The Doorway Between The Two Rooms

A doorway in the centre of the west wall of the transverse room leads to the second room. The outer lintel and jambs, of its entrance, again bear texts which contain the formula "An offering which the king gives…" with a food offering for the deceased. They are written starting from the centre of the lintel. Both these and the thickness decorations are greatly damaged ().

The Longitudinal Room

This room is aligned along the east to west axis, at right angles to the previous room. It is approximately 3 metres long and just over 1.5 metres in width, its height (like the previous room) is about 2.5 metres.
The left (south) wall and right (north) wall both contain two major themes, each separated from one another by a vertical blue line.
The west (rear) wall contains a statue niche.

South Wall

1) - South Wall, left-hand scenes

The left-hand side of the south wall is divided into four register. The upper two show the funeral procession towards the Goddess of the West.

a) - The Goddess

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She actually dominates three registers out of four, though only the top two relate to her. On her head, she wears the sign for the West, which is part of her hieroglyphic name. She wears a long close fitting white dress, fitted beneath her breast and supported by a single shoulder strap. In her hands she holds the ankh-sign of life and the was-septre.

b) - The two upper registers

They show the funeral procession with funerary goods and the pulling of the sarcophagus to the West, the realm of the dead, the necropolis, which the Goddess personifies.

In the top register, the sarcophagus is dragged to the tomb on a sledge pulled by four men (). The tomb is symbolised on the right by the white building with a brown door (, , ). Two women are taking care of the mummy; they stand for the two Great Djerty, Isis and Nephtys, who mourned their brother Osiris ().

In the second register, offering bringers accompany the procession to equip the deceased with the things he will need in the netherworld, such as a mirror, a broad collar, a shendyt linen kilt and also food ().

c) - The lower two registers

They show the pilgrimage to and from Abydos. Here, the revered tomb owner travels - at least theoretically in the depiction on his tomb walls - to Abydos, in order to progress in the same way as Osiris, to be like him and to become Osiris himself.

Upper register: As Abydos is to the north, the boats travel with their sails rolled, using the current of the Nile (). The barge containing only the mummified Benia, seated under a canopy, holding a whip in his hand, as seen in the Gardiner hieroglyph , A51 (). This barge is towed by the leading boat. Usually we find a couple, an additional proof that Benia was probably not married; a similar case is to be found in the tomb .

Lower register: Two leading boats, side by side (which is unusual), return from the pilgrimage, their sails set, so that the wind can assist them upstream again to the necropolis, but they are also being powered by many oarsmen (). Again, the barge with Benia is being towed ().
In order to maintain the same scale for the boats of the two registers, it was necessary for the bottom register to occupy the space under the Goddess of the West.

2) - South Wall, right-hand scene

The right-hand side of the south wall shows a scene of Benia sitted in front of offerings piled on a table and on mats (, ).
A now anonymous, hacked out, man stood in front of the offering table, one arm raised.
The man was certainly a sem-priest wearing a leopard skin, who has been removed from the wall by the zelators of Akhenaten (for more details, see ). Who he was remains conjectural as there is no name, nor family link, written above him; usually this role is played by the eldest son of the deceased, but Benia had no children. In the case people had no children of their own, they often adopted children to perform this important task later, or a servant of the deceased sometimes undertook this function.
A tabular offering list is presented above this person, with itemised contents and the relevant quantities: jars of water or beer, various kinds of breads, meat, honey, different kinds of wine, cakes and additionally natron for purifications (). Those offerings are said in the inscriptions to be "coming from the offering tables of Amun, the king of the gods and Re-Horakhty".

North Wall

1) - North wall, left-hand scene

On the left part of this wall is an almost mirror image of the scene directly opposite on the south wall, that of Benia ( and ) facing an offering table, in front of which originally stood a sem-priest.
Again the priest has been hacked out from the wall. An identical -not counting the variation in orthography- offering list is placed above him (). It contains the same goods as before, only as a mirror copy in order and facing direction of the hieroglyphs.
Indeed it looks as if the tomb owner painters may have run out of ideas, or maybe there was a great fear for the support of Benia after death.

2) - North wall, right-hand scenes

This eastern section of the north wall is separated from the previous scene by a long vertical blue line. It is divided into three registers, with three scenes on each. It shows the performing of the most important of all the funerary rituals : the "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony, on the mummy of the deceased. This ritual is performed to open all the senses of the deceased again and all the openings of the body, so that food can come in and out again and air and life can once more breeze through. The opening of the mouth is a very long and complicated ritual, carried out with many recitations, purifications with water and natron, fumigations, etc. (). See détails in .
The Atenists have not spared this section: two of the priests in the middle register and all of those of the lowest have been hammered out.

West Wall

In the rear narrow wall of the longitudinal area was created the statue niche sculpted from the actual bed-rock, 126cm in width by 100cm in height, it is located approximately 110cm above floor level and contains a bench, on which are three seated statues. The niche does not take up the whole width of the wall, neither does it reach to ceiling height ().
The wall surrounding the niche is, from the ceiling down to the floor, as with the internal walls, undecorated.
The three statues represent the tomb-owner, his father on his right and his mother on his left. These statues had originally been brightly painted in vivid colours, most of which still remains. There is, however, damage to the faces of all three (), but it is still obvious that the two males originally had beards. The hair styles of the trio are individual in design and are well sculpted.
All three statues are named individually, on a column of blue hieroglyphs, now faded. This runs, in the case of his parents, centrally from between the knees down the front of the dress or skirt to the hem. In the case of the deceased, the inscription is longer and runs from the waist to the hem.

