The tomb of Kha and Merit, also known by its tomb number Theban Tomb 8 or TT8, is the funerary chapel and burial place of the ancient Egyptian foreman Kha and his wife Merit, in the northern cemetery of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. Kha supervised the workforce who constructed royal tombs during the reigns of the pharaohs Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III () in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty of the early New Kingdom of Egypt. Of unknown background, he probably rose to his position through skill and was rewarded by at least one king. He and his wife Merit had three known children. Kha died in his 60s, while Merit died before him, seemingly unexpectedly, in her 20s or 30s.
The couple's pyramid-shaped chapel has been known since at least 1818 when one of their funerary stele was purchased by the antiquarian Bernardino Drovetti. Scenes from the chapel were first copied in the 19th century by early Egyptologists including John Gardiner Wilkinson and Karl Lepsius. The paintings show Kha and Merit receiving offerings from their children and appearing before Osiris, god of the dead. The decoration has been damaged over the millennia, deteriorating due to structural decay and human actions.
Kha and Merit's tomb was cut into the base of the cliffs opposite their chapel. This position allowed the entrance to be quickly buried by debris deposited by landslides and later tomb construction, hiding its location from ancient robbers. The undisturbed tomb was discovered in February 1906 in excavations led by the Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli on behalf of the Italian Archaeological Mission. The burial chamber contained over 400 items including carefully arranged stools and beds, neatly stacked storage chests of personal belongings, clothing and tools, tables piled with foods such as bread, meats and fruit, and the couple's two large wooden sarcophagi housing their coffined mummies. Merit's body was fitted with a funerary mask; Kha was provided with one of the earliest known copies of the Book of the Dead. Their mummies have never been unwrapped. X-rays, CT scanning and chemical analyses have revealed neither were embalmed in the typical fashion but that both bodies are well preserved. Both wear metal jewellery beneath their bandages, although only Kha has funerary amulets.
Almost all of the contents of the tomb were awarded to the excavators and were shipped to Italy soon after the discovery. They have been displayed in the Museo Egizio in Turin since their arrival, and an entire gallery is devoted to them. This has been redesigned several times.
Kha's career and family
Kha (transliterated as or ) was an official in the workmen's village known today as Deir el-Medina during the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. Often referred to as an architect or foreman in modern publications, he directed the workmen who cut and decorated royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings ("the Great Place") in the reigns of three successive pharaohs: Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and Amenhotep III (). Kha's origins are unknown. His only attested parent is his father, Iuy, who bears no titles and about whom nothing is known. Therefore, Kha is assumed to have attained his position through skill. Kha had a close relationship with an official named Neferhebef, suggested to be his mentor or tutor, who directed the construction of the tomb of Amenhotep II. Neferhebef is depicted with his wife in a place of honour in Kha's funerary chapel, and his name appears on items in Kha's tomb.
Kha likely began his career in the reign of Amenhotep II, possibly working on the royal tomb under the supervision of Neferhebef. The Egyptologist Barbara Russo proposes that Kha attained the role of "chief of the Great Place" () during the reign of Thutmose IV and reached the peak of his career during the reign of Amenhotep III, when he was given the title of "overseer of works in the Great Place" (). He also bore the titles "overseer of the works of the central administration" () and "royal scribe" ().
Kha received several royal gifts over his career. The first was a gilded cubit rod given by Amenhotep II, and he later received a bronze bowl from Amenhotep III. His most significant award was a "gold of honour" or "gold of favour" (), a reward given by the king to officials in recognition of their service, although which ruler it was given by is debated. Thutmose IV or Amenhotep III are considered the most likely candidates based on the style of the jewellery worn by the mummies of Kha and Merit. Preparations for his tomb likely began in the reign of Thutmose IV whose name occurs most frequently as a seal on vessels. Based on the style of his coffins and the art style seen on painted funerary chests in the tomb, Kha probably died in the third decade of Amenhotep III's reign.
Merit () also transcribed as Meryt, was Kha's wife. She was titled "lady of the house" (), a common title given to married women. She seems to have unexpectedly predeceased Kha, as she was buried in a coffin intended for him. They had three known children: two sons named Amenemopet and Nakhteftaneb, and a daughter named Merit. Amenemopet also worked in Deir el-Medina and was titled "servant in the royal necropolis". No title is known for Nakhteftaneb; he seems to have been in charge of the funerary cult of his parents. Merit became a singer of Amun. All the children outlived their mother but Amenemopet may have died before his father.
