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[EXTRAIT DE S MMOIRES D E LINSTITUT FRANCAIS T. LXVI. LANGES MASPERO VOL 1 ]

T H E H I S T O R Y OF T H E EGYPTIAN M A S T A B A

BYG E O R G E A . R E I S N E R

LE C A I R EI M P R I M E R I E D E LINSTITUT F R A N C A I S

DARCHOLOGIE ORIENTALE1 9 3 4

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[EXTRAIT D ES MMOIRES D E LINSTITUT FRANCAIS T. LXVI. LANGES MASPERO OL. 1.]

THEH I S T O R Y OF T H E E G Y P T I A N M A S T A B A

BYG E O R G E A . R E I S N E R .

The material on which the history of the mastaba form of tomb is to bebased lies in a long series of publications by scholars of many countries. Alarge numberoftheexamplesarecontainedin MA RIETTES Mastabas which wascompiled by Gaston Maspero from Mariettes notes. T he rest of the materialhas been recorded by foreign scholars, and bv officials of the Department ofAntiquities excavating in th e grea t cemetery at Saqq arah. These officials,Mr. J. E. Qnibell and Mr. C. M. Firth, were both selected for this work byGaston Maspero, and the foreign expeditions worked under the policy laiddown by that wise scholar for the administrat ion of the Department of Anti-quities. Th us the m aterial is entirely associated with the nam e of GastonMaspero. It may be said that the great cemetery north of the Step Pyramidat Saqqarah, which extended from Dvn. I to Dyn. V I presents a nearly com-plete reflection of the history of the mastaba.

A l l the published mastabas known down to the building of the Cheops Py-ramid at Giza were of crude brick, and it is with the history of the crudebrick mastaba tha t we ar e concerned du ring this whole period. The makingof c ru de brick an d th e use of crud e brickw ork with a typically Egy ptian systemof bonding was introduced about the t ime of the accession of Menes or littleear lier. This gr ea t discovery was a t once utilized to improve the form of theEgyptian grave by making possible a better protection for the burial and i tsfunerary equipm ent in the brick-l ined an d wooden-roofed sub structu re, an dbv permitting the construction of a more durab le grave moun d. In i ts originthe crude brick mastaba was merely an improved form of the grave mound ofthe Predvn astic Perio d. Th e earliest know n mastabas are those found byPetr ie and Wainwright a t Tarkhan which are of Dyn. I and covered simpleopen pit graves differing from the predynastic graves only by the objects whichthey contained.

The earliest mastabas w ere sho rt oblong constructions with two paired o fferingniches and exterior open air chapels marked off by crud e brick walls. Th e

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580 G E O R G E A. REISNER.faces of this mastaba were nearly vertical (less than 5 degrees from the ver-tical). I reconstruct the tombs of M enes an d Narm er found a t Abydos by SirFlind ers Petrie as sim ilar constructions bu ilt of solid brickwork. Th e suc-ceeding superstructure of Zer improved these mastabas by adding layers ofbrickwork around the base to prevent lateral penetration. It was this layermastaba which developed into the layer or step pyramid of stone and finallyinto the tru e pyramid. In the m eantim e, the valley shrine was developed forroyal tombs (see PETRIE,ombs o the Courtiers p. 3 a). This was a longsuperstructure without substructure, built of mud brick with a series of offer-ing niches (ka-doors) on all four sides, and containing a number of magazinesstored with offerings and perhaps a simulacrum of the royal person to whomit was dedicated. This panelled niastaba was painted elaborately in colors inimitation of the pavillon sH) erected near the tomb to protect the offeringsan d probably the body cluring the final prep aration s for th e bu rial . It wasthis type of superstructure which was selected for the tomb of Queen Neith-hetep, a wife of Menes, burie d at Naqaclah. Th ere even the buria l chamberwas above groun d i n the superstructure. This mastaba was built after thedeath of Menes, in the reign of Narmer or Zer. Oth er gre at provincial mas-tabas of the reign of Zer and Zet followed the form of the Naqadah tomb buthad the superstructure sunk in the grouncl. This was the tvpe on which thelarge private mastaha was developed.

The superstructures of the larger mastabas of Dyn. I were all of the pa-nelled type with a series of ka-doors on all four sides (palace facade pa nellin g),or ha d a simplified form of this panelling. Th ere can be no doubt tha t theold two-niched form continued in use for sm all mastabas. In Dyn. II thepalace facade panelling was used only in a few isolated examples of large mas-tabas , and all mastabas even the large st reverte d to th e two-niched form.But the chief o r south ern niche ha d th e form of th e g rea t ka-door used in thepalace faade panelling. I n Dyn. III both the plain compound niche and thegreat door were used for the chief niche, but the use of the plain compoundniche became the predominating form.

