| Summary: | On the southern side of the so-called Third Valley (also known as the Valley of the Last Mentuhotep), high on the slopes of an unnamed hill, behind Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, an unfinished mortuary complex of Amenemhat Sehetepibre is located. It includes two tombs, TT 1151 and TT 1152, which were occupied by two Christian hermits, in the last decades of the fifth century. The tombs were used by subsequent generations of monks, until their eventual abandonment in the eighth century. It is demonstrated that Tomb TT 1152 was prepared for one of the court officials of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes and it is dated to the end of the Eleventh or the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty. Whereas it was never finished, certain parts of its interior, such as the entrance corridor and the cult chapel were completed. It was repetitively used for sepulchral purposes between the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the Late Period. In front of the entrance to the tomb there was an open courtyard, which would have been normally surrounded by a mud-brick wall; however, this wall was never built. In the centre of the rock facade there was the entrance to the tomb leading to a long rock-cut corridor with a square chamber at the end – the funerary cult chapel. In the floor of this chamber, there was an entrance to a deep shaft. Usually, at the bottom of this shaft, there was another corridor leading to the burial chamber. In TT 1152, the burial chamber was never hewn, as work stopped during the preparation of the corridor. The monks who occupied the tomb made certain adjustments. They added benches and a 'bed', and they decorated the rock walls with crosses, two figures of equestrian saints, Christ and inscriptions using red and yellow colours. At a later stage, in the courtyard in front of the tomb, domestic and industrial facilities as well as an almost 6-metres high mud-brick defensive tower/ keep were constructed. Access to the tower was possible through an upper-floor chamber that was reached using a ladder from the outside. ...
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