Making a living in the City of the Dead : history, life and work at al-Hurubāt in the Necropolis of Thebes, al-Qurna, Luxor

Abstract

This study finds its origins in a crime. At least, that is if today's strict Egyptian antiquities legislation, prohibiting the illicit excavation and trade in ancient Egyptian artefacts, were applied to the rich tomb discovered around 1871 by the brothers Muhammad and Ahmad cAbd ar-Rasul in the cliffs above al-Hurubat, al-Qurna. When the discovery was made public in 1881, it became obvious that the cAbd ar­ Rasul family had used their find as a 'bank' account, selling off antiquities as and when in need of funds. Al-Hurubat and the other component hamlets which make up the village of al-Qurna on the Luxor west bank are in part located in the World Heritage-listed archaeological area of the Theban Necropolis. Located in the foothills of the Theban Mountain, mud-brick houses are situated in between and on top of a Pharaonic cemetery of international renown. Due to their presence within the archaeological precinct, foreign archaeological missions in the area for the past 190 years have recruited their labourers from the 'Qurna' community. As a consequence, references about al-Qurna in the main come from, and are coloured by, the professional reports and popularised accounts which result from archaeological fieldwork practice and from the popular fiction it has inspired. Although damage to the archaeological monuments; antiquities' thefts; or the illicit excavation and trade in antiquities feature in all these literary forms, no other incident has contributed more to the common understanding that the people who live here are 'tomb-robbers' than has the 1881 cAbd ar-Rasul discovery. Using a 1960s Egyptological publication which popularised the interest in ancient Egypt but which in doing so also perpetuated for a mass-audience the characterisation that Qurnawi are 'tomb-robbers', this study argues that the archaeological literature and its attendant negative views concerning populations inhabiting archaeological sites, has largely been responsible for the denial of any form of contemporary sociality which may also be found in the Theban Necropolis