Taken from: http://www.luxoregypt.org/English/historical_sites/TOMBS_OF_NOBLES/TombsFrom
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At the top of his career, Rekhmire was Vizier of Upper Egypt, Mayor of Thebes, and possessor of over one hundred other important titles. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and uncle were also viziers, a position second only to pharaoh in prestige and authority. Even though his father never rose above the rank of Priest of Amen, this august lineage helped to ensure his own rapid rise in the bureaucracy. Rekhmire boasted that “there was nothing of which he was ignorant in heaven, on earth, or in any quarter of the underworld.” An immodest bit of hyperbole to be sure, but he was one of the best-informed, most powerful men in all Egypt.
Rekhmire held office during the last years of the reign of Thutmes III and the early years of Amenhetep II. These were heady times in Egypt. After Hatshepsut had departed the throne, Thutmes III undertook a series of military campaigns that greatly increased Egypt’s power abroad and brought the country a degree of wealth unknown in previous dynasties. The pharaoh launched huge building programs and richly supported the arts and crafts. Egypt continued to thrive under his successor, Amenhetep II, and the great projects continued.
Nearly all these activities were supervised by Rekhmire. He oversaw projects throughout Egypt, managed the vast royal estates, supervised temples, judged court cases, checked irrigation schemes, attended official ceremonies, chaired administrative meetings, managed the civil administration, maintained state security, approved rates of taxation, and collected the taxes. Rekhmire was fully aware of his talents as Egypt’s senior administrator, and he proudly and at length quoted his pharaoh’s description of the vizier’s duties in inscriptions on his own tomb walls:
‘Then his majesty said to him: “Look you to this office of vizier. Be vigilant over [everything that] is done in it. Behold, it is the support of the entire land. Behold, as to the vizierate, behold, it is not sweet at all, behold, it is bitter as gall...Behold, it does not mean giving attention (only) to himself and to his officials and councilors, not (yet) making [dependents] out of everybody....Therefore, see to it for yourself that all [things] are done according to that which conforms to law and that all things are done in conformance to the precedent thereof in [setting every man in] his just desserts. Behold, as for the official who is in public view, the (very) winds and waters report all that he does; so, behold, his deeds cannot be unknown....”
Rekhmire describes, with no false modesty, how well he handled this difficult job: “I judged impartially between the pauper and the wealthy. I rescued the weakling from the bully. I warded off the rage of the bad-tempered and I repressed the acts of the covetous. I cooled down the temper of the infuriated. I wiped away tears by satisfying need. I appointed the son and heir to the position of his father. I gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, meat, beer, and clothing to him who had none. I succored the old man by giving him my staff and caused old women to say, ‘What a gracious act!’”
He sounds like the ideal bureaucrat. But later in his career, Rekhmire fell out of favor at court and may even have been stripped of his titles. No offspring are known to have succeeded him to government office, although he had at least five sons and several daughters. There is no evidence that he was ever buried in TT 100, but there are indications that part of the tomb decoration was deliberately mutilated and his name destroyed.
TT 100 was known to most nineteenth century explorers. Some of its scenes were published by Frederic Caillaud in 1831, but the tomb was not cleared until 1889 and not completely published until 1943.
In plan, TT 100 looks like many other cruciform-shaped tombs at Thebes, but in section it is unique. Beyond a standard transverse corridor, an inner room extends nearly 25 meters (82 feet) into the hillside of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qurna. At the entrance, the ceiling is 3 meters (10 feet) high. But the ceiling of the inner room slopes steeply upward, reaching a height of over 8 meters (26 feet) at its western end. The result of this strange design was to give Rekhmire’s tomb over 300 square meters (3200 square feet) of wall surface, all of which was decorated with painted scenes of the highest quality. In the transverse hall, the scenes deal with personal and business matters and contain lengthy texts describing the duties of the vizier, the administration of temple holdings, and Rekhmire’s activities during the reign of Amenhetep II. The inner room has scenes of arts and crafts, daily life, funeral banquets, and burial rituals. The famed nineteenth century British Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson said in 1835 that the paintings of this tomb shed more light on ancient Egyptian culture than any other source known.
At the ENTRANCE to the tomb, prayers to Ra-Harakhty, Amen-Ra, Thoth, Osiris, and other gods are accompanied by Rekhmire’s boastful claims of having close relations with each.
On the right half of the front (east) wall of the TRANSVERSE HALL, Rekhmire has included texts describing in some detail his duties as vizier. The British Egyptologist Percy Newberry believed that the accompanying scene was meant to show the actual audience hall in which Rekhmire held court, and if you look closely you will see thin columns with palm leaf capitals, walls that define a large chamber, and a raised dais on which Rekhmire sits. Distributed around that chamber are numerous officials and petitioners. The text accompanying the scene goes into considerable detail about Rekhmire’s duties, even noting that in the audience hall he has to “sit on a backed chair, a reed mat being on the ground, the chain of office on him, a skin under his back, another under his feet, and a [canopy] of matting over him.”
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