Grain built the New Kingdom’s economy — it paid taxes, fed workers, and funded the pharaohs’ great building projects. The man who oversaw that supply for both Upper and Lower Egypt is buried in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, and his tomb is one of the few in the Theban Necropolis that puts the economy itself on the wall.
Khaemhat, also called Mahu, served as Royal Scribe and Overseer of the Granaries under Amenhotep III (c. 1390–1352 BCE). His tomb, TT57, sits close to those of Ramose (TT55) and Userhat (TT56) — all three are typically visited on a single trip — and its deeply carved reliefs are considered among the finest relief work of the New Kingdom.
A T-Shaped Tomb With Three Distinct Rooms
Visitors enter through a courtyard into a hall, then a longer hall, then the main sanctuary. It’s not a large tomb, but all three rooms carry richly carved reliefs mixing religious and everyday themes — a combination that sets TT57 apart from tombs that stick to one register or the other.
Farming and Market Scenes
The tomb’s best-known images show the full agricultural cycle: plowing, sowing, harvesting, and grain storage, rendered as real working processes rather than symbolic shorthand. More unusual is the market scene — traders, scribes, and officials weighing goods and recording transactions, including a depiction of Nubian traders that points to Egypt’s wider trade network. For more on Nubia’s cultural role, see Nubian Art & Culture. Few private tombs on the West Bank give this much wall space to commerce rather than religion.
Funerary Ritual and the Sed Festival
Alongside the economic scenes, Khaemhat is shown making offerings to Osiris, taking part in funerary processions, and reciting spells from the Book of the Dead. A rarer highlight is a depiction of the Sed festival — the royal jubilee marking a king’s renewed rule — which ties Khaemhat’s personal story directly to Amenhotep III’s reign and the wider politics of the period.
Location and Neighbors
TT57 sits directly beside TT102, the tomb of Khaemhat’s father Imhotep (also a royal scribe under Amenhotep III), and the two share a courtyard. That family connection is a nice detail for anyone tracing how administrative roles ran in families under the 18th Dynasty.
Visiting the Tomb of Khaemhat
- Ticket: TT57 is sold within the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna Tombs of the Nobles cluster ticket system alongside Ramose (TT55) and Userhat (TT56) — bought at the ticket office on the West Bank, not at the tomb. For the current cluster grouping and pricing, see our Tombs of the Nobles guide and entrance fees page.
- Time needed: Roughly 20–25 minutes for TT57 alone, given its three decorated rooms; budget closer to 90 minutes for the full three-tomb cluster.
- Photography: Interior photography typically requires a separate camera ticket and may be restricted in places — check with the site guard.
- Accessibility: Reached via unpaved hillside paths; not wheelchair accessible.
- Best time: Morning, for both light and lower heat.
For travelers who’ve already seen the Valley of the Kings, TT57 offers something genuinely different: not a king’s afterlife, but the machinery — grain, trade, taxation — that made the kingdom function in the first place.