The Tomb of Nakht

This book traces the origins and creation of the facsimile of the funerary chapel of Nakht, a gardener and offering bearer in the Temple of Karnak in the 14th century BC. The facsimile was inaugurated in 1928 at the Royal Museums of Art and History and is now regarded as a valuable record, given the fragmentary condition of the original wall paintings in the tomb itself.

The project was initiated in 1925 by Jean Capart, a leading figure in Belgian Egyptology at the beginning of the twentieth century and then director of the museum in Brussels. He entrusted it to the French artist and Egyptologist Marcelle Baud, who based her work on the meticulous surveys carried out in the tomb a century earlier by the British scholar Robert Hay. Thanks to this thorough scientific preparation, the facsimile not only serves an educational purpose but also stands as a tangible reminder of a heritage that has partly been lost.