Wendjebauendjed was an ancient Egyptian general, high dignitary and high priest during the reign of

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...

Psusennes I Psusennes I ( egy, pꜣ-sbꜣ-ḫꜥ-n-njwt; Greek Ψουσέννης) was the third pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty who ruled from Tanis between 1047 and 1001 BC. ''Psusennes'' is the Greek version of his original name Pasibkhanu or Pasebakhaenniu ...

of the

21st Dynasty The Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXI, alternatively 21st Dynasty or Dynasty 21) is usually classified as the first Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, lasting from 1077 BC to 943 BC. History After the r ...

. He is mainly known for his intact tomb found by

Pierre Montet Jean Pierre Marie Montet (27 June 1885 – 19 June 1966) was a French Egyptologist. Biography Montet was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône, Rhône, and began his studies under Victor Loret at the University of Lyon. He excavated at Byblos ...

inside the royal necropolis of

Tanis Tanis ( grc, Τάνις or Τανέως ) or San al-Hagar ( ar, صان الحجر, Ṣān al-Ḥaǧar; egy, ḏꜥn.t ; ; cop, ϫⲁⲛⲓ or or ) is the Greek name for ancient Egyptian ''ḏꜥn.t'', an important archaeological site in the ...

(NRT III).

Biography

Nothing is known about his life other than his occupations: Wendjebauendjed held an impressive list of military, administrative and religious titles, such as ''

Hereditary prince A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title is crown princess, which may refer either to an heiress apparent or, especially in earlier times, to the wife ...

count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

, Seal-bearer of the King of Lower Egypt, God's father, General and Army leader, High steward'' (later ''High priest'') ''of

Khonsu Khonsu ( egy, ḫnsw; also transliterated Chonsu, Khensu, Khons, Chons or Khonshu; cop, Ϣⲟⲛⲥ, Shons) is the ancient Egyptian god of the Moon. His name means "traveller", and this may relate to the perceived nightly travel of the Moon ...

, Priest of "

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

lord of Mendes", Superintendent of the Prophets of all the gods'' and ''Superintendent of the Sole Friend''.

Kenneth Kitchen Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (born 1932) is a British biblical scholar, Ancient Near Eastern historian, and Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, Univ ...

, ''The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC)'', 1996, Aris & Phillips Limited, Warminster, , § 222.
The fact that Wendjebauendjed held such important offices granted him the great honor to be buried in the royal necropolis even though he was not a royal personage. According to one of his titles, it is possible that he was a native of

Mendes Mendes ( grc-gre, Μένδης, '' gen''.: ), the Greek name of the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet ("The Domain of the Ram Lord of Djedet") and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba ( ar, تل ا ...

(Djedet). His

mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

remains shows that he was perhaps of

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

n descent and that he died around his fifties.

Discovery

General Wendebauendjed's cups from Tanis by John Campana

The name ''Wendjebauendjed'' was initially found by Pierre Montet and Georges Goyon in 1939 carved on some statuettes and

ushabti The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "' ...

s found inside the newly discovered burial chamber of

Shoshenq II Heqakheperre Shoshenq II or Shoshenq IIa was a pharaoh of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt. He was the only ruler of this dynasty whose tomb was not plundered by tomb robbers. His final resting place was discovered within an antechamber of Psu ...

. A year later, Montet discovered the burial chamber of Psusennes I where he found a golden hilt which belonged to Wendjebauendjed, placed on the king's sarcophagus.Goyon, op. cit., p. 167. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Montet and Goyon resumed the excavations and on 13 February 1946 they discovered a new, undisturbed burial chamber inside the same necropolis. A reused

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

anthropoid sarcophagus, originally belonging to a '' Third priest of Amun'' called Amenhotep and datable to the 19th Dynasty, was found inside. The new owner was the same Wendjebauendjed named on the objects recovered from the nearby tombs before the war. For him the sarcophagus was covered by gold leaf, and inside it was a painted and gilded wooden coffin which in turn contained a silver coffin, both poorly preserved. Wendjebauendjed's face was covered by a golden mummy mask, and many other jewelry pieces were found inside the sarcophagus such as

pectoral Pectoral may refer to: * The chest region and anything relating to it. * Pectoral cross, a cross worn on the chest * a decorative, usually jeweled version of a gorget * Pectoral (Ancient Egypt), a type of jewelry worn in ancient Egypt * Pectorali ...

s, rings, bracelets and gold statuettes; particularly remarkable are three fine

bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom forming a seamless curve. This makes ...

s made from gold and silver, and a lapis lazuli statuette of Amun in his ram form. Outside the sarcophagus were also found many ushabtis and Wendjebauendjed's four

canopic jar Canopus (, ; grc-gre, Κάνωπος, ), also known as Canobus ( grc-gre, Κάνωβος, ), was an ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around from the cent ...

s. All the funerary equipment is now in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

in Cairo.Goyon, op. cit., p. 170.

References

Bibliography

*Georges Goyon, ''La Découverte des trésors de Tanis'', Éditions Perséa, 1987, , pp. 166–170. * Henri Stierlin, Christiane Ziegler: ''Tanis: Vergessene Schätze der Pharaonen.'' Hirmer, München 1987, , p. 80. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wendjebauendjed Ancient Egyptian priests Ancient Egyptian soldiers People of the Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt Ancient Egyptian mummies 11th-century BC clergy 11th-century BC Egyptian people