Unfortunately, the chapel was badly damaged and closed to the public for over a century. It is now used as a storeroom. But in front of the chapel, on the left side of the courtyard, an awkward and steeply-sloping staircase descends through the bedrock to Sennefer’s burial chamber.

This is one of the few burial chambers in a Theban tomb to be decorated, and the decoration is superb.

Of course, it is the famous ceiling of TT 96 that earned the greatest praise from visitors, who gave it the nickname The Tomb of the Vines. The tomb lies about 100 meters (100 yards) uphill from that of Rekhmire (TT 100), cut into bedrock of very poor quality. It was extremely difficult to create smooth, flat surfaces to paint without resorting to thick layers of plaster. Such heavy plaster could not be applied to the ceiling, so the artist turned a potential problem into an asset, and used the irregular surface to create a grape arbor and a cloth covered gazebo. The rough, undulating surface makes the bunches of grapes seem three-dimensional. A vulture with the shen-hieroglyph (meaning “endurance”) in its claws flies through the arbor. The effect is remarkable. It is equally so in the paintings of geometric weaving patterns. The painted textiles seem to be loosely hung across the ceiling from poles, and flutter in an imagined gentle breeze.

The burial chamber has not suffered as much as Sennefer’s now-inaccessible chapel, but it has deteriorated since it was first seen in the 1820s. The room is small, about 2.5 by 3.5 meters (8 by 11 feet) with a 1.8 meter (6 feet) ceiling. It is awkward for more than four or five tourists at a time, so the Supreme Council of Antiquities has recently installed glass panels to keep tourists from touching the paintings. But the glass is a highly reflective collector of dust that makes the chamber claustrophobic. These annoyances seem minor, however, when one sees the vivid colors of the decorated walls.

Scenes of daily life, usually found in nobles’ tombs, decorated the now-closed chapel. The walls of the burial chamber are decorated with funerary scenes. These scenes are special: they give prominence to the women in Sennefer’s life and speak of the great affection Sennefer obviously felt for them.

There were several: Senetnefert and Senetnay are both identified as royal wet-nurses. Senetmi, Senetemiah, and Meryt are shown and named, but Egyptologists think it possible that all of these names refer to a single individual, in which case the paintings record the love shared between Sennefer and his wife, who is shown over and over throughout the tomb. Another woman is also mentioned: “his beloved daughter,” Muttui; two other daughters are known from other sources.
ANTECHAMBER The scenes here were painted by a very talented artist, one of at least two men who worked on the tomb. The artist worked rapidly, with confident strokes, and the figures he drew are attractive and well proportioned. At the bottom of the stairs on the left wall of the antechamber, Muttui offers necklaces (now destroyed) and a heart scarab to the seated figure of Sennefer. Behind her, priests carry offerings of cloth, beef, and incense. Sennefer himself is simply painted, with little detail or modeling, rather like the solid black hieroglyphs above his head.

On the right side of the antechamber, servants carry boxes of funerary equipment to the tomb, including bed, collars, sandals, shabti-statues, and a cartonnage head for Sennefer’s mummy. Sennefer sits on a chair holding a scepter and staff, wearing earrings and a double heart amulet around his neck. Muttui, called a Chantress of Amen, stands behind him.
BURIAL CHAMBER Above the door into the burial chamber, two Anubis jackals, guardians of the necropolis and the tomb, recline on shrines flanking a bouquet of lotus blossoms. On the right side of the chamber’s front wall, Sennefer and Meryt walk toward the doorway, magically leaving the tomb to enjoy the sunshine and “wander the earth.” Behind these figures, they are shown seated on a wide bench, formally but affectionately posed, wearing fine linen costumes and elaborate jewelry.

  On the left side of the front wall, Sennefer’s son, wearing the panther skin of a sem-priest, prepares burnt offerings for his parents, who sit on chairs at an offering table piled high with foods. The huge quantity of foodstuffs is detailed by a column of text before the son, claiming that Sennefer and wife are being given “a thousand loaves of bread, a thousand jugs of beer, a thousand head of cattle, a thousand fowl, and a thousand of everything good and pure.”
The left wall of the chamber is badly damaged. Originally it showed details of Sennefer’s funeral procession, including four oxen that pulled a sled carrying his sarcophagus.

Servants bring funerary equipment, clothing, symbols of office, and foodstuffs. Cattle and other offerings are shown in the middle register. In the lower register, activities associated with an ancient ceremony, originally performed at the predynastic Delta site of Buto, include dancing and the erection of obelisks. To the right of the men holding the small obelisks, a small figure crouches on an odd-looking stool. This is a tekenu, the strange figure also shown in the funeral procession of Ramose. At the far right, Sennefer and his wife stand before an offering

From" The Illustrated Guide to Luxor" by kent R.Weeks ,published by the American University in Cairo Press. Copyright © 2005 White Star S.p.a