Horemheb Critique

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Critique of The Memphite Tomb of Horemheb, Commander-in-Chief of Tutankhamun
The Memphite Tomb of Horemheb, Commander-in-Chief of Tutankhamun: The Reliefs, Inscriptions, and Commentary was published in 1989 by Geoffrey Thorndike Martin, site director and epigraphist of the 1975 archaeological dig at Saqqara under the Egypt Exploration Society. This archaeological dig report succeeds in providing a neat catalogue of the tomb writings and reliefs found in the tomb Horemheb was originally meant to be buried in, prior to his career advancement as king. Martin’s work is thorough, ordering items by a sequence in accordance to where they were found in situ, moving from the entrance to the interior furthest in the structure. As the evidence that he has collected primarily consists of texts, it is particularly useful that he also includes photographs and transcriptions of the original hieroglyphs, and his own transliterations and translations of the text. Overall, this volume collects the writings and drawings from Horemheb’s tomb, interspersed with explanations of the tomb’s layout and historical contextualization of Horemheb’s career
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He states that it is his goal to “establish accurate, i.e. facsimile, copies of the texts and reliefs”, only providing “a modicum of descriptive detail [where it] is obviously necessary to give a certain coherence to the narrative” (1989: p. x). Taking this as his main goal of this volume, it is my opinion that he executes this well. He does not fall short in providing detailed descriptions and contextualization of how, when, and where the career of Horemheb would have been situated during the time of this tomb’s construction, citing reputable, scholarly sources while doing so. He also applies a healthy amount of citations when justifying how a piece of text could be used as evidence to support the hypothesis of another author. This occurs consistently throughout Martin’s