News release

From: Frontiers

Ancient Egyptian tomb shows how burial trends changed over hundreds of years

Placement of mummies in a Theban tomb – from individual placement to stacking of bodies – shows how burial practices and their symbolic implications changed over time

Ancient Egyptians routinely reopened, reused, and transformed burial spaces. But how does this show in tombs? Researchers have examined how repeated use of a chamber in a Theban tomb is reflected by the mummies in it. They found a switch from individualized burial units inside coffins to collective interment, alongside changes in the positioning of limbs and funerary objects. During later phases of the chamber’s use, mummies were stacked one above another – but this doesn’t mean chaos reigned or that certain burial practices were discontinued. Instead, it shows a process of reuse that could help develop a better understanding of the social behaviors behind funerary practices.

The Theban Necropolis, opposite Luxor, is comprised of more than 400 tombs. In a new Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology study, researchers in Spain examined a part of one of these tombs – chamber three in tomb TT 209 – more closely to reconstruct how this burial space was used and reused between its construction during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (754-656 BCE) and the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BCE), when it was abandoned.

“We found a total of 16 mummified human individuals, a mummified dog, and a disturbed deposit containing the remains of at least four individuals,” said first author Dr Jared Carballo-Pérez, a researcher at the University of La Laguna. “The detailed study of the bodies indicates neither chaotic accumulation nor a loss of the original ritual over time. Rather, there was a spatial logic in which each new deposition was adapted to the presence of previous bodies – a kind of funerary memory in the processes of reuse.”

Senior author Dr Miguel Ángel Molinero Polo, a professor of Egyptology at the University of La Laguna, added: “We have few details regarding how the people who entered tombs behaved, what their motivations were in each historical period, and how they conceptually reconfigured the pre-existing space.”

Tomb through time

To deepen the understanding of the deposition of bodies and the transformation of funerary space, the team excavated the chamber, photographed the mummies, and produced sketches and descriptions of their position, orientation, and relationship with the tomb’s structures. The chamber contains nine funerary deposits, comprising individual and multiple burials, as well as associated funerary objects.

For the earliest deposits, the team observed relatively separated burials where bodies were placed in coffins.

“The earliest individuals buried here appear to have been of high social standing, as they were interred in coffins, with funerary nets and amulets, and with an assemblage containing costly items, such as the contents held in Phoenician amphorae, a large number of which were found alongside them,” said Molinero Polo.

Later, towards the end of the 25th dynasty and the Persian period (around 680-404 BCE), bodies started being inserted into any space still available. This resulted in denser use of space. In some cases, a change could be seen in the positioning of limbs, for example a folded-in arm whereas in earlier burials arms were typically stretched out. Also in the Persian period, the team observed a shift from individual deposits to a vertical way of arranging bodies. Superposition of bodies was found in two thirds of the burials in the chamber.

Reconstructing funerary practices

In the southeastern section of the chamber, four mummies and one mummified dog are buried on top of one another in the Ptolemaic Period.

“The bodies buried in vertical superposition did not have coffins but were carefully mummified. They also can be associated with upright jars that point to a specific ritual not found in the earlier phases of the tomb’s use,” said Molinero Polo.

“One detail I find quite beautiful is the presence of a mummified dog placed directly on top of the mummies of a man and a woman,” said Carballo-Pérez. “This could indicate a close relationship between these human individuals and the animal, an idea that I think is quite easy to empathize with.”

“It could also reflect a further change in ritual practice, with an animal taking on the role of a psychopomp, a symbolic helper in the journey to the afterlife,” added Molinero Polo.

This, alongside certain changes in the arrangement of bodies – for example, in later deposits individuals were buried with both arms folded over their chests in what Egyptologists call the Osirian position – suggests that the tomb did not become disordered or without structure, or that cultural rites were lost. Instead, the chamber should be considered a repeatedly reactivated space, reconfigured by new burials that transformed the organization and meaning of space itself without erasing the past.

In some funerary deposits, it is difficult to identify the exact sequence of depositions and reconstruct the precise intentionality behind them, the team noted. This is due to century-long use during which the chamber flooded multiple times as well as fires and human re-entry that transported debris within the tomb.

“Nevertheless, what we present means that deposits that were previously considered ‘disordered’ can be reinterpreted,” concluded Carballo-Pérez. “This helps us develop a better understanding of the social behaviors behind funerary practices.”