The Entrance

On the outer jambs, the remains of the titles of the deceased can be seen (, ). In the inner left thickness, the deceased is depicted in adoration with a hymn to Amun. He lifts his arms in adoration towards this god. Benia is barefooted and wears a curly wig. He is wearing two skirts, a short one and a long one, one over the other. The title of a student of the royal school is repeated again and again, as was his court name, Pahekamen. So this must have been a very important thing for Benia.
Often these hymns, in the entrance part of the private tombs in Thebes, are directed to the sun god Re or Re-Harakhte, this is to say to the morning sun, with the hope that he (the deceased) will awaken by ascending in the morning like the sun-god himself, and complete his solar cycle in the cosmos.

The Transverse Room

Divided in two by the entrance on its east side and the doorway to the longitudinal room (facing it) on the west side, it measures just over 7 metres in total length, approximately 2 metres across and about 2.5 metres in height.

EAST WALL

1) - East wall, northern part

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To the right, next the entrance
One finds a depiction of the tomb owner with braziers in both hands, where ducks are going to be burned for the great god. In front of him, offerings are piled up on mats: breads, meat, onions, lettuces, ducks, fruits in baskets. On the top are six elegant looking alabaster and clay pots for unguents, separated by blue lotus flowers.

In the middle zone ()
There are three sub-registers with nine servants. Six are facing towards the right and belong to the former scene, while the other three are facing towards the left (, , ).

To the left, close to the west wall

Benia is seated on a chair in front of his own offering table, one hand slightly stretched out, such as if he was just on the verge of reaching out for food, the other hand on his chest, grasping an handkerchief. In front of the deceased, as high as the three registers of the servants, is an even slightly higher offering table with lettuce and wine jars under it, piled with bread, meat, bundles of onions, ducks, baskets of fruits on it. On the top, the artist tried to reproduce the akhet hieroglyph (Gardiner N 27) by using lotus flowers and a yellow basket of fruits ().

2) - East wall, southern part

First scene, next to the door

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It shows Benia standing in adoration before offerings piled up on mats. At the very top are four vases with lotus flowers laying across their tops. One can see damages to the texts by the Atonists.

Second scene

This wall also shows the only scene of the so-called daily life of the deceased. Guksch believes, in her description of this tomb, that this is because of a monotony of the world in which he lived…
Here Benia is inspecting the entrance of luxury products on three registers in front of him. In these, a part of the realm of the living is depicted and Benia is shown in his important position of inspecting materials for the Treasure house; he is grasping a stick in his left hand, and a folded handkerchief in the right hand ().

Upper register ()
Servants or employees are bringing baskets with lapis lazuli and maybe turquoise or perhaps malachite, adding to the treasures in front of them : ebony logs, ivory tusks from elephants, golden ring shaped bars and two wooden boxes.

Middle register

The scene shows the weighing, by a kneeling character, of gold bars which have the form of solid golden rings, looking almost like bracelets (). Behind him, a man is bringing golden rings in a basket (). He is followed by two others carrying another wooden box, maybe to store this highly valuable material.

Lower register
Two scribes are busy taking down notes () while two more servants are bringing baskets of precious stones.

South wall

The south wall of the transverse hall depicts a false door, or door of appearances, with funerary texts. The whole wall is been crowned with a kheker-frieze. To the right, directly below the door of appearances, lies the shaft opening.
The door was sculpted in limestone, then painted pink and daubed with red-brown colour in order to imitate pink granite, which was expensive and hard to work. The inscribed hieroglyphs were painted blue, the rounded edges were over-painted to portray being wrapped in green ribbons, the cornice was embellished with green stripes. The lower part of the sculptured modelling, which originally went down to the floor, is today replaced with cement (note: the side registers do not extend to the floor).
The inside door surface is formed by successively insetting text areas until reaching the "opening" structure. The narrow centre mat of the opening has been rolled up and opened, as if to allow the deceased exit from it at any moment.

The text of the false door

It comprises six panels, an outer pair, middle pair and inner pair. Each starts at top centre, above the rolled up mat, and progresses along then down. The texts consist of the following formulae:

upper/outer, left-hand side, "An offering which the king gives to Osiris, the great god : everything, which emerges, from his offering-table, seeing of the sun in the necropolis for the Ka of Benia, named Pahekamen, justified.".

upper/outer, right-hand side: "An offering which the king gives to Osiris, the great god : everything, which emerges, from his offering-table, the sight of his face every day for the Ka of Benia, named Pahekamen, justified.".

middle, left-hand side, "The one reveared by Amseti and Osiris, the pupil the royal school and supervisor of the works, Benia named Pahekamen, justified.".

middle, right-hand side: "The one reveared by Hapy and Osiris, the pupil the royal school and supervisor of the works, Benia named Pahekamen, justified.".

inner, left-hand side, "The one reveared by Duamutef and Osiris, Benia, named Pahekamen, justified.".

inner, right-hand side: "The one reveared by Qebehsenuef and Osiris, Benia, named Pahekamen, [justified]."
Thus, on this false door stela, Benia is placed under the protection of Osiris and the .

