Bab el-Gasus explained

Theban:	yes
Bab el-Gasus
Owner:	multiple priests
Image Alt:	Entrance to the tomb
Coordinates:	25.7379°N 32.6086°W
Location:	Deir el-Bahari
Date:	1891

Bab el-Gasus (باب الجسس|bāb el-gasus|lit=Gate of the Priests [Spies]^[1]), also known as the Priestly Cache and the Second Cache, was a cache of ancient 21st dynasty (c. 1070–945 BCE) Egyptian mummies found at Deir el-Bahari in 1891. It was excavated by French Egyptologists Eugène Grebaut and Georges Daressy, with Urbain Bouriant and Ahmed Kamal, on the direction of Mohamed Ahmed Abd al‑Rassul, who had also revealed the location of the Royal Cache in 1881. The tomb entrance was located on the flat area just outside the precinct wall in front of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. The find was significant for Egyptology, particularly in respect of religion, mummification, and coffin studies. It is the largest intact tomb ever found in Egypt. Today, the contents of the tomb are spread between 30 museums worldwide.^[2]

In 1893, Khedive Abbas II of Egypt presented groups of artefacts from the tomb to 16 countries, as gifts celebrating the Khedive's accession to the throne.^[3] As a result of this dispersion, the artefacts have received limited focus by scholars.^[4]

It contained 254 richly decorated coffins (101 double sets) giving 153 coffin sets in total, as well as 110 shabti boxes, 77 Osirian wooden statuettes (mostly hollow and containing a papyrus), 8 wooden steles, 2 large wooden statues (Isis and Nephthys), 16 canopic reed baskets, 5 round baskets made of woven reed. The coffins were made almost exclusively with wood from the native fig tree, the Ficus sycomorus.^[5]

On the 125th anniversary of the find, the Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos of the University of Coimbra launched the "Gate of the Priests" project, with the University of Leiden, the National Museum of Antiquities of Leiden, the Vatican Museums and UCLA, in order to reconstruct the original collection of Bab el-Gasus.

A new display of the Bab el-Gasus artefacts was opened at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 2021 following the moving of the Royal Cache.^{[6] [7]}

Although one of the Theban tombs, the tomb never received a serial number.

International donations

In 1907 Daressy published a list of the 71 coffins sets that were donated overseas in 1893 by Khedive Abbas:

Lot! colspan="2"

Location	Sarcophagi sets (Daressy, 1907)		Image	Ref
Country	Museum	Number			Names
I	France	Louvre, Musée Bargoin, Château de Boulogne-sur-Mer, Musée de Picardie, Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne	5			^[8]
II	Austria	Kunsthistorisches Museum	5
III	Turkey	Istanbul	4
IV	United Kingdom	British Museum	5
V	Italy	National Archaeological Museum, Florence (Egyptian Museum)	6			^[9]
VI	Russia	Various, including Irkutsk	4			^[10]
VII	Germany	Egyptian Museum of Berlin	4
VIII	Portugal	Lisbon Geographic Society	4
IX	Switzerland	Kunstmuseum Appenzell, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva), Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel, Bern Historical Museum	4			^[11]
X	United States	National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico) (on loan)	4
XI	Netherlands	Rijksmuseum van Oudheden	4			^[12]
XII	Greece	National Archaeological Museum, Athens	4
XIII	Spain	National Archaeological Museum (Madrid)	4			^[13]
XIV	Sweden and Norway	Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm), Victoriamuseet för egyptiska fornsaker (Uppsala) and Museum of Cultural History, Oslo	4			^[14]
XV	Belgium	Art & History Museum, Brussels	4
XVI	Denmark	National Museum of Denmark	4
XVII	Vatican	Vatican Museums (Gregorian Egyptian Museum)	2

Anonymous coffins 75 and 126 were sent to the Museum of Alexandria.

Burials

Burials in the tomb include the following, amongst others:

• Children of Menkheperre
• Children of Pinedjem II
• Gautseshen
• Tjanefer

List of objects found

A list of the objects found was published by Daressy in 1900:^[15]

• 153 coffin sets, of which 101 include two coffins and 52 a single coffin
• 110 ushebti-boxes
• 77 wooden statuettes of Osiris, most of them hollowed and holding a papyrus scroll
• 8 wooden stelae
• 2 large wooden statuettes of Isis and Nephthys
• 16 canopic vases
• 1 mat
• 10 baskets of reeds
• 5 round baskets
• 2 fans
• 5 pairs of sandals
• 11 baskets with food (with meat, fruits, etc.)
• 6 baskets with floral garlands
• 5 large vases
• 5 pots
• 1 box with wooden hands and divine beards ripped from coffins

Gallery

Display at Egyptian Museum, Cairo

References

Sources

• Daressy . G. . 1900 . Les sépultures des prêtres d'Ammon à Deir el-Bahari . Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte . 1 . 141–148.

