Papyrus with the plan of the tomb of Ramesses IV on the recto and several administrative texts on the verso

This papyrus is one of the many manuscripts of the well-known scribe Amennakht, who was the author of the plan and its annotations. It is apparently the “official” project of the tomb of king Ramesses IV. The right side is missing, as is the lower side with the left half of the tomb. Above is a stylized depiction of thee Theban mountain the tomb was cut into. In line with the principles of Egyptian art, the doors are drawn as if they were seen from the front, while the rooms are drawn in plan. The drawing is not in scale, but the measurements of each room are specified. Up to the Antechamber, they quite accurately correspond to those of the actual tomb of the king. Starting from the Sarcophagus Room, instead, the measurements of the real tomb are inferior to those in the plan. Furthermore, from here onward there was a shift in the tomb decoration from carved relief to simple painting, while the annotation envisage relief for the whole tomb. These discrepancies were presumably due to the sudden death of the king, which imposed hasty completion of the work.
Papyrus was a valuable material. It was hence common practice to also to use not only its recto – the side where the fibers ran horizontally, parallel to the long edges of the scroll, which was easier to write on – but also is back side or verso, the one, that is, where the fibers ran vertically, parallel to the short edges of the scroll. The verso of the papyrus with the plan of the tomb of Ramesses IV was thus reused to write three texts:
1. A list of measurements of several parts of an unspecified royal tomb, certainly to be identified as that of Ramesses V.
2. The recording of the division of the property of the famous scribe Amennakht among his children in the seventh regnal year of an unspecified king.
3. Fragments of a series of daily notes dated to the first year of an unspecified king.