Excavation in Egypt at Tell el-Balamun
The elite cemetery of dynasty 22 at the front of the main
temple
Placing the tombs of important individuals at the front of major
temples was a practice of the Third Intermediate Period and Late
Period, the most famous examples of which are the royal tombs at
Tanis. In the 1998 and 1999 seasons at Tell el-Balamun, a small
cluster of tombs dating from the Twenty-second Dynasty was found in
front of the temple of Amun, just to the west of the axis. Three
tombs remained identifiable, although there was evidence that there
may originally have been at least two more.
First to be discovered was
the brick-built tomb of a Lower Egyptian Vizier, named Iken, who
had been equipped with fairly lavish burial goods for the
period.
Although partly robbed in antiquity, there remained a
considerable quantity of gold leaf from the embellishment of the
coffin, much of it in the form of narrow strips from a headdress. A
pair of bronze-framed inlaid eyes were found, once fitted to the
mask of the coffin.
Several amuletic figurines of deities were found on the body,
together with a granite heart scarab which bore not only the
names of Iken and his mother, but also the cartouche of King
Osorkon I (924-889 BC). This provided a welcome piece of fixed
dating evidence.
To the south of the head lay three stone vases and a whole array
of glazed faience shabti-figures, which were excavated with
difficulty from the hard mud. Each figure bore the name of Iken in
black paint.
To the east of the tomb
of Iken lay a second tomb of mud-brick, but it proved to be empty
of any burials. The interior had been dug out in the sixth century
BC and subsequently cut by a large rubbish pit of Ptolemaic
date.
Further east was a third tomb containing three burials, a young
adult male (Burial 3/i), an older male (Burial 3/ii), and a child
(Burial 3/iii).
The younger man lay in a stone-lined chamber which had been
constructed within the brickwork of the tomb. Unfortunately, on
lifting the roofing-blocks, the chamber was found to have been
entirely flooded by subsoil
water, which had to be removed during the excavation. The body lay
extended on its back with the head to the west and the arms crossed
on the chest. Crystallised salts in the water had preserved the
imprint of linen mummification wrappings and the grain of wood from
a coffin.
As further evidence, two pairs of bronze eyes from inlays in
coffins were found. At the foot of the chamber was a set of
limestone Canopic Jars and a pottery vessel, all uninscribed.
This burial was separated by a narrow brick wall from another to
the north, where the body of the older man was found lying in a
limest
one sarcophagus.
The lid had been broken at the time of burial and the breaks
patched with stone fragments, but in spite of Ptolemaic pits having
been dug down to the top of the coffin, it had not been
disturbed.
Like the burial in the first chamber, it had been damaged by
water, but once again the inlaid eyes from the coffins were
recovered. More significant was the finding of an additional pair
of inlaid eyes in the form of those of a falcon, together with a
bronze falcon beak.
These remains show that one of the three coffins of this
individual was equipped with a falcon-faced mask, a very rare
fashion known to have been shared by only three other individuals
from 
ancient Egypt, all belonging to the royal family of
Dynasty 22: King Osorkon II, King Sheshonq II and the High-Priest
of Amun Harsiese.
In the final burial in tomb 3, that of the child (left), the
finding of another bronze beak showed that this burial had also
possessed a falcon-mask coffin.
The body of the child was contained in a rectangular limestone
sarcophagus, placed at a higher level and on a different
orientation from the others. This suggests that its addition to the
tomb may have been the result of an unexpected, early death.
On the floor of the sarcophagus the imprint of the inner coffin
was visible.
To merit burial so close to the temple and to have coffins with
falcon-masks, the occupants of the Balamun tombs must have been of
high status, probably priests of the temple and relatives of the
royal family of the Twenty-Second Dynasty.
Images (from top):
- Excavating the burial of the Vizier Iken
in 1998
- Examples of the shabtis of Iken
- Looking down on the roof of the limestone
chamber for burial 3/i
- Chamber of burial 3/i partly opened,
showing the water inside
- Burial 3/i in the stone-lined
chamber
- The child burial