Columns of offering texts flank the tomb’s entrance. On the doorjambs, Nefersekheru and one of his wives, Nefertari, stride forward: on the left side they walk out of the tomb toward the rising sun accompanied by texts to Amen. On the right, they walk in, toward the setting sun accompanied by texts to Osiris. FIRST CHAMBER, FRONT (EAST) WALL, RIGHT (SOUTH) HALF Nefersekheru and Nefertari appear in two very similar scenes on the right (south) side of the first chamber’s front (east) wall. At left, nearest the doorway, they stand before a shrine with an open, hinged wooden door. Inside the shrine, two feline-like demons sit with knives in their paws. At right, the couple stands before another shrine, this one holding four demons in human form. These are scenes from chapters of the Book of Gates, in which Nefersekheru and his wife ask the demons’ permission to pass through the gates that stand between them and the netherworld. They are granted permission, of course, and in the next scene, the couple stands making offerings. Four tables are piled high with flowers, lettuce, breads, and other foods.

At the right, the jackalheaded god Anubis now leads the couple into the court of Osiris for the ceremony of the Weighing of the Heart, which will determine whether the deceased have behaved well enough in this life to gain admittance to the next. Osiris sits in an elaborately decorated shrine with Isis and Nephthys standing behind him, the four sons of Horus on a lotus blossom in front, watching as Thoth and Horus weigh Nefersekheru’s heart against a figure of Ma’at that symbolizes truth, correctness, and justice. Between the deceased and the balance sits a beast called Ammit who combines the fearsome features of a lion, a crocodile, and a hippopotamus. Should the balance not tilt in their favor, Ammit will devour them.In the register below this, near the door, Nefersekheru and his wife stand beside a T-shaped pool filled with lotus flowers and Tilapia nilotica, called bolti in modern Egypt. Tilapia were especially popular fish in ancient Egypt: they were plentiful, they tasted good, and they carried their young in their mouths and thereby came to be associated with ideas of creation, and their bright colors when breeding reminded Egyptians of the solar deities. The tomb owner and his wife dip into the pool to drink its cool water, some of which falls from their hands. Date palms grow on the shore, laden with fruit and filled with birds' nests. (Compare this with the similar scene in the adjacent tomb of Neferrenpet). The scene is a vignette taken from chapter 62 of the Book of the Dead.

It reads in part, “May the cool water of Thoth and the water of Hapi be open for the Lord of the Horizon...the pools of the Field of Reeds serve me, limitless eternity is given to me, for I am he  who inherited eternity, to whom everlasting was given.” At right, the couple takes part in a festival for the goddess Bastet, originally celebrated in the Nile Delta city of Bubastis. They sit before a great pile of offerings of sycomore fruit, bread, lettuce, and onions. A naked girl, perhaps their daughter, stands in attendance behind them. A sem-priest offers incense and water, and before him another daughter, Isis, kneels in mourning, her hair disheveled, her expression one of great sorrow. To the right, the couple again sits before an offering table receiving water and incense from a sem-priest. They are shown yet a third time, seated in a kiosk, playing a game of senet (see also the tomb of Neferrenpet). To their right, the king Amenhetep I and his mother AhmesNefertari, both of them elaborately costumed, sit in a kiosk before a mound of offerings being presented to them by Nefersekheru. (Again, see the similar scene in the tomb of Neferrenpet). LEFT (SOUTH) WALL Scenes show Nefersekheru and his wife adoring Osiris and Hathor on one side, Anubis and Isis on the other. Between them, a sealed doorway leads into an undecorated room and a passage to the undecorated burial chamber.

REAR (WEST) WALL, CENTER Two scenes of Hathor emerging from the mountain are painted above the central Osiris niche in the rear wall of this chamber. Between the scenes are a djed-pillar, Isis knots, nefer signs and Eyes of Horus. The niche itself houses a broken statue of Osiris and is flanked by personified djed-pillars and figures of Nefersekheru. At the right end of the wall, Osiris sits in an elaborate shrine with Isis and Nephthys behind him.REAR (WEST) WALL, LEFT (SOUTH) HALF Nefersekheru, dressed in the panther skin of a sempriest, comes with his wife and son before Osiris. He holds a censer and his wife brings a bouquet of papyrusand an instrument used in the cult of Hathor. His son, who is identified as a scribe in the army, carries a duck. Osiris is seated before them in an elaborate but badly damaged shrine with Isis standing behind him. The accompanying text is a hymn to Osiris.

