.Aspects of Reuse in the Royal Necropolis of Tanis

The political capital of Egypt shifted from Thebes to Pi-Ramesses during the reign of Ramesses II for political and military reasons until the kings of the 21st Dynasty established Tanis as the new capital. Interestingly, most of Tanis’s structures consist of reused monuments from Pi-Ramesses. The extensive reuse of stone appears puzzling, given the wealth of the 21st Dynasty. Oddly, they could not provide stones for their masonries and necropolis, nor did they quarry suitable sarcophagi. Despite their affluence, the kings of the 22nd Dynasty reused the royal necropolis of Tanis, even though they had built Bubastis as their new capital. Building on this context, this study aims to analyze the reuse policies of the kings of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties in Tanis in general and its royal necropolis in particular, and to explain it politically and economically by tracking the quarrying activities and to investigate the reasons of (re-)burring the Bubastite kings in the royal necropolis of Tanis and assessing whether ideological motivations for reuse were plausible.