Increase in the geotechnical heritage of rock cut-tomb builders between the Old and Middle Kingdom (Qubbet el-Hawa Necropolis, Aswan)

The hill of Qubbet el-Hawa was the site chosen for the cemetery of the high officials of the southernmost province of Ancient Egypt, from the end of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom. To date, around a hundred tombs excavated in the rock have been discovered in the middle of the hillside, distributed throughout several superimposed terraces. From the geological/ geotechnical study it was the best possible location, in a section where sandstone predominates, delimited by two especially resistant strata that serve as the floor and roof of the hypogea, which in principle guaranteed their stability. In this article we analyze two representative tombs from the two most important periods of the cemetery: QH34h (Sixth Dynasty) and QH33 (Twelfth Dynasty), built with a time difference of about 400 years. From the fracturing study and the analysis of the geological stability in these tombs, we verified that the most modern (QH33), compared to the oldest (QH34h), presents construction and design innovations that solved the stability problems that some of the oldest tombs presented. the oldest graves. This study shows that, firstly, the choice of the location of the tombs was made based on the resistant nature of the strata, secondly, that the construction methods used by the ancient Egyptians were conditioned by the geology of the hill and, thirdly that, as a result of the experience acquired over the years, the design of the tombs evolved to solve the stability problems of the rock mass.