Beni Hasan Tombs

Why go

Cut horizontally into the cliff face, the upper cemetery at Beni Hasan holds 39 rock tombs of the governors of the Oryx nome, twelve of them painted. Inside, visitors see walls crowded with wrestlers in hundreds of poses, sieges, desert hunts, weaving, carpentry and games. Khnumhotep II's chapel, entered through a two-columned portico, shows a delegation of 'Amu bringing eye-paint, its leader captioned with the earliest form of the word later rendered as Hyksos. Amenemhat's tomb has an elaborately patterned painted ceiling.