Recensioni 325 C. Orsenigo La Tombe de Maiherperi (KV 36) (Egyptian and Egyptological Documents, Archives & Libraries (EDAL) Supplements 1). Pontremoli Editore, Milano 2016, 213 pp., VI Pl. ISSN 20382286, ISBN 9788894198607 This volume is the first supplement of the journal Egyptian and Egyptological Documents, Archives & Libraries (EDAL) established by Patrizia Piacentini in 2009 and already representing an important reference for the interna- tional scholars dealing with the study of the vast amount of archival data on the exploration of ancient Egypt scattered mainly in European and North American institutions, but also in Egypt itself. The publication of the journal certainly represented a very happy intuition, as the full valorization of the archives and of the data collected since the origins of Egyptology and never fully and/or systematically published, together with the completion of the documentation and publication of the many monuments excavated but never properly recorded and put to the attention of scholars certainly represent a crucial field for the discipline. Now the EDAL journal is opportunely comple- mented by a series of supplements, where longer contributions on these topics can be published. The volume inaugurating the series is precisely the one by Christian Orsenigo, also editor of the journal and of the series with Patrizia Piacentini and Laura Marucchi. The volume is dedicated to the much debated tomb of Maiherperi (KV 36), discovered in 1899 in the Valley of the Kings by the French Egyptologist Victor Loret. The volume derives from a section of the PhD dissertation of the author, devoted to the systematic study of the tombs discovered by Loret in the Valley of the Kings and defended in 2013 in the École Pratique des Hautes Études under the tutorship of Pascal Vernus. Christian Orsenigo conducted his research on the tomb of Maiherperi in Milan, in the Egyptological archives of the Università Statale, where, thanks to the efforts of Patrizia Piacentini, most of the notes and excavation records of Victor Loret are kept, in Paris, in the Institut de France, where some others of his excavation notes are kept, and in Cairo, in the Egyptian Museum, where the Journal d’Entrée and the General Catalogue were examined, and where most of the finds from the tomb KV 36 are kept. Moreover, some photos—so far unpublished—of the excavations conducted by Loret and presently kept in the Institut Victor Loret in Lyon were available to the author. The book consists of six chapters. The first one is devoted to Maiherperi, his identity, titles and origin, to be unanimously regarded as Nubian or, more generically, African. The second chapter deals with the description of the tomb, its grave-goods and their location within the structure when this was © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2�17 | doi 10.1163/24685631-12340037Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:54:17AM via free access 326 Recensioni discovered and explored by Loret. Chapter III consists of the list of the boxes of finds sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo: not only the lists dressed by Loret are transcribed, but also the photos of the original documents and some of the sketches characterizing them are presented. Chapter IV consists of the catalogue of the objects from KV 36 registered in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo with their photos and again some sketches of them by V. Loret. An use- ful concordance list between the numbers given by the author to the finds, the codes given by Loret and the registration number in the Journal d’Entrée and the General Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum completes this chapter. Chapter V deals with the objects with the name of Maiherperi discovered by Howard Carter during his explorations in the Valley of the Kings in 1902: these were found outside the tomb, possibly hidden there by tomb-robbers. In Chapter VI the organization and the arrangement of the grave-goods are dis- cussed and some remarks on the comparison between the assemblage from the tomb of Maiherperi and the other contemporary tombs are proposed. The results of this careful and painstaking research work are remarkable in several respects. Actually, by systematically crossing different documentary sources, such as the lists of the finds, now in the archives in Milan, and the Journal d’Entrée of the Egyptian Museum, the author not only provides the first exhaustive list of the objects found in the tomb, allowing a virtual reconstruc- tion of the assemblage, but, mainly thanks to the field notes kept in Paris, can also reconstruct their arrangement inside the tomb and correct some assump- tions based on the only data so far available on this specific aspect, i.e. the ones in an article by Schweinfurth in the journal Sphinx 3, 1900 (pp. 153–56). Noteworthy, the reconstruction of these