and other tombs on the Qubbet el-Hawa There have been about 100 tombs discovered as of July 2022.
Old Kingdom The majority of the tombs date from the
Old Kingdom and provide an insight into the burial traditions of Upper Egyptian Nome 1 during the later Old Kingdom. Examples include Mekhu and his son
Sabni from the
Sixth Dynasty. One tomb, QH 33, was found to be oriented to the winter solstice. Among the most important tombs are those of the expedition leaders (like Harkhuf) dispatched to distant lands to negotiate the acquisition of foreign goods for the Egyptian court.
First Intermediate Period The tomb of a chanting priest named Setka (QH 110; aka Setikai) from the
First Intermediate Period Middle Kingdom During the Middle Kingdom, a minor sanctuary for one (or more) of these leaders (designated with the appellation "Heqa-jb") was prominent in the town at Elephantine. •
Sarenput I (QH 36) contemporary with king
Senusret I. • Heqaib, Son of Penidebu (QH 28) contemporary with king
Senusret I. •
Sarenput II (QH 31) contemporary with kings
Amenemhat II and
Senusret II. • Heqaib, Son of Sithathor (QH 30) contemporary with kings
Senusret III and
Amenemhat III.
New Kingdom The tomb of a
New Kingdom high priest named Kakm, the tomb of User Wadjat a New Kingdom-era ruler of
Elephantine, and the tomb of Amenhotep a New Kingdom-era high priest and bearer of the seals of Upper Egypt.
Archaeology Early excavators of the site included General Francis Grenfell in 1885, Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1892, Jacques de Morgan in the early 1890s and Lady William Cecil together with Howard Carter in the early 1900s. Labib Habachi worked at the site between 1946 and 1952. In more recent times Elmar Edel excavated at Qubbet el-Hawa between 1959 and the early 1980. In 2008 excavation, by the University of Jaén, resumed at the site. In 2015 a joint effort of the University of Birmingham and the Egypt Exploration Society worked the site, focusing mainly on the Lower Necropolis. In 2019, 10 crocodile mummies ranging from in length were uncovered in undisturbed burial chambers beneath a Byzantine-era dump. The finds consisted of more or less five fully intact bodies and five heads in various degrees of preservation. The crocodiles were speculated to have been dead for over 2,500 years and to have belonged to two different species,
Crocodylus suchus and
Crocodylus niloticus. The mummies contained no
resin and any linen bandages used in the mummification had been lost due to insect deterioration, allowing the researchers to conduct a thorough morphological and
osteometric description of the remains. In January 2020, six
mastaba graves, two shaft graves and one rock-cut tomb with several burials dating back to the Old Kingdom were uncovered by Qubbet El-Hawa Research Project led by Martin Bommas.
Mostafa Vaziri said that one of the tombs was very well preserved, he also added that some of the graves were 190x285cm, while others were 352x635cm. Though entrance of one of the tombs with a wall of carefully laid
mudbricks had blocked by the tomb constructors, that specific grave had been looted by thieves who broke into the tomb through the back wall in ancient times. Abdel Moneim Saeed, director-general of the Aswan and Nuba Antiquities Sector, revealed in July 2022 that work was underway by a joint Egyptian-German mission to prepare several tombs for public viewing. The roads leading to them will also be repaired and paved, guide signs will be posted, and a modern lighting system will be set up. ==Coptic site==