October - November 1997 The archaeological campaign of the Civiche Raccolte Archeologiche (Archaeological Museum of Milano, Italy) in the Tomb of Harwa lasted from October 19th to November 8th, 1997. Its main aim was to continue the restoration work in the Second Pillared Hall, begun last year, and to start clearing the limestone chips that cover the floor of the First Pillared Hall.
The members of the mission were: Dr. Francesco Tiradritti (Director and Egyptologist), Dr. Rosanna Pirelli (Egyptologist), Miss Ilaria Perticucci (Conservator), Mr. Franco Lovera (Photographer), Mr. Sandro Senni (Architect) and Mr. Giacomo Tiradritti (Economist).

In addition to Dr. Mohammed Soghair, General Director for the Antiquities of Upper Egypt, I would like to thank the staff of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Inspectorate of Qurnah, namely: Dr. Mohammed Nasr, General Director, Dr. Mohammed el-Bialy, Director, and Mr. Yasser Yussef Ahmed, inspector. They gave invaluable support to my staff and to me, assisting us in many ways. Thanks to their kind and friendly co-operation our work progressed in a very effective and fruitful way.
Qurnah, November 8th, 1997

Francesco Tiradritti
Civiche Raccolte Archeologiche
Via Luini, 2 
I-20123 Milano  

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Archaeological activities The First Pillared Hall was found covered by a layer of limestone chips of different sizes at a height varying from 30 to 80 cm. We divided it into four rows of virtual squares taking as fixed points the main axis and the remains of the pillars as to obtain a grid to be followed in the course of the excavations (see plan I). 
First of all we started clearing the subsidiary chambers opening in the northern and in the southern sides of the hall as to provide space to store the decorated limestone fragments, the pottery and the bones we eventually found. Last year we already cleared S1, S2 and N5.
In the subsidiary room N2 a large amount of pottery was found. The shards belong to different periods of Egyptian history and lends credibility to the hypothesis that the room was used as a sort of discharge of broken vases. In the SE corner of the chamber, a little pottery cup and a melted transparent glass alabastron were discovered lying on the floor. They could be the remains of a disturbed burial dating to the early centuries of our era and give support to the supposition that the large amount of pottery covering them was put in the chamber at a later date.
Many coarse pottery shabtys were found scattered inside and near the entrance of the chamber N3. Many fa‹ence beads from a mummy-net were also discovered in the SE corner of the same room. This evidence makes clear that the subsidiary chamber was used for a burial between the end of the pharaonic period and the very beginning of the Roman times. In the same room, over the debris covering the floor, five fragments of a limestone false canopic-jar with baboon head (Hapy) were also discovered (see Fig. 1). It may come from the irregular and unfinished hole opening in the middle of the northern wall.

Fig. 1: The canopic-jar found in the subsidiary chamber N3

In the subsidiary chamber S3, near the entrance, the furniture of a disturbed burial was discovered. It consisted of two little vessels, a cup (with remains of bread inside) and a rough limestone scarab. The situation was similar in subsidiary chamber S4, where we found, associated with three femoral bones, the remains of what seems to be furniture of a double burial. We discovered two pale-blue alabastra with tall necks (one partially melted), a little vase, two fragments of a very similar one (they were found together) and an oil-lamp in the "arms and frog" style. 
As for the First Pillared Hall, we were able to clear the entire central part of debris (Fig. 2). 
 

Fig. 2: View of the First Pillared Hall at an advanced stage of the clearing work.

Many limestone fragments came from the collapse of the ceiling. Some of them still bear traces of the decoration that proved to consist of red stripes against a blue background. The pieces discovered until now are not sufficient to understand the design composed by the red stripes.
The decoration of the walls and the pillars was also painted in red and blue. In the southern part of the hall we found many fragments of the scenes decorating the entrance to the subsidiary rooms S2, S3 and S4. They proved to be huge offering-tables (S2), a butchery scene (S3, see Fig. 3) and a row of offering-bearers (S4). This last scene has a parallel in the one over the entrance to the opposite subsidiary room (N4). No remains of the scenes over the entrances to the subsidiary rooms N2 and N3 have been discovered.
Among the pillar fragments, we discovered some bearing god and female figures. These belonged to the scene at the top of the pillars where a deity and a personification of the Hour (the female figure) had been depicted. Among the deities, we found two ram-headed gods (one coming from the Southern row and one coming from the Northern row, see Fig. 4), a falcon-headed one (with lunar disk) and another with jackal-head.
 

