In 1961/62 and 1963/64, the Oriental Nubian Expedition excavated
cemeteries, the ancient fortress, and the late Christian town of Serra
East in northern Sudan. This volume, the first in a series of reports,
looks at the ancient burials and outlying structures. In the New
Kingdom, Serra East was the site of an important center, one closely
connected to the family of rulers of Teh-Khet. Just east of the
fortress, the expedition excavated great tombs that probably belonged to
forebears of princes Amenehmet and Djehutyhetep on the high desert and
smaller chamber tombs cut into the side of a small wadi that would have
belonged to members of the court. These cemeteries not only illuminate a
great provincial household of the early New Kingdom, the great tombs
mark an epoch in the history of architecture. Although the substructures
were large chamber-complexes of Egyptian type, the earlier tombs had
large low tumuli paved with bricks and surrounded by rubble and slab
rings. The latest of the group was a brick pyramid. The great tombs of
Serra thus illustrate a direct transition from tumulus to pyramid that
anticipated the adoption of the pyramid by Kushite pharaohs many
centuries afterward.