Further reading

• Daressy, George, Les Cercueils des Prètres D'Ammon (Deuxime Trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari), 1907
• The Gate of the Priests. Bab el-Gasus project: Funeral pragmatics of the ancient egyptian (religious) elite in the Third Intermediate Period, 2014
• Hülya Ataşcıoğlu Aykul, M. Baha Tanman et Miguel Ángel Escobar-Clarós, « A Note on the Turkish Lot III/1891 From the Bab el-Gasus Cache (Egypt), Kept at the Istanbul Archaeology Museums / Ancient Orient Museum », Anatolia Antiqua [En ligne], XXVII | 2019, mis en ligne le 31 janvier 2022, consulté le 16 avril 2022. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/anatoliaantiqua/1026 ;
• de Sousa, R. (Eds.). (16 Oct. 2018). The Tomb of the Priests of Amun. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
• Dautant (2016) Collective tombs discovered in the Theban necropolis in 1820 in Bab el-Gasus in context Egyptian funerary culture during the 21st dynasty (19–20 September 2016, Lisbon)

Notes and References

1. Book: Sousa . Rogério . Amenta . Alessia . Cooney . Kathlyn M. . Bab El Gasus in Context: Rediscovering the Tomb of the Priests of Amun . 2021 . "L'Erma" di Bretschneider . Rome . 978-88-913-2071-1 . 29 April 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210616110622/https://www.lerma1896.it/preview/bab-el-gasus-in-context-rediscovering-the-tomb-of-the-priests-of-amun.pdf. 16 June 2021. p. 17: "Daressy’s moniker ‘Tomb of the Priests’ likely finds its origins in the local traditions of Sheikh abd el Gurnah. Indeed, this phrase could be translated directly from the dialectal form of Arabic in use by Gurnawi workmen, resulting in the local designation of the tomb as ‘Bab el-Gasawsa’, which literally means ‘Gate of the Priests’, as Egyptians traditionally see pharaonic tombs as ‘gates’ into the netherworld. This Arabic phrase was probably wrongly interpreted by Herbert Winlock, who recorded it as ‘Bab el-Gasus’, which in fact means ‘Gate of the Spies’. It is perhaps for this reason that the expression was corrected to ‘Bab el-Kusus’, certainly by scholars familiar with the Cairene form of Arabic, and eventually adapting it to the typical Gurnawi pronunciation and spelling with a -g, instead of -k, resulting in the name ‘Bab el-Gusus’."
2. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/3118/The-Most-Famous-Ancient-Egyptian-Site-You-Have-Never-Heard The Most Famous Ancient Egyptian Site You Have Never Heard Of
3. Book: Maio, M. . Proceedings of the 4th Biennial of Architectural and Urban Restoration. Host of the Itinerant Congress Hidden Cultural Heritage: Under Water, Under Ground and Within Buildings . CICOP Italia . 2018 . 978-88-909116-5-1 . 2022-04-16 . 107.
4. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017.12.30/ Review by Marissa Stevens, University of California, Los Angeles of Rogério Sousa, Burial Assemblages from Bab el-Gasus in the Geographical Society of Lisbon. Monumenta Aegyptiaca, 14. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017
5. Giachi . G. . Guidotti . M.C. . Lazzeri . S. . Macchioni . N. . Sozzi . L. . Wood identification of some coffins from the Necropolis of Thebes held in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Florence . Journal of Cultural Heritage . Elsevier BV . 47 . 2021 . 1296-2074 . 10.1016/j.culher.2020.09.007 . 34–42. 228962795 .
6. Web site: الخبيئة بديل المومياوات الملكية بمتحف التحرير.. تعرف على محتوياتها . 14 June 2021 . 2022-04-16 . 2021-10-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211016061012/https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/5529597 . live .
7. Web site: The 117th Anniversary of the Egyptian Museum . 2022-04-16 . 2021-05-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210511133320/https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/events/the-117-anniversary-of-the-opening-of-the-egyptian-museum . live .
8. https://www.academia.edu/33262185/Distribution_and_current_location_of_the_French_Lot_from_the_Bab_el_Gasus_Cache Distribution and current location of the French Lot from the Bab el-Gasus Cache
9. The Lot V in the Egyptian Museum at Florence Gate of the Priests
10. https://www.academia.edu/44959869/The_Lot_VI_of_Bab_el_Gasus_in_the_light_of_the_new_archive_documents The Lot VI of Bab el-Gasus in the light of the new archive documents
11. https://www.academia.edu/40710405/The_coffins_from_the_cache-tomb_of_Bab_el_Gasus_in_Switzerland?email_work_card=title The coffins from the Cache-tomb of Bab el Gasus in Switzerland
12. Book: The Coffins of the Priest of Amun: Egyptian coffins from the 21st Dynasty in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden . 2017 . 978-9088904929 . 2022-04-17 . 2021-05-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210510220813/https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-coffins-of-the-priests-of-amun . live . Weiss . Lara .
13. The Lot XIII of Bab el-Gasus in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid.
14. Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway): The modern history of the collection and a reconstruction of the ensembles . Bettum. Anders. Body, Cosmos and Eternity . 167 .
15. Daressy, 1900, p.144. Also in English at Sousa, Amenta & Cooney 2021 p. 9.