aspects also impacts on the ongoing debate on the “embalming caches”, adding new elements on the possibility that the jars possibly containing the remains of the embalming process and/ or also of the funerary meal may have been placed inside the tomb, at least in the case of non-royal tombs, as acutely remarked by the author (pp. 162–65). In Chapter VI also the debated issue of the date of the burial is discussed (pp. 157–61). The different elements supporting the two theories, i.e. a late chro- nology, ranging from the reign of Amenhotep II to the reign of Amenhotep III, and an early chronology, ascribing the burial to the reign of Thutmosis III but before the damnatio memoriae of Hatshepsut, recently supported by Catherine Roehrig (see C.H. Roehrig, “The Tomb of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings”, in C.H. Roehrig ed., Hatshepsut from Queen to Pharaoh, New York 2005, pp. 70–72), are here analyzed and discussed. In addition to the arguments proposed by C.H. Roehrig, C. Orsenigo convincingly supports the hypothesis of a burial of Maiherperi in the reign of Thutmosis III on the basis of the similari- ties between the calcite vessels and some jewels from the tomb of Maiherperi Annali, Sezione orientaleDownloaded from 77 Brill.com09/26/2021(2017) 321–336 06:54:17AM via free access Recensioni 327 and the ones from the tomb of the foreign wives of Thutmosis III in the Wadi Gabanāt el-Qurūd. As far as this can be done on the basis of the photos pub- lished in the book by C. Orsenigo, I can add that the comparative remarks proposed by the author on the calcite vessels and the jewels seem also fully coherent with the typology of the pottery from the tomb. Actually, if we focus on the painted pottery (see e.g. KV 36.24, pp. 75–76, KV 36.36, pp. 86–87, KV 36.42, pp. 93–94, KV 36.47, pp. 97–98), apparently we are still in the phase of ceramics characterized by decorations consisting of simple red and black linear patterns occurring in the early 18th dynasty, before the affirmation of the more fancy fig- urative and multicolor patterns, from the reign of Amenhotep II onwards (see C.A. Hope, “Innovation in the Decoration of Ceramics in the mid-18th Dynasty”, Cahiers de la Céramique Égyptienne 1, 1987, pp. 97–122, in part. pp. 114–15). Moreover, the faïence vessel KV 36.48 (pp. 98–99), whose shape closely recalls the one of Cypriote imports usually found in Second Intermediate Period-early 18th dynasty assemblages (see e.g. M.C. Guidotti, Vasi dall’epoca protodinastica al Nuovo Regno, Roma 1991, 201–5, 209, nos. 299–308 and 316; A. Wodzinska, A Manual of Egyptian Pottery. Volume 3: Second Intermediate Period-Late Period, Boston 2010, 191, n. 21) also confirms the chronology supported by the author of the book under discussion and by Roehrig. In general, I also found fully pertinent the remark by Roehrig opportunely recalled by the author of this book responding to the assumption that the diffusion of earrings on male persons in Egypt only started with the reign of Amenhotep II and to its evident chronological consequences on the date of the burial Maiherperi, whose mummy was characterized by holes for earings. Actually, Maiherperi was a Nubian or perhaps an African from even more southern regions, and thus he may have used earrings even before that these personal ornaments were adopted in Egypt and in particular in the milieu of the royal court (see note 17, p. 158). In a Nubian perspective, it should be re­‑ marked that earrings are well known in Kerma classique tombs (see e.g. A. Vila, “Le cimitière Kerma”, in J. Vercoutter ed., Mirgissa I, Paris 1970, pp. 223–305, in part. p. 237; Id., Le cimitière kermaïque d’Ukma ouest, Paris 1987, pp. 220–21). Was Maiherperi precisely from Upper Nubia where the Kerma culture flour- ished? This is a question difficult to be answered, but it may be stressed that it was recently proposed that the first element of his name, MꜢı̓, the lion, may also occur—perhaps as en epithet—before the name of a king of Kush of Second Intermediate Period times (see V.W. Davies, “Recording Egyptian Inscriptions in the Eastern Desert and Elsewhere”, Sudan & Nubia 18, 2014, pp. 30–44, in part. pp. 35–36). If we accept this working hypothesis and the chro- nology supported by Orsenigo and Roehrig, we may wonder if the presence of this certainly high rank Nubian gentleman at the royal court, possibly since his Annali, Sezione orientale 77 (2017) 321–336 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:54:17AM via free access 328 Recensioni infancy as suggested by the reference to the institution of the KꜢp in his titles, is somehow related to the well known activities of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III in Upper Nubia, and to the practice of the Egyptians not only of educating the offspring of the Nubian aristocracy in the Pharaonic court, but also of keeping them there as hostages (see e.g.