXXXIIb). Sets of canopic jars and shabtis were provided, but instead of a sarcophagus a rock-cut bench lay in the middle of the burial chamber. It had a cut-out in each corner, to receive the legs of a bed: interment on a bier has been characterized as a typical feature of Nubian burials since at least Kerman (Second Intermediate Period) times. Such small pyramids, with chapels on their east sides built above the stairway entrance to the substructrure, became the standard form of tomb for Kushite kings, soon extended to queens and later to other royal family members as well.

Piye has long been assumed to have been succeeded by Shabaka, but a good historical case can be made for Piye being directly followed by Shabataka, and only then by Shabaka.⁴⁷ Certainly, the tomb of Shabataka (Ku18)⁴⁸ shows much greater structural similarities to that of Piye, having an open-cut burial chamber (fig. 26c; pl. LXXXIIb) that contrasts with the fully-tunnelled substructures of the tombs of Shabaka and unequivocally later kings. It was placed some way from the tomb of Piye, amongst some of the more ancient tombs in the cemetery, and it was its somewhat awkward position that led to its descending stair incorporating an unusual right-angled turn in its descending stairway.

The vaulted rock-cut burial chamber of Shabaka’s pyramid (Ku15 – fig. 26d; pl. LXXXIIIa-b)⁴⁹ was plastered and painted, apparently with scenes from the New Kingdom books of the underworld, as were employed in later Kushite royal tombs, of which only traces survive. The simple substructure design seen in this and the earlier Twenty-fifth Dynasty royal tombs was replaced in the pyramid of the next king, Taharqa, by something vastly more elaborate. In the case of his sepulchre, built at the hitherto-virgin site of Nuri (Nu1),⁵⁰ the usual stairway in front of the east face and small antechamber were followed by a six-pillared burial hall, the aisles of which were vaulted (fig. 26e). A curious corridor completely surrounded the subterranean rooms, at a slightly higher level, accessible via a flight of steps at the far end of the sepulchral chamber, and also a pair of stairways just outside the doorway of the antechamber. The usual bench lay in the centre of the burial chamber, upon which had lain a nest of coffins, some pieces of whose gold foil and stone inlay remained, together with a fragment of skull. The canopic jars were of very fine quality, and introduced new textual formulations, which become standard in subsequent Egyptian burials. A vast number of shabtis were recovered, in a variety of hard and soft stones, and many in remarkably large sizes – some up to 60 cm in height.

Not only was the substructure greatly enlarged, but the pyramid that surmounted it (pl. LXXXIVa) was substantially larger than any built in Kush before (or anywhere else for many centuries), this desire for size probably determining the shift to a new site, since limited space remained at El-Kurru. The first phase of construction of Nu1 produced a pyramid with a 29.5 m base – nearly three times that the pyramid of Shabaka – a second phase, with a slightly higher elevation, enlarging this to something nearly seven times the size of the monument of Piye. Curiously, this second phase was not aligned with the first, leaving the substructure off-centre.

Interestingly, the next king, Tanutamun – the last Kushite king to rule any of Egypt-proper – returned to El-Kurru for his burial, inserting his pyramid (Ku16)⁵¹ alongside that of Shabaka (fig. 26f; pl. LXXXIIIb), whose design it closely followed, although curiously omitting the previously-obligatory coffin-bench. In Tanutamun’s case, the decoration of the substructure has been substantially preserved, with images of the king and the gods in the antechamber and scenes deriving from the books of the underworld (pl. LXXXIVb).

