It is a
great _bab_ or gallery-tomb, like those of the later kings at Thebes,
with the usual apparatus of granite plugs, barriers, pits, etc., to
defy plunderers. The tomb had been plundered, nevertheless, though it is
probable that the robbers were vastly disappointed with what they
found in it. Mr. Currelly ascribes the absence of all remains to the
plunderers, but the fact is that there probably never was anything in
it but an empty sarcophagus. Near the tomb Mr. Weigall discovered
some dummy mastabas, a find of great interest. Just as the king had a
secondary tomb, so secondary mastabas, mere dummies of rubble like the
XIth Dynasty pyramid at Der el-Bahari, were erected beside it to look
like the tombs of his courtiers. Some curious sinuous brick walls which
appear to act as dividing lines form a remarkable feature of this sham
cemetery. In a line with the tomb, on the edge of the cultivation,
is the funerary temple belonging to it, which was found by Mr.
Randall-Maclver in 1900. Nothing remains but the bases of the fluted
limestone columns and some brick walls. A headless statue of Usertsen
was found.
We have an interesting example of the custom of building a secondary
tomb for royalties in these two necropoles of Dra' Abu-'l-Negga and
Abydos. Queen Teta-shera, the grandmother of Aahmes, a beautiful
statuette of whom may be seen in the British Museum, had a small pyramid
at Abydos, eastward of and in a line with the temple and secondary tomb
of Aahmes.
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