Glossary of Terms

Accretion layers in some pyramids, layers of internal walls built to lean inward against a core construction.

Akh the transformation to a “glorified being” in the afterlife, after the deceased’s ba and ka are reunited through the burial ritual.

Ba sometimes translated as “soul,” but more the embodiment of the “personality” of the deceased, often depicted as a human-headed bird.

Canopic containers/jars vessels (in a set of four) used to store the viscera of the deceased after mummification.

Cartonnage mummy case a hardened case usually made by plastering cloth (but also papyrus).

Cartouche the oval design of a looped rope in which the name of the king or god is written in hieroglyphs.

Corbel vault to form a ceiling with stone beams or blocks, each course of the blocks is placed successively inward above the two walls up to the course which spans the top.

Epigraphy the study of (ancient) inscriptions.

False door a niched design of a door in stone in the interior of a mastaba, through which the ba was to communicate with the deceased in the tomb and the outer world.

Gebel in Arabic, a mountain or rock/cliff formation.

Geophysical prospecting/survey in archaeology, using specially designed equipment, such as magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar, to locate subsurface archaeological remains.

Glacis in fortified structures (of the Middle Bronze Age), an earthen wall or ramp construction on the exterior of the fortifications.

Hypostyle an inner hall in a temple with many columns.

An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Second Edition. Kathryn A. Bard. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Ka often translated as “spirit”: the life-force, an aspect of the living which separates from the body at death.

Mastaba Arabic for “bench”; the superstructure covering a subterranean tomb, often with a niche or room(s) for offerings, in the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom. Multi-roomed mastabas of high-status persons of the later Old Kingdom were frequently covered with scenes in relief.

Mortuary cult located at the tomb, the perpetual cult for deceased individuals, where living persons (different kinds of priests and family members) made offerings and performed rituals which aided the afterlife of the deceased. Royal mortuary cults were located at the pyramid complex and later at the royal mortuary temple. From the Middle Kingdom onward, stelae or statues could be placed in temples or along processional routes for the benefit of an individual’s mortuary cult. Secondary “offering chapels”/ cenotaphs were sometimes erected, such as the Middle Kingdom shrines at Abydos.

Nome a Greek term for an administrative district/province, which was headed by a nomarch.

Obelisk a tall four-sided monolithic monument tapering to a pyramid form at the top, which was placed outside temples.

Offering formula known as the hetep di nesu formula from the first three words of this inscription (in translation, “an offering which the king gives”). This text was inscribed on the walls of tombs and sometimes on statues and stelae. Since the non-royal deceased could not communicate directly with the gods, in this text the king gives an offering to a god (usually Osiris or Anubis) for the ka of the deceased. The offering consists of a number of commodities: (a thousand of) bread, beer, cattle, fowl, oil, and cloth.

Opening of the Mouth a ceremony performed on mummies and statues (of gods, kings, and non-royal individuals), usually with an adze. Models of sets of implements used in this ceremony are also known (including two netjerwy blades and a pesesh-kef knife). The ritual symbolically enabled the mummy or the statue to have a (renewed) form of life, including breathing, eating, seeing, and hearing.

Ostracon (pl. ostraca) potsherds or stone chips used as a writing and/or drawing surface, often an inexpensive alternative to other writing media.

Phyle a Greek term used for the rotating system of part-time service, especially of the priesthood.

Pious foundation an endowment (of agricultural estates and other sources of income) for the perpetual support of temple cults or the mortuary cults of kings and private individuals.

Portcullis a large block of stone placed before the entrance to a tomb or burial chamber to thwart tomb robbers.

Pot mark sign(s) inscribed or painted on a pot.

Pylon a type of large monumental gateway which fronts the first courtyard of a temple or tomb complex, known from the Middle Kingdom and later.

Remote sensing in archaeology, the use of satellite images and aerial photographs to study sites and their geological settings. On-ground remote sensing is also called geophysical prospecting (see above).

Glossary of Terms 353

Sa/ftomb in Arabic, “row”; a type of royal tomb in western Thebes from the 11th Dynasty (pre-unification), with a number of subsidiary burial chambers carved in a row along a courtyard.

Sealing mud/clay used to cover and seal a container (especially jars), or storeroom doors, often with the rolled or stamped impression of the royal cartouche or serekh, or the seal of officials.

Sed-festival (heb-sed) the royal jubilee, celebrated in the 30th year of a king’s reign, and more frequently thereafter. serdab statue chamber/pit in a tomb.

Serekh the earliest format of the royal name, within a “palace facade” design, (usually) surmounted by the Horus falcon.

Seriation in archaeology, placing artifacts in a relative sequence from early to late. shaduf a water lift mechanism, using a bucket attached to one end of a weighted lever, introduced in Egypt in the early New Kingdom. shawabti/shabti/ushebti a figurine (in mummiform) placed in tombs, to serve the deceased in the afterlife (in manual labor) and act as his/her substitute. stela (pl. stelae) an upright slab of stone (sometimes wood), carved or painted with inscriptions and sometimes with scenes.

Tell (also kom) in Arabic, a mound formed by the remains of settlements, often occupied over hundreds of years with many layers of occupation from different periods. tumulus a circular mound of stone, gravel, or other materials with a tomb either within this structure or below.

Wadi in Arabic, a dried-up river bed. In the deserts to the east and west of the Egyptian Nile Valley wadis are usually permanently dry, but often have some subsurface water. Desert wadis were often the routes that were used by ancient expeditions in these regions.