Painting of Ramesses IX before the barque of Amun from the tomb of Imiseba

Some of the most important individuals of the late Ramesside era chose to associate their mortuary cults very closely with certain long-extant sacred areas; for example, one such person integrated his tomb with that of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, a figure of the greatest devotion. As Imiseba’s stature was somewhat more modest, he did not have access to such restricted structures. Instead, Imiseba, who was overseer of priests in the Domain of Amun and a third-generation chief archivist of Karnak Temple, took a related but innovative approach. He reemployed the unfinished eighteenth-dynasty tomb of one Nebamun and in the transverse hall created an evocation of a royal memorial temple with the aid of the artist Amenhotep, well known from the Deir el Medina crew.

This grand scene depicts Ramesses IX censing before the bark of Amun, at rest at a bark station along its route from Karnak to the West Bank during the Festival of the Valley.