The Tomb of Horemheb.Saqqara / Egypt

 It consists of a forecourt, a great pylon , the open courtyards, the cult chapels and storehouses.

The one of Horemheb being, to date, the oldest known where stone was also used, in the shape of beautiful blocks of fine Tura limestone.
The interior courtyards and the chapels, as well as the outside faces of the pylon were decorated with the help of these carefully adjusted blocks, decorated with scenes and hieroglyphic inscriptions engraved and painted (except the pylon).

The three phases of construction
The first phase of the construction included two courtyards and the western chapels,Courtyard  was in mud bricks, undecorated and without relief.

The second phase consists essentially of the development of courtyard , which becomes a room, the statue room, flanked on each side, separated by a thick mud brick wall, a store room with an arched roof. The group was covered. The front opened onto a new courtyard.

The last phase sees the erection of the present pylon in the east, and the demolition of the west wall of the previous courtyard which becomes a pillared courtyard.

 In a general manner the quality of the preserved reliefs is exceptional and constitute one of the high points of the parietal art of the New Kingdom.

Only The last portion of the tomb, dating of the end of the reign of Tutankhamun or even the reign of Horemheb himself has merely been painted and not sculpted.

South Wall :

This was the last erected before the accession of Horemheb to the throne. Only a very careful exam permitted the recovery of a sketched decoration, historically very interesting. One sees some foreigners there which could be a delegation, containing Libyans, Asians, Nubians (which one will find elsewhere in the monument) but also a man from the islands of the Aegean sea (or could be a Greek). The accompanying text has disappeared.
Another interesting relief  partially shows the "Window of Appearances" of a royal palace. In the finished scene one would have represented the sovereign distributing the reward of gold to Horemheb in the courtyard below.

West Wall :

view T 02

One finds here, next to the door leading to the statue room, a stela. The one which one sees nowadays is a replica, the original being in the British Museum (view T 02). It carries the longest preserved text of the tomb (25 lines).
At the top, Horemheb is worshipping three deities: Ra-Horakhty, Thoth and Ma'at.
Here is the part of the text selected by G.T. Martin, which shows the reigning frame of mind at court after the restoration which followed at the reign of "the heretic" Akhenaton :
"Hail to you who are beneficial and effective, Atum-Horakhty. When you have appeared in the horizon of the sky, praises to you are in the mouths of everyone, for you are beautiful and rejuvenated as the Disk in the embrace of your mother Hathor. Appear everywhere, your heart being glad forever!… Adoration to you, Thoth, lord of Hermopolis, who brought himself into being, who was not born, unique god, leader of the Netherworld!… May you cause the royal scribe Horemheb to stand firmly by the side of the sovereign as you were at the side of the lord of the universe, as you fostered him when he came forth from the womb!… Adoration to you Ma'at, lady of the north wind… may you cause the hereditary prince Horemheb to breathe the winds that are brought forth by the sky…"
(a line drawing and complete text are on 

Besides his religious interest, showing the restoration of the cult of the traditional divinities [NB: he does not make mention of Amun, probably because of the Memphite context of the monument], one finds the whole list of the titles of Horemheb here (with the considerable exception of the one of regent, becoming obsolete with the enthronement of Ay as Pharaoh and the death of Tutankhamun). Some correspond to real functions (probably very lucrative…), others are honorary. They divide themselves into "governmental" titles, for example: "Foremost of the King's courtiers", "Master of the secrets of the Palace"… into military titles: "Generalissimo", "Overseer of the recruits of the Lord of the Two Lands"… into administrative titles: "Sealbearer of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt"… into religious titles: "Overseer of all divine offices"… and of the others: "Overseer of all works of the King in every place", "Overseer of all overseers of the scribes of the King", etc…
Another stela symmetrical flanked the door of entry to the statue room.

