Preliminary Condition Report of TT14 - by Dina Bakhoum

Preliminary Condition Report of TT14

The following condition report concerns the decorated hall A of tomb TT 14.
The plan of hall A is irregular; it takes the shape of a rectangle, nevertheless the corners are chamfered. The four walls and the ceiling are painted.


Technique:
The decoration is applied paint on a plaster layer. It is clear that during cutting the tomb into the bedrock, many pieces were falling, not providing the regular straight walls. In areas where a big piece of the bedrock was missing, they inserted wooden pieces and then applied the plaster. The plaster layer does not have the same width all over the tomb due to the variations in the bedrock surface.
The background mortar of the plaster layer consists of clay mortar varying in thickness (starting at 1 cm and more). It is followed by a pink layer of mortar (1 mm) followed by a white layer of mortar (1-2 mm) which is the layer carrying the painting. The pink layer is found mainly at the entrance walls, while the rest of the walls carry only the clay layer and the white thin plaster layer (composed probably of gypsum).


General Condition:
By slightly knocking on the walls, it seems hollow in the background and it seems that the plaster is detaching from the background surface of the bedrock. This is nevertheless not the case; the sound of the hollowness in the background is due to the wooden pieces in the wall behind the plaster.
The white plaster layer in most areas is well attached to the background clay mortar and only very few areas show possibilities of detachments.
The paintings are well adhered to the background thin gypsum layer.

The condition of the paintings of the ceiling is very good. Only in one area the plaster is lost. Otherwise the ceiling is complete and the paintings are clear. Almost no damage due to wasp nets or other common natural damage factors in the Theban tombs is observed. The ceiling is almost untouched. Nevertheless, some cracks run through the ceiling. These cracks are formed due to the background bedrock which has the natural lines of breakage.

The walls are unfortunately not in such a good condition like the ceiling, but nevertheless they are in a relatively good condition with most of the plaster and painting still remaining.
The north wall:
The left side of the north wall shows a diagonal damage mainly in the form of loss of paint layer and powdering of the plaster layer. The areas above as well as below are in a very good condition. Several aspects could be the reason for this.
The tomb could have been flooded at a point in time and this could explain the condition of the paintings on the walls. When water came into the tomb it entered the walls and went up in the walls and evaporated in this location (a common appearance of the damage due to capillary rising water). Nevertheless, it seems that the reason in this tomb was different. It must be considered that soil was probably filling the tomb in the same diagonal shape. When water entered the tomb it damaged the exposed areas. All the other walls show the damage almost at the same level. It is quite possible that the damage took the shape of the soil and fill on the ground of the tomb. Some cracks are also observed in the plaster layer. The frieze has lost some of its plaster.
The right side of the north wall has also an irregular line of damage, of loss of paint layer and powdering of the clay layer. Below this area of damage colored paintings still remain. On top of this part the decoration does not carry any color. Only the red preparation drawing lines exist. It seems that this part of the tomb was not completed in terms of being painted. Little parts of the plaster are lost. Some cracks exist.

The east wall has lost a big part of the plaster layer and on the left part an earlier restoration has filled the missing part with clay mortar. Another big part of the plaster is lost on the right side of the wall but this was nevertheless not re-plastered. This part shows us the remaining wooden pieces inserted in the wall. The paintings are fading and in some areas the color is totally lost. The upper frieze is in a better condition than the rest of the wall although it has lost also a lot of the painting.
The south wall where there is an entrance leading to the rest of the tomb shows total loss of the plaster layer; only the upper decorated plaster remains.
The west wall has lost all the plaster layer. An opening was at a point in time opened through this wall. The only plaster remaining consists of view parts of the upper frieze remain and of the most lower part.

It is quite remarkable how the condition of the walls is much worse than that of the ceiling.


The painting:
The remaining painting of the ceiling, as mentioned earlier, are in a very good condition and do not show any of the expected damage. As for the walls, some remains of a thin layer of silt exist. And in other parts the paint was completely lost. Of course there is a bit of chromatic alterations, but most of the remaining paint carry its original colors which are very vivid and strong. On all the walls though there is a lot of dust accumulation. No signs of salts are observed on the painting.

by Dina Bakhoum


Read also the article concerning the Preliminary Report on the Anthropological Analysis of the Human Skeletal Remains - Dra Abu El Naga TT 14 – Midan 05 by Barbara Lippi
click here