Although no Kushite king would rule in Egypt after Tanutamun’s overlordship of the Thebaid ended in 654BC, the line continued to rule Upper (and sometimes parts of Lower) Nubia until the fourth century AD. During this period pyramids of the type established during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty continued to be employed, although their contents and ornamentation showed a steady shift towards a distinctly Kushite interpretation of the ancient motifs. Canopic jars initially remained in use, supplemented for a short period by, for the first time in Kush, stone sarcophagi, but both types of container had disappeared soon after the reign of Melanaqeñ, sixth successor of Tanutamun. At first, the royal tombs were primarily built at Nuri (plus one at El-Kurru), but they later shifted further south to Meroë, although a few were constructed back at Gebel Barkal (pl. LXXXIVa, LXXXVa–b, LXXXVIa).⁵²

Royal family tombs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty

Royal wives were buried in even smaller versions of the pyramids adopted by the Kushite kings. At El-Kurru,⁵³ Piye’s wives, Kheñsa and Tabiry were buried in Ku4 and Ku53 respectively, the latter being much the smaller of the two; adjacent were four other similar tombs, one belonging to Neferukakashta (Ku52), who was possibly another of his spouses. Three other definite royal ladies’ tombs have also been identified at El-Kurru, those of Qalhata (Ku5 – wife of Shabaka and mother of Tanutamun), Arty (Ku6 – wife of Shabataka) and Ñaparaye (Ku3). The latter is interesting in that her husband, Taharqa, was buried not at El-Kurru, but at Nuri. On the other hand, another wife of that king, Atakhebasken, was interred in Nuri Nu36,⁵⁴ where many subsequent queens’ pyramids were erected. The substructure of Ku5 contains well-preserved decoration (focussing on the Book of the Dead) suggesting that, like those of the kings, queen’s burial chambers were generally decorated as well (pl. LXXXVIb).

While the vast majority of the Kushite royal family seem to have been buried in their home cemeteries, a number of female members were buried in the ancient necropolis of Abydos.⁵⁵ The Kushites employed the same cemetery, D, as their Twenty-first/second dynasty predecessors, those buried there including a wife of Piye, Peksater (un-numbered), Shabaka’s daughter, Isetemkheb H (D3), together with Paabtameri, apparently the wife of a king of the dynasty (D9). The Lady Taniy, a senior member of the household of a Kushite queen, was also interred in the area. Also probably buried there was Princess Meryetamun G, of unknown parentage, whose stela almost certainly came from Abydos.

Unfortunately, little is known of the structures of the tombs, which may have been reuses of New Kingdom structures. On the other hand, a substantial stone doorway survives from the sepulchre of Peksater, implying a monument of some solidity. It is interesting to see royal wives apparently being buried at Abydos, far away from their husbands in Nubia, as there is no evidence to suggest that they were in any way just cenotaphs.

The other significant group of royal family tombs of the dynasty are those of the God’s Wives of Amun at Medinet Habu (fig. 26g; pl. LXXXVIIa).⁵⁶ Under Osorkon III, the office of God’s Wife was significantly advanced in dignity, ultimately coming to replace that of high priest of Amun during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. In keeping with this, the bearers possessed substantial tomb-chapels at Medinet Habu, opposite that of King Horsieset I (p. 112). The earliest (MH17), apparently belonging to Shepenwepet I (daughter of Osorkon III), was a brick structure, now almost entirely destroyed, with a simple burial chamber sunk into the ground beneath. In contrast, the directly adjacent chapel of Amenirdis I (sister of Piye), apparently originally built in brick, was reconstructed as a stone-built structure fronted by a pylon, leading to a four-pillared hall (pl. LXXXVIIb) and then to a sanctuary, surrounded by a corridor, under Shepenwepet II (daughter of Piye), leaving only the original burial chamber unchanged.

Shepenwepet II occupied a rather simpler monument directly adjoining that of Amenirdis, begun as a near duplicate of her predecessor’s tomb. However, it was subsequently modified, the structure ultimately being shared with the subsequent God’s Wife Neitiqerti (Nitokris) I, daughter of Psametik I, and her mother, Mehytenweskhet C. Thus, a court with two pillars now gives access to three parallel offering places, Shepenwepet’s in the centre.

The chambers that held the ladies’ sarcophagi lay directly under the floor of their sanctuaries, in all cases but that of Amenirdis equipped with a vaulted roof. Shepenwepet I’s tomb may have had an entrance passage from the north (destroyed by a later tomb) but the others seem to have been accessed directly from above. The chambers were only large enough to hold a sarcophagus – in all cases subsequently removed: two were subsequently re-used in Ptolemaic tombs at Deir el-Medina.⁵⁷