Picture inside the tomb of Sennefer, the vizier and the mayor of Thebes (Luxor), during the reign of King Amenhotep II, around 1400 BC. C.

This tomb is reached via a stair with 43 steps which goes down into the rock. Sennefer was the Prince of the Southern City during the reign of Amon-Ofis II. The tomb is famous for the beautiful bower of grapes painted on the ceiling of the vestibule.

Sennefer’s Tomb

two tombs containing the mummified remains of dozens of senior officials and clergy have been found by a team of Egyptian and Spanish archaeologists from the Vizier Amenhotep-Huy Project. Amenhotep-Huy served as vizier in the 18th Dynasty under the pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned from about 1390 to 1352 B.C., but he opposed religious practices promoted by Akhenaten, the pharaoh’s son. “He is a very important person,” commented team leader Francisco J. Martín. Two chambers connect the newly discovered tombs to the vizier’s tomb, a chapel with 30 columns located on the west bank of the Nile River. “They began to build other tombs from different dynasties within the vizier’s tomb, since the place was sacred,” Martín explained. To read about monuments built by Amenhotep III in Thebes, go to “Rediscovering Egypt’s Golden Dynasty.”