When Nebhepetra Mentuhotep II built his mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, the tombs of his courtiers were located in the vicinity of the royal monument.
The divine cult of the founder of the Middle Kingdom in subsequent generations meant that the cemetery around the rock amphitheatre continued to expand. One of these later tombs belonged to Horhotep, a seal-bearer of Senwosret I.
His resting place was located in the central part of the North Asasif slope, within the courtyard of an older mortuary complex.
The tomb of Horhotep was found by Gustave Maspero in February 1883 and then revisited by Herbert E. Winlock in 1920s, however, the tomb was subsequently filled in with rock rubble, and its location forgotten.
In 2013, an expedition from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw began excavations in this area and, after several seasons of work, discovered the entrance to Horhotep's tomb, providing not only new data on this high-ranking official, but also opening a new chapter in research on the mortuary landscape of the Theban necropolis during the Middle Kingdom.
Dr Patryk Chudzik is an Assistant Professor at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.
He studied Prehistory, as well as Oriental and Classical Archaeology at the universities in Poznań and Wrocław.
He received his PhD on the topography and architecture of the Theban necropolis in the Middle Kingdom (2017).
He is the director of the Polish-Egyptian archaeological and conservation expedition to Deir el-Bahri and the co-director of the Polish Archaeological Expedition to North Asasif.
His research focuses on burial customs in the Theban necropolis during the Middle Kingdom, particularly on tomb architecture, mortuary landscape and grave goods.
His second area of interest is the history of the sacred space of Deir el-Bahri.
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