TAA i.3.27.4
Annotated typewritten report on fourth (innermost) sepulchral shrine, page 2. Carter uses the correct object number (239) for this shrine but refers to it as the "first outermost shrine".
The whole text or part of the text is fully struck through on this page but is not indicated in the transcription. On this page, strikethrough formatting is reserved for the author’s edits and deletions within the main body of the text, which would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.
© Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford
2
The roof section which includes the cornice and roll
moulding was tongued <and mortised at intervals> to the four sections of the under-structure, the/<its> tongues being made of wood and copper, alternate (see fig/<p>.).
The form of this roof – a <low> barrel-shaped vault abutting rect-
angular end pieces – was obviously derived from the system em-
ployed when flying a vault without centering over crude brick
buildings (cf. the vaults over the store chambers of the Rames-
seum; the modern native buildings south of Kom Ombo; the earlier
wooden coffins; and the <Theban> vaulted graves of the Ptolemaic Period
in Egypt. See Carnarvon, Carter, Five Year’s Explorations at
Thebes, pls. lx, 37. 62, xxxiii-iv.). To fly a vaulted roof – i.e.
<built> without wooden centering – the end wall of the building is con-
tinued to the height of the apex of the vault. The courses of
the <flat> especially made flat mud vault-bricks are then laid obliquely<,>
leaning inwar<d>s and against the heightened end wall. This is
done to obviate the effect of gravity until the vault is compl-
eted/<ly> and keyed, and to / help the process a tenacious mud mortar
is employed. The bricks are keyed with small stones or pot-
sherds wedged in between the upper gap of the joints, and the
vault is closed by a similar wall built up at the opposite end.
This mai/<n>ifestly explains the upright pieces at
the ends of the vaulted roof covering this shrine.
The two side members, <which> comprise each a top rail forming the
chief beam or frieze, a broad panel, and a bottom dado rail,
have their vertical ends clamped, and the pairs of single tenons
at the ends of the horizontal boards are fitted sufficiently
long to pass through the mortised clamps and protrude for in-
sertion into corresponding mortise holes sunk in the <x[?] styles of the> corner
posts of the end/<back> and front sections. The meeting edges of
the clamps and <styles of the> corner posts are rebated (see fig. ..).