Chapel Location and description
The funerary chapel of Kha and Merit, numbered TT8, stands on a terrace at the northern end of the Deir el-Medina necropolis. It is a small pyramid, whose sides measure with an incline of 75 degrees, giving the structure a projected total height of . Constructed of mudbrick, the exterior was plastered and painted white. It is an early example of the pyramid form at Deir el-Medina, derived from the tombs of contemporary nobility; this shape became typical in the workmen's village in later dynasties. Kha and his workmen would have built their own chapels in their down time between work on royal construction projects. The chapel would be the focus of the owner's cult after death, the place where visitors gave offerings to sustain the deceased in the afterlife.
The chapel faces northeast and has a single doorway with large doorposts. Nothing remains of the lintel and cornice they supported. Like other pyramid-chapels in the necropolis, there was probably a niche in the face of the pyramid, above the door, which held a small stele. The interior of the chapel is a single room, longer than it is wide, measuring with a vaulted ceiling high. A niche in the back wall housed a stele now in the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy.
The pyramid-chapel was capped by a pyramidion of whitewashed sandstone. It is decorated on all sides with sunk bas-reliefs of Kha worshipping the sun god Ra and inscribed with hymns to the god at the stages of his journey: the east and damaged north faces adore Ra at sunrise, the south face praises him as he crosses the sky, and the west face worships Ra as he sets. The pyramidion was rediscovered on 8 February 1923 by the Egyptologist Bernard Bruyère in the courtyard of the tomb of Pashed (TT326), a few metres south-east of TT8. It is now housed in the Louvre in Paris, France.
A rectangular walled enclosure surrounds the chapel, cut back into the rocky hillside at its rear. In front of the chapel is a rectangular courtyard, measuring approximately , which was probably entered through a small pylon-shaped gateway. Typically in Deir el-Medina, the tomb shaft was cut within this courtyard. In this case, it was instead cut into the base of the cliffs opposite. In 1924, Bernard Bruyère excavated the courtyard to see if an existing burial shaft close to the area was the reason for the separation. On the right side of the courtyard, from the entrance of the chapel, in the expected location of a shaft, he found a pit deep and wide lined with mudbrick. Schiaparelli suggested that this pit was where some of the couple's funerary items, known before the discovery of the tomb, were originally deposited. Bruyère suggested the separation of chapel and tomb was instead because of the very poor quality rock beneath the courtyard.
The chapel was in a ruined state by the 19th and 20th centuries; the exterior was partially restored by the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale (IFAO). It is not open to tourists.
Decoration
The interior of the chapel was plastered and fully decorated. On stylistic grounds, it was completed in the reigns of Thutmose IV or Amenhotep III. As with the exterior, the decorative scheme mimics the types of scenes and layouts seen in the chapels of the elite. Kha presumably employed his own skilled workmen to execute the decoration. Unlike the tombs of nobles, the texts have errors such as unconventional hieroglyph groupings and omitted signs, indicating that the artists had limited literacy.
The ceiling is covered with two different geometric and floral patterns separated by a central inscription that runs the length of the room. The vault is bordered on each side by another band of text and an upper frieze of alternating lotus flowers, buds, and grapes separates the inscriptions from the wall scenes proper.
The left wall depicts a banquet scene. Kha and Merit are depicted on the far right, seated before an offering table; their daughter adjusts her father's collar and one of their sons presents them with offerings. Below this scene, a narrow register depicts an additional offering of four amphorae garlanded with flowers and fruit and attended by a servant. The rest of the wall depicts guests and musicians. In a lower register, offering bearers advance in the opposite direction, towards a seated couple who are now mostly obliterated by damage.
The right wall has the same layout as the left. The large scene depicts the god Osiris seated in a raised kiosk (canopy supported by columns); he receives offerings from Kha and Merit, who are accompanied by their children. In the two smaller registers, servants approach with offerings of a goat or gazelle and a white ox wearing a floral garland.
The back wall is divided into three registers around the central stele niche. A pair of Anubis-jackals lying on rectangular tomb-shrines face each other across a large bouquet in the uppermost, semi-circular register; unlike the rest of the decoration, which has a yellow background, this is executed on a light grey background. In the second register, Kha is depicted twice, once on the left and once on the right, kneeling and offering a bouquet. The left side of the lowest register shows Neferhebef and Taiunes seated with offerings before them and receiving ministrations from a man, on the right side of the register, dressed in the leopard skin of a sem-priest (one who conducted funerary rituals). He may be their son but his identity is unknown as the inscription is badly damaged.
The chapel was damaged only a decade or so after it went into use during the reign of Amenhotep III's successor, Akhenaten. The name of the god Amun was erased wherever it occurred as part of Akhenaten's iconoclasm against the deity. It was later restored but in a way that does not match the original text. Later, all the faces of the figures were hammered out, possibly by Copts. The decoration near the door deteriorated further after the partial collapse of the ceiling in this area. The back wall was damaged in the 19th century during the removal of the stele, and a graffito in hieratic, mentioned by Karl Lepsius in the 1840s, was destroyed sometime after his publication.