• 1905/1906 winter. Italian excavation under the direction of Ernesto Schiaparelli
• 1913/1914 German excavation
• 1923/1924 Expedition of the British school of Archaeology under the direction of Flinders Petrie

The name:

Qau or Qau el-Kebir (kebir is the Arabic word for 'great') is the Arabic name of an Upper Egyptian village located on the east bank of the Nile, about 5 km east of the village and train station Tima, and 45 km south of Asyut. Qau is located by the site known in ancient Greek records as Antaeopolis 'city of Antaeus'. Ptolemy IV built a temple here, substantial parts of which were still standing at the beginning of the 19th century, when they were used to build a palace at Asyut. The one remaining column was swept away by the catastrophically high Nile flood of 1821. The Arabic name Qau derives from Coptic tkooy or tkuoy, which in turn goes back to the Ancient Egyptian Dw QAw - 'high mount' referring originally to the mountains in the Eastern desert, but from the Late Period onwards used to name the town. Qau lies in the 10th Upper Egyptian province or 'nome'. The main town of the nome was called Tjebu (Tbw), and its principal deity was the ferryman god Nemty. The nome itself was called Wadjet (wADt), and therefore its central town could be called 'Domain of Wadjet' (pr-wADt, translated into Greek as Aphroditespolis). The location of Tjebu/Per-Wadjet is not known, but they might be identical with Qau (Gomaà 1986: 235-245)

• Petrie 1930 (Petrie's excavation report; the historic conclusions are today out of date)
• Steckeweh 1936 (the excavation report of the German expedition)

• Atlanta 1990: 30-33; 61, 85, no. 38-43 (exhibition catalogue including some relief fragments from the tomb of Ibu; written by Elvira D'Amicone)
• Beinlich 1984 (the short entry in the 'Lexikon der Ägyptologie')
• D'Amicone 1988 (on the finds from Qau el-Kebir in Turin; with good colour photographs of many objects)
• D'Amicone 1999 (summary)
• Grajetzki 1997 (on the succession of the mayors from Qau el-Kebir)
• Habachi 1977: 24-25, no. 22018/22019 (publication of fragments of two offering tables from the big tombs)
• Krauspe 1997: 123-124 (catalogue of the statue fragments from Qau el-Kebir which went to Leipzig; all fragments are thought to have been destroyed in the Second World War)
• Porter/Moss 1937: 9-14 (listing of literature)
• Roccati 1988: 129, fig. 175 (colour photograph of a limestone fragment with coffin texts from Qau el-Kebir)

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