A major motif of the Third Dynasty is the beginning of a shift towards building the tombs of the elite from stone rather than brick. Stone had been used for various elements of tombs’ construction back in the First Dynasty, for example, granite flooring in King Den’s burial chamber, together with portcullis-slabs, and also for Ninetjer’s putative limestone enclosure (the Gisr el-Mudir). However, under Djoser the entire royal funerary monument was built from the material.
Djoser’s Step Pyramid complex (Lauer and Lacau 1931-61) is also significant in that it combines the elements previously found separately in royal tombs, the monumental enclosure, on the one hand, and the place of burial and offerings, on the other. The former element was also provided, for the first time, with a step-pyramid superstructure, possibly inspired by the stepped mounds of some First Dynasty tombs. While no definitive evidence exists, it is not unlikely that the stepped-pyramid form was essentially intended as an ascension aid for the king - literally a ‘‘stairway to heaven.’’
Rather than being tunneled, as had been basic Second Dynasty practice, the main parts of the substructure of the pyramid were built in a cutting in the rock, although a large number of secondary galleries were wholly rock-cut. The granite burial chamber was placed deeply underground, surrounded by various galleries and chambers, some decorated with faience tiles - imitating wall-hangings - together with reliefs of the king, and doorways inscribed with his name and titles. These represent, apart from Hierakonpolis Tomb 100, the earliest known decorated elements of a tomb substructure in Egypt. Indeed, no further decorated substructures are known - apart from occasional purely architectural features such as incised paneling - until the end of the Fifth Dynasty.
The enclosure, surrounded by a paneled wall, was entered from the south-east corner, consistent with the positioning of the offering-place in Seconnd Dynasty mastabas. As well as a large mortuary temple on the north side of the pyramid, it contained various ritual structures, all built of stone but in many cases imitating perishable materials. In the middle of the southern enclosure wall was built a mastaba (the ‘‘South Tomb’’) with a substructure recalling that of the pyramid, but on a smaller scale. It seems not to have been intended to hold a burial, but rather for some ritual purpose that remains obscure. The provision of a miniature tomb in the southern half of a pyramid complex was to remain a constant feature of royal tombs down to the middle of the Twelfth Dynasty.
Private tombs of the Third Dynasty broadly followed the pattern of those of the Second, in being brick mastabas. However, there were significant developments in the form of the offering place at the southern end of the eastern facade, which was in some cases lined with stone and projected into the heart of the mastaba. These linings could be decorated, while a niche at the northern end of the tomb might be dedicated to the cult of the wife of the tomb owner. The southern niche and its slab-stela evolved during the Third Dynasty into what by the following dynasty had become the classic false door. This would remain the usual focus for the funerary cult until the Middle Kingdom, after which it became subsumed into the broader category of funerary stelae (Wiebach 1981; Hermann 1940).
A particularly elaborate tomb of Djoser’s reign was S2405, built by Hesyre, where the niches of the facade were each equipped with a carved wooden panel (Quibell 1913). The tomb was later extended to provide an external chapel: such modifications of tombs while under construction are fairly common during the Third and early Fourth Dynasties. Particularly good examples are to be found at Meidum during the reign of Snefru, where elaborately decorated stone-lined cruciform chapels in the tombs of Nefermaat and Rahotep were abandoned, bricked-up, and replaced by external chapels (Harpur 2001).
The decorations of the Meidum tombs represent amongst the earliest examples of offering places being adorned with paintings and reliefs of the production, acquisition, and provision of foodstuffs for the benefit of the deceased. A key motif of the development of the private tomb during the Old Kingdom is the gradual expansion of the enclosed areas preceding the actual offering place into a chapel complex. By the middle of the Fifth Dynasty this could fill much of the interior of a mastaba with courts and rooms. Amongst these could be one or more serdabs, closed chambers linked to the public rooms by a small opening at eye-level, to allow a statue to ‘‘see’’ out and offerings or incense to reach it. Serdabs contained one or more statues of the deceased, playing a role as a conduit between the worlds of the living and the dead (Barta 1998). One of the earliest examples was a figure of Djoser in a room to the east of his mortuary temple, while in the tomb of Rahotep at Meidum the closure of the original chapel had the effect ofconverting it into a serdab, in which were found a fine pair of statues of the owner and his wife.
