🇪🇬 EGYPT 2022, DISCOVERING THE TOMB OF MAYA IN SAQQARA NECROPOLIS, BEAUTIFUL WELL PRESERVED TOMB, 4k

🇪🇬 EGYPT 2022, DISCOVERING THE TOMB OF MAYA IN SAQQARA NECROPOLIS, BEAUTIFUL WELL PRESERVED TOMB, 4k, Maya’s tomb was found in 1986 and excavated between 1987 and 1991. It lies parallel to Horemheb’s and Tia ‘s monuments and is almost 44 m long and 16.5 m wide. The plan is also similar to Horemheb’s and comprises a pylon , outer courtyard, statue chamber flanked by two storerooms, inner courtyard, and three offering chapels in the west. The tomb was obviously unfinished: the outer courtyard had columns along the west side only, a mud floor instead of proper pavement, and no reliefs. The pylon was built in mudbrick only, not revetted in limestone like Horemheb’s. Beautiful relief fragments in the pylon gateway, the entrance to the inner courtyard, and that courtyard itself depict offering bearers and portraits of the tomb owner and his relatives. Several reliefs were quarried by Coptic monks of the Monastery of Apa Jeremias (now in the Cairo Museum) or were taken by Lepsius and other 19th-century visitors. The three Leiden statues once stood on the bases still extant in the statue chamber and the outer courtyard.

Maya’s tomb-shaft opens in the inner courtyard and is about 10 m deep. From one of the six chambers at that level a second shaft and stairway give access to a lower complex, situated at a depth of almost 22 m. This comprises three chambers with beautiful wall-reliefs on limestone panelling, each with an undecorated annex. So far, such underground reliefs are unique in the Saqqara New Kingdom necropolis. They depict Maya and Merit adoring the gods of the hereafter. Both figures and texts are painted yellow, with some details in blue and black. The revetment had been smashed by robbers but could be fully reconstructed by the expedition in a new concrete basement under the outer courtyard. The robbers had taken most of the valuables, but numerous remaining fragments of coffins, furniture, jewellery etc. gave an impression of the riches of Maya’s burial. Both the substructure and the superstructure held the remains of hundreds of pottery vessels, often of highly unusual form and decoration. During the Late Period, the tomb and its surroundings were re-used for the accommodation of a number of poor multiple burials.

General information on Maya & Merit’s tomb

Maya was Overseer of the Treasury and Overseer of Works during the reign of the boy-king Tutankhamun (1333-1323 B.C.). This made him responsible for Egypt’s home affairs at the unsettled time following the heresy of King Akhenaten, who had closed all the temples and only adored the sun god Aten. It was Maya who helped to re-establish the traditional cults and who fashioned new
statues for the numerous sanctuaries throughout Egypt, while his colleague, the General Horemheb, pacified the revolting foreign countries. At Tutankhamun’s death, Maya was responsible for the royal burial, which contained objects inscribed with his name. Then we lose track of Maya, but he was certainly back in office when Horemheb became the new pharaoh four years later. Maya seems to have died around year 9 of Horemheb’s reign (c. 1310 B.C.). His wife Merit had predeceased him and since the couple had two daughters only, the funeral was led by Maya’s half-brother Nahuher.

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