Theban Tomb No. 95, the tomb of Meri and Hunai, is a joint research project of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Egyptological Seminar of the University of Basel since 2006. Focus of attention is the archaeological and epigraphic documentation of a large decorated rock tomb from the late 15th century BC and its subsequent uses in later times. Designed for the Highpriest of Amun Mery and his mother Hunay, a Great Royal Nurse of king Amenhotep II, the rock chapel and the extensive substructures related to it offered plenty of space for later burials from the later New Kingdom into the Late Period (ca. 1330-335 BC). As a consequence of substantial construction damages, the tomb chapel was left unfinished. Epigraphic evidence suggests that a nearby abandoned tomb from the time of Thutmose III, TT 84, seems to have been used by mother and son as a surrogate cult place. Like many other tombs in the middle and lower ranges of the hills of Sheikh Abd’el-Qurnah, TT 95 and adjacent structures were inhabited by Christian monks during the Coptic Period (ca. 6th-8th century) and again from the late 19^th through the first half of the 20th century by a local family.

The project aims at documenting, conserving, and understanding the processes of elite tomb construction and use in the Theban Necropolis during its long history of occupation, i.e. how a monumental rock-cut tomb was constructed, decorated and, in subsequent periods, modified according to changes of social agency and funerary practices, how and by whom burial sites were administered and engineered, and who their social agents were by looking at burial assemblages and tomb representations.