653/B.26
Daressy #: --
Owner: TT 183 Nebsumenu
Reasons: Inscription and provenience
Transliteration: Asjr jmj-rA pr nb-sw-mnw mAa-xrw n wAst
Translation: Osiris, steward Nebsumenu, justified, from Thebes.
Date: R. II (Kitchen 1980 [KRI III]: 182).
Length: 28 x 21 x 4.5cm (Gaál 1993: 43). Seal impression: 17.5 x 9.5 (Ibid.).
Colours: --
Findspots:
12 fragments of fired bricks from TT 32 (Gaál 1993: 43).
One brick from Tomb D which is located on the second forecourt of TT 32 (Schreiber 2008: 35).
Two bricks from the tomb -64- (Schreiber 2017: 102-103).
Remarks:
Schreiber states as follows: The shape of this brick type is quite unusual, being 28 cm long, 21 cm wide and 4.5 cm thick. Even more remarkably, the stamp is seen atop the bricks (Figure 7), in a way similar to a sizable group of unfired mud bricks stamped for private individuals (Spencer 1979, 146, Pl. 38). Unlike those, however, Nebsumenu’s bricks were manufactured out of well-tempered and carefully fired Nile silt. The application of an elaborate matrix producing an unusually deep impression in raised relief as well as the coating of the stamped surface with a red self-slip before firing are also clear proofs of the fact that these bricks were made with the aim of forming an ornamental frieze (Schreiber 2017: 103).
This seal impression may have been stamped solely on the bricks, rather than the cones. Further information on this particular type can be found here.