The scene registers
Right and left of the false door (and which correspond to those of the north wall), they show the kneeling Pahekamen, who presents bread (top), beer (middle) and cakes (bottom) to "the Great God".
To the left : , , .
To the right : , ,
In the top two panels, our tomb owner is named as "Benia, called Pahekamen", whilst in the four lower panels he is only named "Pahekamen".

North wall

The wall opposite that of the false door is very similar in design, but the similarity is broken by presenting of a funerary stela in its place. Either side are, as on the other wall, three registers showing Pahekamen holding offerings.
The stela is (unlike the false door) only painted on to the wall, which is usually the case. It consists of a large, yellow-ochre main field with 13 horizontal lines of inscription, crowned with a semicircular tympanum with different emblems and complete with a list of offerings, today partially destroyed, of bread, beer, meat, poultry, etc. (). This, like the false door, extends to the floor, whilst the side registers do not. To right and left of the tympanum, stand, in accordance with geographical alignment, the hieroglyphs of east and west. In contrast to most stelae, the tympanum doesn't show the deceased in adoration of the gods of the dead, but two Udjat-eyes flanking the emblems of the shen-ring, a cup and three ripples of water. All these representations are raised in light relief, the inscriptions are in sunken relief and painted blue.

The framing registers again show the kneeling Pahekamen, who holds up offerings of bread, wine and cakes. The tomb owner appears to present offerings at his own stela, were it not for the fact that the god referred to in the registers would normally be represented in the tympanum, but is here replaced by the emblems. The deceased sacrifices to him. The text gives support however: at the start of the stela, after the standard opening formula, other gods are named in additional to the one named as "justified by Osiris" (in his different paraphrases) in the offering formulae of the side registers.
At the bottom of the stela, now almost destroyed, is a register containing imagery of the offerings.

1) - West wall, southern part

The whole of this part of the west wall is taken up by one scene split in two parts by a vertical line.

a) - The right-hand part

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It is taking up the full height of the display area next to the doorway to the longitudinal room, shows a man making offerings to the deceased. It should have been the son of the deceased, but it is not. Benia must have been one of the rare cases, who was not married and had no children at all, therefore his parents took the place of the nearest family and are represented more than once in the tomb. Between Benia and the man are mats heaped with offerings and a table with loaves, an image that dates back to the Old Kingdom.

b) - The left-hand part

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It is subdivided firstly into three registers, of which the top two are then combined into one at the southern end of the wall. The top two registers, contain male musicians ; they are in front of a double register high sub-scene of the parents of Benia.

  • The parents of Benia

    The parents of Benia are seated in front of an offering mat heaped with bundles of onions, bread and fruits and wine under it, and a table with loaves. His mother affectionately embraces her husband. Above them, the text says : "His beloved father, Irtenena, justified (deceased) and his mother, his beloved, Tirukak, justified".
    Under the chair of Benia's mother is a mirror with a papyrus stalk shaped handle. The Egyptian name of mirror is ankh, exactly the same word as the Egyptian word for life. Therefore it is very likely, that this depiction of a mirror has a deeper, symbolical meaning of granting life to Benia's parents.

  • The musicians
    They are on two sub-registers, three clappers and a flutist at the top (), a lutist and a harpist beneath them.
    The clappers have a very important part in Egyptian music, as they are there in place of percussion instruments, giving the rhythm for the whole group of musicians.
    Harpists are often bald headed, blind men, with partly closed eyes.

  • The guests ()
    The third and lowest register shows five male guests, attending the feast and a servant giving a small offering table to them. Although they are not named, they are supposed to be some minor relatives of Benia, who have come into his favour, to take part in the funerary cult of the deceased, by means of their depiction. Their size tells us that they are not as important as his parents, but they are depicted larger than the servants. Maybe the circumstance, that they are not named means, that Benia's closest family was so small, that the tomb decorators ran out of names and just inserted a general prototype of any unnamed male relatives.

    2) - West wall, northern part

    Benia is supervising the income of offerings in his tomb. The representation is almost identical to the one on the southern part (). The tomb owner is seated on an elaborate wooden chair, his staff of office in his hand, an offering table placed in front of him.
    The depiction of this mundane scene on the west wall is unusual, as it would usually bear funerary scenes. Maybe they run out of room on the east wall or maybe the placement of the scene here has a symbolical meaning, such as to ensure the status and office of the deceased for the next world.

    The offering bearers

     : three registers of servants bring various goods towards him.

    Upper register
    One of the cattle, perhaps a zebu, has a hump (). The white mottled animal is much smaller and represents another species (). Behind it, a man brings in each end two dishes sealed one to the other with white wax; in the tomb of Rekhmire, they contain honey.

    Middle register
    The first man brings a stem of lotus with bindweed around it (more details). The other servants bring papyrus stalks, blue lotus flowers, and two large amphorae with white stoppers (). Dead fowl and fish are also among the offerings (). Offering of fish is rarely seen, probably because it was not considered prestigious enough. A representation of a Tilapia is noteworthy (), as this fish is also a symbol of rebirth ().

    Lower register
    More offering bringers are to be seen (). Some of the gifts piled on a mat and almost unnoticed is the small flock of geese (). The love of detail, in such a depiction, shows how much the ancient painter liked to use all his skills, especially in the scenes portaying wildlife, animals, flowers, etc.