The substructures of private tombs of the early Third Dynasty show a shift from a stairway entrance to one based on a vertical shaft. In both cases the entrance lay on the roof of the mastaba, leading down to a burial chamber sunk in the bedrock. This was to remain the standard pattern down to the end of the Old Kingdom, with only one or two exceptions.
Royal tombs of the remainder of the Third Dynasty initially followed the basic pattern set by Djoser, although with fully tunneled substructures. However, the large rectangular enclosure seems to have disappeared by the middle of the dynasty (Dodson 2000b), and at the very end of the dynasty there was a short-lived reversion to mud-brick for a once-massive pyramid at Abu Rawash (Swelim 1987). However, the three large pyramids erected by Snefru at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty were all of stone (Maragioglio and Rinaldi 1964-77: III). The earliest of the three, at Meidum, was begun as a step pyramid, but completed as a true pyramid. The next, apparently left unused owing to structural problems, was the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, which changes angle half way up. The final monument, Dahshur’s Red Pyramid, in which the king would actually be buried, was built from the outset as a true pyramid. The switch from stepped to true pyramid seems likely to have a religious origin, linked with an increased importance for the cult of the sun. It is generally felt that the true pyramid was intended to be a concrete representation of the sun’s rays descending from the heavens and, as such, the ideal place of rest for the dead king.
Snefru’s pyramids are the earliest examples certainly to abandon the kind of enclosure seen at the Step Pyramid in favor of the pattern that now becomes standard. This is based on a mortuary temple in the middle of the east face, with a causeway leading down to a valley temple on the edge of the desert. These structures gradually increased in size during the Fourth Dynasty before arriving at an essentially standard plan by the middle of the Fifth Dynasty. In doing so, they move from a handful of rooms to a complex of courts, halls, vestibules and sanctuaries (figure 36.1; cf. Arnold 1998). At the same time, the degree of decoration throughout the complex increased until all three principal elements were adorned with painted reliefs. Motifs employed included the king in the company of deities, the presentation of offerings, the transport of monuments, and ‘‘historical’’ events. The latter are in at least some cases stereotyped images (including names and places) that appear in a number of monuments over a period of centuries.
The Snefru pyramid complexes also included the first subsidiary pyramids, the direct descendants of the Step Pyramid’s South Tomb. Like the latter, their purpose remains obscure; however, they are now found in all pyramid complexes down to the first part of the Twelfth Dynasty. Their location varied initially, but always lay in the southern half of the pyramid enclosure, before settling in the south-east quadrant during the Fifth Dynasty.
Internally, the earliest pyramids generally placed their burial chambers deep underground, entered via a passage placed fairly high up on the northern face of the pyramid. However, after the unique placement of Khufu’s ultimate sepulchral chamber high up in the core of the superstructure itself - usually explained as the result of a series of redesigns of his Great Pyramid at Giza - from the middle of the Fourth Dynasty burial chambers were built just below ground level (Edwards 1994). During the reign of Djedefre tunneling had been replaced by construction in open cuttings; these became much shallower under Khaefre. A standard plan began to coalesce at the same time, an invariable pattern establishing itself towards the end of
Figure 36.1 Royal mortuary temples of the Old Kingdom: (a) Snefru (Meidum); (b) Khufu (Giza); (c) Khafre (Giza); (d) Menkaure (Giza); (e) Typical Sixth Dynasty. Courtesy Aidan Dodson.
The Fifth Dynasty. This was based on a descending passageway starting at ground level just outside the center of the north face of the pyramid, which led, via a vestibule and three portcullises, to an antechamber. To the left lay a three-niched storeroom, to the right the burial chamber itself.
The pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty are generally the largest and best-built of such monuments, although the trend for increasing size is briefly reversed under Djedefre. However, while building a monument of more modest dimensions, he did so atop the mountain at Abu Rawash, which placed the capstone of his pyramid 25 m above that of the Great Pyramid. A steady reduction in dimensions is then seen from Menkaure onwards - and even a brief reversion to the mastaba under Shepseskaf; quality of core masonry also declines during the Fifth Dynasty. This is paralleled, however, by the increase in size and elaboration of the mortuary temple, suggesting a conscious shift from simple bulk toward a more balanced approach to the funerary complex as a whole, in which the pyramid was simply one part.
A major innovation found at the end of the Fifth Dynasty is the appearance of decorated burial chambers. While in all architectural essentials conforming to the prototype of his predecessor, Isesi, Unis covered the walls of the inner rooms of his pyramid with ritual texts. These inscriptions, the Pyramid Texts, were also employed in the pyramids of the kings, and some of the queens, of the Sixth Dynasty, and by at least one ruler of the Eighth (Faulkner 1969). Around the same time, a number of private burial chambers began to be adorned with lists of offerings, a feature that was also later to appear on the interiors of wooden coffins (Lapp 1993).
Under Khufu there was a fundamental reassessment of the relationship between king’s tomb and that of lesser individuals. Until his time, there seems always to have been a distinct cordon sanitaire between a royal sepulchre and contemporary private tombs. Now, however, a pre-planned ‘‘city of the dead’’ was laid out directly adjacent to his Great Pyramid, with streets of mastabas provided for both nobles and the royal family (Reisner 1942). Pyramids were also introduced for royal wives, although a number of subsequent queens were interred in other kinds of tomb (Janosi 1996; Labrousse 1999). The principal of these was the mastaba, which in the major cemeteries was now built of stone. The paneled facade which had been a feature of many earlier brick mastabas disappeared, while the chapel element was becoming, in many cases, an L-shaped room built into the core of the mastaba at the south end of the east face. As time went by, the chapel expanded greatly until by the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties a labyrinth of corridors, vestibules, chapels, halls, and even open courtyards occupied the interiors of some mastabas. Relief decoration was generally concerned with the generation and presentation of offerings, but with some more general ‘‘daily life’’ elements as well (Harpur 1987). In all cases, however, the focus of these chapels was the false door, as the principal interface between this world and the next (figure 36.2). Brick continued to be used for many smaller mastabas and those in provincial locations. The basic mastaba design, with niches at either end of the eastern facade, could be scaled, and was used to mark the modest tombs of a number of the pyramid workmen buried at Giza.
Around the middle of the Fifth Dynasty, the mastaba tomb began to be supplemented by rock-cut tomb-chapels that could exploit terrain that was unsuitable for mastabas (Reisner 1942: 219-47). The basic chapel designs broadly followed those of contemporary mastabas, although in some cases the decorative scheme was enhanced by a series of engaged statues cut into the walls of chapels. During the Fifth Dynasty the number of tombs constructed in the provinces greatly increased, the topographies of the cemeteries in question being generally far more appropriate to rock-cut sepulchres, and designs varied considerably from site to site. The substructures of many Old Kingdom rock-cut tombs were approached via sloping passages, rather than the vertical shafts that were usual for mastabas. In both cases the actual burial apartments were very simple, being restricted to a burial chamber, sometimes closed with a stone slab.
Figure 36.2 Mastabas of the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom: (a) unknown (Saqqara S3503: mid-First Dynasty); (b) Ruaben (Saqqara S2302: early Second Dynasty); (c) Kawab (Giza G7120: Fourth Dynasty, reign of Khufu); (d) Senedjemib-Inti (G2370: late Fifth Dynasty). Courtesy Aidan Dodson.
World History
