The Tomb of Two Brothers is an ancient sepulchre in Deir Rifeh,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

. It contains the

chamber tomb A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...

of the ancient Egyptian high status

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

s Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht, which dates from the

12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some ...

Tomb

Day 4 - Coffin of Khnum-nakht (8153981962)

The brothers'

tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called ''immureme ...

was found untouched in 1907 by

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyp ...

at the Deir Rifeh cemetery. Petrie first described the burial in his excavation report of Rifeh. After the finds went to the

Manchester Museum Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road ( A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, ...

Margaret Murray Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she work ...

published a monograph on this tomb group. The burial chamber of the two individuals was found in a small chamber placed within the

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

of a bigger tomb, perhaps once belonging to a governor buried at Deir Rifeh. The

contained a set of two coffins, one outer wooden box coffin and one inner anthropoid coffin for each of the tomb owners. The coffins are decorated on the outside with a palace facade motif and several text lines. The coffins and the texts are very close to coffins found at

Asyut AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut'' ( ar, أسيوط ' , from ' ) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at ...

and it seems possible that they were produced there.

Coffins of Nakht-Ankh

The rectangular outer coffin bears on the lid three text columns. On the long sides there are four double columns on each side. At the top of the long sides there are two horizontal text lines. The short ends have two columns and again two horizontal text lines. On the lid Nakht-Ankh bears the title ''son of a governor'' and is called ''begotten of Khnumaa''. The middle text column is an offering formula addressing

Anubis Anubis (; grc, Ἄνουβις), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian () is the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depict ...

with the wish that the deceased may cross with a ferry, that he might be buried and that he might ascend to the great god. The other spell expressed the wish that Nakht-Ankh might sit in the boat of the sun god, that will cross the heaven. Evidently the spell made sure that Nakht-Ankh will be in the circle of deities after death. The third spell on the lid finally expresses the wish that the deceased becomes the son of the sky goddess Nut to be under her protection. The texts on the coffin box have different functions. Some of the spells are part of the modern corpus of

Coffin Text The Coffin Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian funerary spells written on coffins beginning in the First Intermediate Period. They are partially derived from the earlier Pyramid Texts, reserved for royal use only, but contain substantial ...

s (on the coffin there are the coffin text spells 30, 31, 32, 609 and 345). Interestingly, the coffin is almost identical to the coffin of a certain Djefahapy that was found at Asyut.

Further objects in the burial

Next to the coffins was found a canopic box with four canopic vessels. There were three statuettes of the tomb owners. Also, some wooden models of servants, models of boats and some pottery vessels. The whole tomb group is now in the Manchester Museum. The tomb group is one of the best preserved and best known burials of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom.

The tomb owners

Nakht-ankh and Khnum-nakht are only known from this burial. They are not attested for sure from other sources. Nakht-Ankh bears as only title the designation ''son of a governor''. He is also called ''begotten of Khnumaa''. Khnum-Nakht bears the titles ''son of governor'', ''son of the son of a governor'' and ''wab-priest of Khnum, lord of Shashotep''. He is also called ''begotten of Khnumaa''. Their mummies were found heavily decayed.

Ancient DNA

Ancient DNA analysis of the mummies of Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht, which were entombed at the Deir Rifeh cemetery, found that the brothers belonged to the M1a1 mtDNA haplogroup with 88.05–91.27% degree of confidence, thus confirming the African origins of the two individuals. The analysis of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosomes made it possible to establish that the two titular brothers were actually ''half'' brothers, having the same mother but different fathers.

References

Literature

*Rosalie David: ''The Two Brothers, Death and Afterlife in Middle Kingdom Egypt'', Rutherford Press, Bolton 2007 {{coord missing, Egypt Tombs of ancient Egypt Buildings and structures of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt