Tomb of Rekhmire: Vizier of Thutmose III and Daily Life Scenes

The Tomb of Rekhmire is the decorated tomb chapel of Rekhmire, vizier of Upper Egypt under Thutmose III, cut into the hill of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna on the west bank at Thebes in about 1450 BC. Known to archaeologists as TT100, it contains the fullest surviving text on the duties of an Egyptian vizier and some of the most detailed paintings of crafts and foreign tribute from the New Kingdom. It is one of the most studied private tombs in Egypt.

Rekhmire and the office of vizier

The vizier (Egyptian tjaty) was the king’s chief minister. In the 18th Dynasty there were two, one for Upper (southern) Egypt based at Thebes and one for Lower (northern) Egypt based at Memphis. The vizier supervised the treasury, granaries, courts, building works and local officials, and reported directly to the pharaoh.

Rekhmire inherited a family tradition. His grandfather Ahmose Aametu and his uncle Useramun had both been viziers before him. He served Thutmose III during the later part of that king’s long reign (c. 1479–1425 BC) and remained in office at the start of the reign of Amenhotep II. After that he disappears from the record.

The tomb chapel

Like other nobles’ tombs at Thebes, TT100 is a chapel where family and priests could bring offerings. It has a T-shaped plan: a broad transverse hall leads to a long passage running into the hillside. The ceiling of the passage rises towards the back, reaching a height of about 8 metres, so that the far wall seems to climb into the rock.

Almost every surface was plastered and painted. The tomb was known to European travellers from the early 19th century and copied by several expeditions. The definitive record was made by Norman de Garis Davies for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian Expedition and published in 1943. Nina de Garis Davies painted careful facsimiles of many scenes, which are now in the Metropolitan Museum.

The Duties of the Vizier

The best-known text in the tomb is usually called the Duties of the Vizier. It describes how the vizier sat in his hall each morning, received reports from the treasury and the gatekeepers of the palace, heard petitions and legal cases, sent out messengers, and supervised the opening of storehouses. It also sets out rules about records and appeals.

A companion text, the Installation of the Vizier, records the king’s speech on appointing him and urges impartial justice. A painted scene shows the vizier in his hall of judgement with forty leather rolls laid out before him, generally understood as the written laws or records he consulted. Copies of these texts also appear in the tombs of other viziers, which suggests they were standard documents of the office rather than Rekhmire’s own composition.

Scenes of crafts and daily life

The long passage shows the workshops of the Temple of Amun that Rekhmire oversaw. Painters set out each trade step by step:

• brick-makers fetching water, mixing mud and moulding bricks for a temple ramp;
• metalworkers working bellows with their feet and pouring molten bronze into moulds for temple doors;
• carpenters sawing, drilling and finishing furniture;
• leatherworkers, sandal-makers, jewellers and stone vase makers.

Other scenes show the collection of taxes in kind, the preparation of bread and beer, banquets with musicians, and the funeral rites for Rekhmire, including the journey to Abydos. Because they are so detailed, these paintings are among the most reproduced images of Egyptian working life.

Foreign tribute

One wall of the transverse hall shows foreign delegations bringing goods to Thebes, arranged in five registers. They include people from Punt, the land reached by Hatshepsut’s famous expedition, bringing incense trees and animals; the Keftiu, generally identified with Minoan Crete and the Aegean, carrying metal vessels; Nubians with gold, ebony, ivory, a giraffe and cattle; and Syrians bringing chariots, horses, copper ingots and a bear and elephant.

Egyptian art presented such exchanges as tribute, but many were diplomatic gifts or trade. The scene reflects the reach of Egypt’s empire after Thutmose III’s campaigns in the Levant, beginning with the Battle of Megiddo, and is an important source for Aegean clothing and pottery of the period.

Damage and later history

Many of Rekhmire’s own images in the tomb were deliberately defaced in antiquity. Some Egyptologists see this as a sign that he fell from favour under Amenhotep II, but others note that damage of this kind could have other causes. No burial chamber certainly belonging to him has been found, and his mummy is unknown.

Timeline

• c. 1479 BC: Thutmose III comes to the throne.
• c. 1450 BC: Rekhmire serves as vizier of Upper Egypt; his tomb chapel is decorated.
• c. 1427 BC: Amenhotep II succeeds Thutmose III; Rekhmire stays briefly in office.
• Early 19th century: European travellers record and copy the tomb’s paintings.
• 1920s–1930s: The Metropolitan Museum’s expedition copies the tomb in full.
• 1943: Norman de Garis Davies publishes The Tomb of Rekh-mi-Rē at Thebes.

Why it matters

The Tomb of Rekhmire turns abstract ideas of Egyptian government into concrete detail: how a chief minister worked, who made the goods of a great temple, and which foreign peoples dealt with Egypt at the height of its power. Its texts and scenes remain basic evidence for historians of the 18th Dynasty.