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Their descendants of the XVIIth Dynasty were buried in the same necropolis of Dra' Abu-'l-Negga, and so were the first two kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Aahmes and Amenhetep I. The tombs of the last two have not yet been found, but we know from the Abbott Papyrus that Amenhetep's was here, for, like that of Menttihetep III, it was found intact by the inspectors.
His Majesty did these things on account of the greatness of the love which he bore her, which was greater than anything. Never had ancestral kings done the like for their mothers. * A polite periphrasis for the dead. As has already been said, the king Amenhetep I was also buried in the Dra' Abu-'l-Negga, but the tomb has not yet been found.
We have an interesting example of the custom of building a secondary tomb for royalties in these two nécropoles 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. In 1901 Mr. Mace attempted to find the chamber, but could not. In the next year Mr. Currelly found between it and the Aahmes tomb a small chapel, containing a splendid stele, on which Aahmes commemorates his grandmother, who, he says, was buried at Thebes and had a mer-âhât at Abydos, and he records his determination to build her also a pyramid at Abydos, out of his love and veneration for her memory. It thus appeared that the pyramid to the east was simply a dummy, like Usertsen's mastabas, or the Mentuhetep pyramid at Dêr el-Bahari. Teta-shera was actually buried at Dra' Abu-'l-Negga. Her secondary pyramid, like that of Aahmes himself, was in the "holy ground" at Abydos, though it was not an imitation bâb, but a dummy pyramid of rubble. This well illustrates the whole custom of the royal primary and secondary tombs, which, as we have seen, had obtained in the case of royal personages from the time of the 1st Dynasty, when Aha had two tombs, one at Nakâda and the other at Abydos. It is probable that all the 1st Dynasty tombs at Abydos are secondary, the kings being really buried elsewhere. After their time we know for certain that Tjeser and Snefru had duplicate tombs, possibly also Unas, and certainly Usertsen (Senusret) III, Amenemhat III, and Aahmes; while Mentuhetep III and Queen Teta-shera had dummy pyramids as well as their tombs. Ramses III also had two tombs, both at Thebes. The reasons for this custom were two: first, the desire to elude plunderers, and second, the wish to give the ghost a pied-
The second illustration gives a nearer view of the great trilithon gate in the upper court, at the head of the ramp. The long hill of Dra' Abu-'l-Negga is seen bending away northward behind the gate. Of The Xviiith Dynasty Temple At Dêk El-Bahari. About 1500 B.C.
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