Foundation or completion? The status of Pharaoh-Queen Tausret's temple of millions of years

William Matthew Flinders Petrie spent the winter excavation season of 1895 working at six New Kingdom temples in western Thebes (fig. 1a-b), an ambitious itinerary including the memorial temples of Amenhotep III and Merenptah (Petrie 1897). Among the other four temples, located between those of Merenptah and Thutmose IV, was that of Tausret (Petrie 1897, 13-16), one of Egypt's few female pharaohs, who reigned about 1200 B.C.E. (fig. 2). Its remains were not impressive (fig. 3). Petrie described them as comprising "only a few stones of the foundation" (which, when complete, measured 2 x 1 x 0.7 m; Wilkinson 2011a: 163) and foundation trenches cut into the ground about 2 m wide and to a depth of 1.5-2 m, encompassing an area of 4,624 m²(Wilkinson 2010b: 1).