CEILINGS OF THE TWO ROOMS

The geometric designs of the ceilings recall the impression of woven blankets or carpets, as they must have been put on top of the roofs of Egyptian houses for shade, or likewise on boats. So maybe the symbolic meaning of this decoration is implicating shade and refreshment under the deceased's own roof terrace of his house. The tomb is the house for eternity and is therefore equipped the same as the house of the living.

1) - The ceiling in the transverse hall

It has only minor damage. It is divided into four brightly coloured patterned areas by broad yellow bands inscribed in blue hieroglyphic texts, which are separated from the patterned panels by narrow white bands containing a thin red stripe. The whole ceiling is edged with a broad ochre band with a swirling pattern, perhaps meant to be a reminder of water. The main pattern design is of zigzag lines enclosing either white or ochre diamonds, the white ones containing a four-leafed motif, whilst the ochre ones contain four dots. See ( and ) views.
The texts of the two bands, running from the central axis to either end of the ceiling, are inscribed with longer than normal offering formulae:

The text for the northern ceiling reads : "An offering which the king gives to [Amun-Re]… and the Ennead, who are in their temples. May they give: a blessed spirit, strength, justification and everything, that which emerges from their offering-tables at the start of every day, that which is in their temple, coming in and going out of Rosetau, breathing of the sweet air of the north-wind, drinking of the water at the drink-place of the river for the Ka of the Overseer of the Works in Karnak, Paheka[men].".

The text for the southern ceiling reads : "An offering which the king gives to Re, Lord of the Heavens, sovereign over the stars, who rises in the eastern horizon and who in silence sets in the western horizon. Who lights the heavens and earth through his beauty. May he give sight of the sun in the necropolis, the Ba for the sky, the body for the earth, the smell of the temple incense of the offering-table of Wennefer for the Ka the [great con]fidant the [Lord of the Two Lands], praised by the good god, the Student of the Royal School, Paheqa[men], justified.".

The central band, running along the axis of the tomb, reads : "Words spoken by the Overseer of Works, Pahekamen, justified, he says: 'Oh, my mother Nut, stretch yourself over me and place me under the immortal stars'. ".

2) - The ceiling in the long room

It contains two panels of a different design to that of the transverse room. It consists of red zigzag lines enclosing multicoloured diamonds, each alternate row of diamonds has the colours in a slightly different order. The decoration is divided by only one yellow ribbon with blue hieroglyphs, giving the usual offering formula, which reads : "An offering which the king gives to […] and Osiris, Sovereign of Eternity. May they give an offering for the deceased, bread, beer, meat, poultry, all good and pure things, a libation, wine, milk, leaving and entering the necropolis, participating in the entourage of the gods for the Ka of the great confidant of the Lord of the Two Lands, the Overseer of the Works, [Pahekamen].".
Again, the text band is separated from the geometric pattern by a narrow white band and central red line. The whole ceiling area is, this time, edged similarly with a white band and central red line (See , and views).

FINDS

In the forecourt, excavators uncovered an offering table, now on the top of the northern enclosure, which accompanies the stairway into the forecourt.
It was found in the 1 metre deep gravel inside the forecourt and had been placed in his current position by the excavators at the beginning of the 20th century. There was no decoration or inscription to be found on it, so either it was not finished, or erosion wiped the inscription away. This typical Htp-form offering table belongs to the New Kingdom, which was most common in Deir el-Medina.
The tomb has been looted in antiquity as most of the Egyptian tombs we know. Among the Theban tombs of the period, only the tombs of Sennedjem and Kha in Deir el-Medina still held most or nearly all of their tomb equipment. Mond and Emery found a block, maybe from a jamb and which must have fallen to the ground, which depicted a sketch of a girl.

Beside this, two funerary cones have been found. The first one, n°441, reads "Overseer of works, child of the kap, Paheqamen, called Benia, true of voice by Osiris". The second one, n°544, reads : "Child of the kap, Paheqamen, called Benia".

There are some finds of later time, mainly made of wood from intrusive and later burials. There have been found five plundered mummies in the debris of the tomb chambers and sixteen plundered mummies in the corridor from the tomb shaft to the burial chamber, which seem to belong to the intrusive burials along with remnants of later period tomb goods.

TRACES OF BENIA OUTSIDE OF HIS TOMB

There are two ostraca which most probably belonging to the Benia of this tomb. If this assumption is correct, we have some very interesting facts to add to his person.
Both ostraca referring probably to our Benia, are ostraca about construction work of buildings, matching well to the title of Benia; they both use the court name.
The first one is a list, found in Deir el-Bahari, where a Benia is giving 10 men for the construction work of the temple of Hatshepsut. This would be very interesting again, as much for the style of the tomb, the placement of the tomb in the context of the necropolis and the lack of a picture of the reigning king.
The second ostracon mentions the construction of a private house, for which supervision is given to a certain Benia.
A third ostracon mentions a Benia, but it is not very convincing that he is the Benia of this tomb TT 343, as the man seems to have lived later, was married and had a son.