To the right, Nefersekheru and his wife again stand before Osiris who this time is accompanied by Horus (behind him) and Isis (in front). Again, the text is a hymn to Osiris.

In the lower register at left, a sem-priest stands before Nefersekheru, his wife, and their daughter, a chantress in the temple of Amen, Heretperi. The priest offers incense and water before small offering tables with loaves of bread. At right, another sem-priest stands in front of tables with burning candles and food offerings before Nefersekheru and his  wife, who are seated on a low dais.

Farther right, a third sempriest with a censer and a kebeh-vessel used for  purifying with cool water stands before a harpist. The musician sits cross-legged on the ground, plucking the strings of his harp. While Nefersekheru, his wife, and a young lady listen, three men kneel before offering tables in a small register below the statue niche. REAR (WEST) WALL, RIGHT (NORTH) HALF Osiris is seated in an elaborately decorated shrine with Isis and Nephthys standing behind him and the Four Sons of Horus on a lotus flower in front. Nefersekheru and his wife, Ma’atmut, stand before the
deities in adoration, presenting offerings. The text is a hymn to Osiris. At right is a complex scene, rich in symbolism, and brightlypainted in yellow, pink, red, blue, and black. Nefersekheru stands at left in a pose of adoration, surrounded by nine columns of text with a hymn to the sun god, RaHarakhty. In two halfregisters at right, the Souls of Buto and Hierakonpolis stand at top, while  Nefersekheru kneels at bottom. The figures are in adoration before the central scene in which a djed-pillar with human arms supports an ankh-sign with arms that presents the solar disk to the goddess Nut, who reaches out from heaven to receive it. Isis kneels at the right side of the djed-pillar, Nephthys at the left. Below each of them stands a babird with arms extended in adoration. Behind the figures, the red granite mountain of the west is drawn with undulating lines and small red dots.

RIGHT (NORTH) WALL A seated figure of Nefersekheru is flanked by two of his wives in this large niche. Reclining Anubis-jackals, Hathorheaded columns, and kheker-friezes decorate the lintel.

FRONT (EAST) WALL, LEFT (NORTH) HALF On the left (north) side of the entrance, Nefersekheru and his wife stand before a table of offerings and sixty rectangles of text. The texts are parts of Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, the so-called Negative Confession, a list of evil deeds the deceased claims he did not commit during his lifetime. He proclaims that he never robbed anyone, never stole food, never cursed a god, never told a lie or gossiped or became impatient, never had sex with a married woman or with a fornicator or in an abnormal manner, never caused terror orbecame violent or waded in water. The list is a strange and selective one—surely there are many other sins a person would want to deny having committed—and we must assume that behind each entry lies a complicated set of beliefs and allusions. For example, to boast that one has never waded in water may be a convoluted reference to those souls who have died by drowning, their bodies lost, and who therefore required the special intervention of the gods to gain eternal life.

Farther left, Osiris sits in an elaborately decorated shrine with the goddess Ma’at. Before them, Thoth holds an ankh-sign and a was-scepter in his right hand and a flail in his left. He is about to introduce Nefersekheru, who has successfully passed the Weighing of the Heart ceremony to the Great God.

Below at right, two halfregisters show the funeral procession of Nefersekheru. Four men pull a sled holding a box of canopic jars. Before them, men carry a bed and clothing, jugs, and a mummy mask to be placed in the tomb. A cow and her calf are driven forward and women sit on the ground in poses of mourning. In the lower register, the mummy  of Nefersekheru, housed in an elaborate shrine, is pulled forward by four cattle. Priests purify it with water and incense. Women mourners stand before theprocession, weeping and wailing.

Note that one woman, naked to the waist, has her torso drawn frontally, an uncommon occurrence in Egyptian art. At left, priests offer purifying water before a pile of offerings. Behind it, a mourning women kneels before the elaborately wrapped mummy of Nefersekheru which stands, surrounded by flowers, before his pyramid-capped tomb. The goddess Hathor, shown as a cow, emerges from the red granite mountain at the entrance to the netherworld, preparing to greet this new arrival. In the lower register at right, a tree goddess emerges from a sycomore tree to pour libations for the kneeling figures of Nefersekheru and his wife. They extend their cupped hands to receive the holy water. Behind them, two sons and three daughters kneel and drink of the libation. A ba-bird stands at the base of the tree, drinking from its cupped hands.

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