Fig. 3: Part of the butchery scene from the decorton of the entrance to S3

Fig. 4: Ram-headed god from the decoration of the southern pillars

The discovery of some fragments with inscriptions mentioning the 7th, 9th (Fig. 5) and 12th hours of the Night, makes certain that the southern row of pillars bore that ritual. The progression of the text is West to East, that is, from the inner part to the exit of the tomb.
 

Fig. 5: Fragment of a pillar mentioning the 9th Hour of the Night.

In the northern part of the First Pillared Hall, a large portion of the ceiling has collapsed, preserving good stratigraphy. Under huge slabs of limestone we discovered a layer of human remains mixed and covered by plaster of Paris. The three almost complete skeletons we were able to identify were lying without an apparent orientation and with no furniture at all. This leads to think that such a burial had to be connected with a period of pestilence.
Under this layer, we discovered traces of furniture from poor burials lying on the floor of the hall. The layer was very disturbed: chips of limestone were mixed with bones and traces of fire. A better situation exists in the NE corner of the square I.D2, where we found the remains of a skeleton facing south with the heads pointing to the west. It was associated with four pottery vessels (one containing a date) and two glass alabastra (fig. 6). 
 

Fig. 6: Funerary furniture of Roman times from the square I.D2.

Fig. 7: Upper part of a basalt shabty of HarwFa (before restoration)

In the centre of the hall, at a height of 30-40 cm from the ground level we discovered the central and upper parts (Fig. 7) of two basalt shabtys of Harwa. Not far from the latter, a complete limestone shabty of Harwa was also found (Fig. 8). 
 

Fig. 8: The complete limestone shabty of Harwa (before restoration).

It was discovered in two pieces lying a few centimetres from each other. The style of this shabty is identical to that of the royal shabtys of the XXVth dynasty discovered in the necropolis of Nuri. However it also resembles the funerary statuettes of Petamenofi, the owner of the TT 33, which is located a few dozens of meters from Harwa's tomb. The fact that all the shabtys found in Harwa's tomb have been discovered in the way leading out (except one coming from the subsidiary room S1) and at a certain height above the ground level, would support the hypothesis already expressed by J.J. ClŠre (BIFAO 34, 1934). According to him, the shabtys of Harwa were not taken from his tomb before Coptic times. At the same time, two fragments reached Medamud where they were found in the sacred lake of the temple.

We also carried out a rescue excavation among the heaps of debris hanging over the courtyard of the tomb. We removed a large amount of sand limestone chips from the south side to prevent its collapse into the courtyard. We stepped the part of the heap hanging over the court to reduce the danger of a collapse in the case of rainstorm. During this excavation we discovered the top of the mud-brick of the causeway leading to the funerary temple of Mentuhotep II Nebpehetyra.
 

Fig. 9: The western part of the Second Pillared Hall southern wall after cleaning.

Restoration works Our conservator tested the method she used last year in a limited part of the Second Pillared Hall for cleaning the walls from bats' guana. The results proved to be more than satisfying and then we decided to use it in a more extensive way. A conservator from the SCA joined our team. We put under his direction two workmen and, in this way, we were able to create a restoration team that can continue his activities in the future. 
In such a way it was possible to increase the speed of the restrain work. We cleaned most of the western wall of the Second Pillared Hall and a large portion of the southern wall (Fig. 9). 
In this part the restoration method proved to be really effective and very accurate. The complete cleaning of the guana led to the discovery of a row of illustrations in the middle of the wall relating to the purification ritual of the mummy, formerly unseen and identical with those at the top of the walls of the hall (Fig. 10)
 

Fig. 10: Detail of a scene from the decoration of the Second Pillared Hall southern wall.