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Deir el Bahri has changed a lot since I first visited it in the 1960s; some would say not for the better. A Polish expedition has carried out extensive restorations. Greatly as this has added to the preservation and appearance of the temple, the retaining wall at the back, designed to prevent rockfalls, cannot be said to be an architectural success. One critic has compared the effect to a modern parking garage.

Though the dedicated Poles have opened up areas that were not accessible all those years ago, one part of the temple is no longer open to visitors. I will never forget my sight of it. Supervision of the sites was laxer in those days, and as I strolled, musing, I must have mentioned the name of Senmut (as we used to call him). One of the unavoidable guides pounced, nodding eagerly and making imperative gestures. “Senmut! Senmut!” he exclaimed and led me back into the shadows of the inner rooms. The darkness thickened, and the floor was rough and hazardous. I stumbled over a loose stone and wondered what the devil I was doing alone in the dark with a strange gentleman. Then the gentleman, for indeed he was, stopped and lit a pitiful little stub of candle. There was an open doorway to the left, leading into a small windowless room. The doors that had once closed it in had long since vanished. I squatted (I could do it then) and saw, by flickering candlelight, the small carved figure of a man, in the space that would have been hidden by the opened door. He knelt in the graceful Egyptian position of worship, with hands uplifted; and above him was the name that he dared to intrude into a shrine reserved for divinity: SENENMUT, STEWARD OF AMON.

The small carving is rather rough, and the conventionalized profile probably bears no resemblance to its supposed model. It is impossible to explain why the sight of it should have left such an unforgettable impression. Outside the temple the brazen sun blistered down out of a hard, hot sky; but the corridor beside the little storeroom was black and breathless, just as it must have been on that vanished day when Senenmut the Overseer of Works supervised by lamplight the insurance of his survival among the gods. Was it done with the approval of the queen, or did he risk her divine anger in his anxiety for life everlasting in her company?

Senenmut’s tomb under the temple has been described as another piece of matchless impudence; only members of the royal family could hope for such a favor. Some archaeologists have suggested that Hatshepsut found out about her favorite’s presumption and dismissed him from favor (possibly from life), but it is fantastic to assume that he could carry out a project as large as this without Hatshepsut’s knowledge; she was a woman of great energy and undoubtedly visited her mortuary temple often while it was abuilding. As for the images of Senenmut at Deir el Bahri—over sixty of them—they were signs of extraordinary privilege, granted by royal permission, according to a contemporary inscription. The tomb was disfigured later, but there is no way of knowing why or by whom. It was meant to have truly royal proportions; the corridors are over a hundred yards long as they stand.

The steward of Amon’s gamble for eternity did not pay off. He never occupied his gorgeous tomb; we do not know where his bones were laid to rest, if they found rest at all. He had another tomb, more suited to his official rank, on the slopes of a hill not far from Deir el Bahri. Perhaps Senenmut was buried here. His magnificent sarcophagus certainly was; it is strikingly similar to Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus and was probably made at the same time. (Is there no limit to this man’s ambition? asked the scandalized nobility.)

Senenmut may have been a “man on the make”—one of the most successful of all time—but he did not lack finer feelings. He caused his mother and father to be reburied near him so that they might share his good fortune in the West. In proximity to his tomb are several other burials that may be connected with