138
Daressy #: --
Owner: Seshi (Neshi? tomb undiscovered, perhaps at Dra Abul Naga)
Reasons: --
Transliteration: jmAxy xr jnpw tpj Dw=f jmj-rA aHaw n jmn sSj(nSj?) mAa-xrw
Translation: Revered one before Anubis who is upon his mountain, overseer of the boats of Amun, Seshi (Neshi? cf. Megally 1977: 271) justified.
Date: Hat - T. III.
Length: 20.0 digits (BM: EA 62852), 20.8 digits (MMA: 15.2.70), nearly 21.3 digits (Gauthier 1908 [BIFAO 6]: 134)
Colours: --
Findspots:
Nine from Dra Abul Naga (Gauthier 1908 [BIFAO 6]: 133–134).
One from the outside of TT 19 (01-144 in Davies's notebook).
Five from the 'Areal A' and the monastery at Deir el-Bakhit in Dra Abul Naga (Kruck 2012: 108).
Remarks:
The shape of the cone is almost cylindrical (Gauthier 1908 [BIFAO 6]: 134). Three examples in the Petrie Museum (PeM: LDUCE-UC37598 – LDUCE-UC37600) and one in the Firenze Museum of unknown inventory number (Pellegrini 1902: 146) were formed on a wheel (similar examples are # 134, # 139, and # 215 (Stewart 1986: 23, 71, 73)). Davies states that # 550 also has a hollow body, but the inner wall is very rough, so it was not made with wheels. As for 15.2.70 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum's website describes it as follows: This cone and three others in the collection...have the impression of a seal inscribed for a man named Seshi who was overseer of the ships of the god Amun. Compared to other cones in the collection, these are larger in both diameter and length. They also differ in shape and manufacture. Whereas most funerary cones are solid and roughly conical in shape, these are hollow and become wider towards the middle before they taper to a blunt end. It is also known that one of the many examples of # 406 has a hollow body with a concentric trace inside (Kondo et al. 2017: 53 and 55).
From the inscription and its proximity to other excavations, we can deduce that the maker of this cone is the same as that of # 139, and that the owners of both were therefore active at the same time and were related.
A papyrus in the Louvre (E. 3226) states that Seshi or Neshi was in his office in the year 30 of Thutmose III (Megally 1977: 271-273).
See also 05-128 in Macadam's DALEX file 1, and 06-038 in his DALEX file 2.