The rest are very fragmentary, including festival scenes and others of a military camp. These very fine reliefs are partly in Bologna and Berlin.
However, there remains in situ a part of a historically very important scene, reproduced by G.T. Martin .
On the right, Horemheb is represented on a very large scale giving gold "collars of honour" to a much smaller character, the arms raised in a sign of recognition. His face is very distinctive: it is that of a man already aged, potbellied, with an aquiline nose which resembles that of the one of the mummy of Ramesses II, and the one of the supposed mummy of Ramesses I. Unfortunately, the block which would have carried the character's name has disappeared, but it is probable that it referred to Pa-Ramessu, the future Ramesses I.
It is a scene of a royal type, which could date from the beginning of the reign of Tutankhamun, at a moment where the king was considered as even too young to officiate, leaving this responsibility to the regent.
The rest of the extremely damaged blocks carry military scenes, notably the representation of a military encampment, with the various corresponding activities.
The rest of the scenes showing Horemheb, greatest of Egyptian characters of his time, in his daily activities have unfortunately only very partially survived.

On the south wall of a small vestibule, to the east of the statue room, one finds a fine well preserved and nearly complete relief showing an anonymous priest making the ritual of 'Opening of the Mouth' on a seated statue of Horemheb . A small character represented behind Horemheb named Sementaui seems to have been a particular favourite scribe of Horemheb for a long time (. After the death or disgrace of Sementaui he was here replaced by another, Ramose, whose name has been engraved over that of his predecessor.

The actual statue room is a large oblong, once covered by an arched roof whose ancient collapse has caused the disappearance of the ancient paintings which had been made directly on the plaster.

Inscriptions written on the jambs of the entry give interesting information. On those of the east, one finds Horemheb represented before a table of offerings . Only on one of the two representations  does he wear an uraeus on the forehead, added after his accession to the throne.
One can read that he is "greater than the great ones, more powerful than the most powerful… " and one finds numerous references to his military action, which in fact made it possible Egypt to take again its influence in Syro-Palestine and Nubia.

The Ramessides will establish a cult to the memory of Horemheb, of which two lintels testify, dating to Ramesses II, and which show the family of funerary priests who had charge of the monument and the execution of the rituals.

On the west of the courtyard one enters, by a short passage, into the second courtyard. This passage includes laterally the rest (1/3 of the 27 lines of origin) of an important and particularly original hymn to Osiris. Indeed, probably by reaction to the Amarnian period, the religious role of Osiris for survival increased considerably, and takes the same importance as the cult of Ra, of which it becomes the underworld Ba.

On the right-hand side, Horemheb standing. Before him, an officer forces a Nubian chieftain to 

"smell the ground" as a sign of submissiveness. Behind, six splendidly represented officers 

observe the scene. Behind them again, long files of prisoners escorted by Egyptian soldiers, 

curiously represented on a smaller scale, who could be young recruits, of which one knows that 

Horemheb was the supreme person in charge. The military scribes, magnificently represented, 

scrupulously record all the details.

Some Nubian prisoners are seated on the ground while an Egyptian brings another captive, while 

hitting him on the chin (). One block in the Museum of Bologna shows a similar scene.

The major part of the south wall can be reconstituted. Are we now within the royal palace (of Memphis) ?. The young king Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhsenamun are seated under a canopy. In the courtyard below, Horemheb is a again rewarded by gold whose heavy necklaces are put in place around his neck .

Behind him are long rows of captives , solely of Asians (at least in the remaining reliefs). These 

frightened prisoners are this time manacled and attached by the neck to one another. The women and children taken along in captivity to Egypt are also represented. Their final fate remains unknown.

The set of the military scenes is interrupted by a representation of a seated Horemheb He holds in his hand the sekhmet sceptre and an uraeus has been added secondarily to his forehead. Attending behind him is the scribe Sementaui, of whom we have already spoken. The accompanying text carries the words "regnal year", but the end is lost. It shows us on the other hand that we are not in presence of a mythical scene but very real historic fact under the reign of Tutankhamun.

Underneath one finds scenes of a butcher's shop and food store (view G 04), reproduced by G.T. Martin . In the northwest corner, one also finds a representation of chariot harnessing 

Libyan, Nubians and Asiatic emissaries either knelt or lying on the ground come to implore king Tutankhamun, through the intermediary of his representative Horemheb, to grant them the "breath 

of life", and therefore his clemency (G 12; T 11). The Regent turns around toward the royal couple to announce their supplication. An interpreter is in charge of the translations.
The rests of texts are difficult to understand but seem to make allusion to the devastation of their country after the passage of the Egyptian army led by the Generalissimo.