Semenkh-Ka Re: The Many Forms of Silence
Sculpture and drawing installation, 2022

Semenkh-Ka Re: The Many Forms of Silence (MFS) is a drawing and sculpture installation inspired by two mysterious relics the artist encountered in 2017 at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Two blocks of clay, each approximately 35 × 25 cm, embedded with twisted gold bands and fragments of stone (or bone?), were displayed among a collection of jewelry, labeled simply as “Jewels of King Semenkh-Ka Re” and said to originate from Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings. The relics were presented alongside excavation photographs from a contemporary archaeological dig, though no clear link was drawn between the images and the displayed objects. Since 2019, the items have been removed from display, reportedly destined for storage or future relocation to Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum.

MFS attempts to recreate the cryptic atmosphere of Tomb KV55, a space marked by historical rupture, concealment, and contested identities. Drawings, sculpture, and spatial arrangement echo the tomb’s unstable history and blurred narratives. The installation functions as both a speculative reconstruction and a meditation on forms; the tracing, erasing, and re-inscribing of memory.

Researching the origin of these relics led the artist to the infamous 1907 excavation of KV55 by American businessman Theodore Davis, as well as to the debated identity of King Smenkhkare and the turbulent final years of Akhenaten’s reign. The work moves backward from the relics’ contemporary displacement to the original ambiguities of the tomb and beyond, into Akhenaten’s cities of silence.

KV55: A Crypt of Disappearance

In 1907, Theodore Davis discovered a corridor and chamber in the Valley of the Kings that would become known as KV55. The entrance had been filled with rubble, atop which lay two shrine doors. Inside were scattered funerary objects, a damaged coffin overlaid with gold foil, four canopic jars, and a mummy.

The shrine, built by Akhenaten and inscribed for his mother, Queen Tiye, was dismantled. Its base read “Beloved of Waenre” (Akhenaten). Cartouches were systematically erased. The coffin’s gold face had been torn off. The mummy’s pose, left arm crossed, right straight, was traditionally feminine. A gold vulture crown lay beside the head. Despite the feminine pose, later studies identified the mummy as male.

The tomb’s excavation was poorly conducted and inadequately published. Objects passed into private hands. Gold mummy bands bearing Akhenaten’s name were recorded in excavation photos but vanished before reaching the museum.

Scholars have variously identified the coffin’s original owner as Kiya, Meryetaten, Tiye, or a princess, later modified for Smenkhkare or Akhenaten. The canopic jars, too, have been assigned to multiple figures. DNA studies suggest a male in his early twenties, likely Smenkhkare, though some still argue for Akhenaten.

The entire tomb reads like an intentional erasure. Even Davis called it a secret burial site, not a tomb but a concealment. Its last ancient opening, and its purpose, remain unknown.

Yet in all archival material, the strange relics seen by the artist, the clay blocks with twisted gold, are not mentioned. Nor are the photographs documenting an excavation accompanying them. Were these fragments part of the lost gold bands? Are the images evidence of their rediscovery, or a curated illusion?

Smenkhkare: The Phantom Pharaoh

Smenkhkare (or Semenkh-Ka Re) ruled briefly during the chaotic close of the Amarna period. Little is agreed upon: his face, real name, and even gender are debated. He may have been Akhenaten’s co-regent, his son-in-law, or even Nefertiti ruling under a new name. Scholars generally agree he married Princess Meryetaten and ruled for one year. The records of his life and reign, like those of Akhenaten, were erased by successors.

MFS resurrects this phantom presence through absences, distorted forms, blank labels, disrupted timelines. The installation does not seek resolution but dwells in the cryptic, the silenced, the erased, the unnamed. It becomes not a monument but a resonant chamber for what resists being known.