He tombs built for the elite during Egypt’s so-called pyramid age exhibit a wide variety of decorative programmes within their accessible parts of their superstructures.861 hese so-called mastaba tombs, which in fact incorporate various tomb types,862 were commissioned by members of the elite section of the strictly hierarchically Old Kingdom society. he aim of the present paper is to contextualise the elite tomb’s decoration within its architectural setting, thereby analysing the diachronic development and local variations through the representational content of a selected number of iconographic themes. his study is, however, not an attempt to analyse the meaning, or changing meaning,863 of the tomb’s decoration. Rather than studying isolated, individual daily life scenes, it is their coherency, together with a consideration of other architectural elements, which is the focus of the present study.864 Emphasis is laid on the arrangement of iconographic themes within the context of the tomb’s superstructure. he key figure in this analysis is the person of the tomb owner and his responsibility as composer of the decoration in his own funerary monument. Whether the composition and arrangement of the iconographic programmes followed more or less fixed rules (or rather conventions), or whether these were susceptible to a certain degree of personal choice (preference) will be the subject of the discussion below.
World History