Down to the reign of Khasekhemuwy, the chapel had always been an openai r enclosure. In the grea t panelled mastabas this area was m arke d off by alow enclosing wall fu rther away on th e valley side with a n en trance at thesouth ern end of th e wall on tha t side. Th e offerings were deposited a t one ofthe great doors of the panelling opposite the body. Smaller mastabas hadonly the face of th e m astah a enclosed on the offering side. But in th e r e i g n

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T H E H I S T O R Y O F T H E E G Y P T I A N M A S T A BA . 581of Khasekhem uw y, the two-niched mastaba w as converted into a mastaba w ithinterior roofed chapel and a subsidiary n orthe rn niche. This chapel amo untedin effect to a withdraw al of the chief sou thern niche within the body of themastaba, in order to protect the elaborate painting of the great cloor fromweathering. At about the same time the roofed exterior chapel was introduced apparently for the sam e purpose (t he protection of the paintings).These two tvpes of protected chapels were further developed during Dyn. III.This early interior chapel I call the cruciform chapel because of its form withthe offering niche opposite the entrance doorway. It has three different va-riations, 1) with the niche of the great door type, 2 ) with a plain compoundniche, and 3 ) with one complete element of the palace faade panelling (greatdoor with three dummy cloors on each side). It is to be noted that the westwall of the chapel represents in effect a section of the faade of the mastaba,and ever afterwarcls the west wall of the interior offering room was conceivedas equivalent to the facade o r a part of the faade of a mastaba. The last ofthe thre e form s, the cruciform chapel with palace faade panelling was notintroduced until the transition from Dyn. III to Dyn. IV. The chapel of Hesywas the result of a series of reconstructions and thus accidental.

It was in this period from Khasekheniuwy to Sneferuw th at the clecorationof the ka-door an d the chapel with reliefs in stone was developed. Th e oldniches derived from the palace faade panelling had, like the panelling, beenbuilt of crude brick with wooden strengthening, and decorated with coloredmat-patterns. Th e carving of reliefs in limestone had reached a high level atthe beginning of Dyn. III as is proved by the panels and inscriptions found inthe substructures of the Zoser complex. The earliest use of reliefs in privatetombs is represented by half a dozen niche stones which had been used insubstitution for the wooden architraves over the offering niches of two-nichedmastabas (o r interior chapels). These stones, primitive niches stones present the earliest examples of the table scene which was the characteristic .picture on the early slab stelae and the tablet of the traditional stone niche(false door). Th e date of the introduction of the niche stone is not to beclearly fixed, but some of the examples are certainlv from Dyn. III, and pro-bably none is earl ier than Khasekhemuwy. W e have the wooden panels ofHesy from the back of the inne r niche, an d the stone linings of the inn erniche of Khabauwsokar and his wife as the earliest examples of relief decor-ation found in place. Th e latt er reliefs are from the transition period betweenDvn. III a nd IV. It is from this same period or from the reign of Sneferuw

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T H E H I S T O R Y OF THE EGYPTIAN MASTABA. 583This type was obviously producecl to make a secure sub structu re in the badrock, which underlies the Medum site. For this same reason the early shaftmastabas at that site had substructures, shaft and chambers, constructed in anopen pit. The chambers were of well-dressed limestone with slab or corbelroofs. Examples of similar chambers either built in an open pit or in a cavityexcavated in the rock occur also at Dahshur in association with the North StonePyramid, the tomb of Sneferuw. It was this type from which the earliestshafts a t Giza were developed with cha m bers cut in th e solid rock an d linedwith finely dressed casing walls of white limestone.

There may have been earlier stone mastabas than those built l iy Cheops atGiza, lout from the t ime that Cheops began his pyramid at that place, all themastabas of the court were built of stone. Th e use of the stone mastaba wasestented to other persons after the reig n of Chephren both a t Giza an d Saqqarah .In Dyn. V even small mastabas were constructed of limestone, howbeit oftenstripped from older tombs. The e arliest stone inastalias built loy Cheops forhis family were designed for exterior roofed chapels, which first came into usein the reign of Khasekhemu wy. These chapels we re at first of crude brick,but almost immediately a better exterior chapel of stone was devised. Cheopslived to build for his favorite children in the cemetery east of his pyramidthe first stone ma stabas with interio r chapels. These stone chapels of Giza donot follow the form of the older cruciform chapels of Saqqarah, al though theyhave still only one niche in the west wall. They ar e of a form, which I callL-shaped, loecause they have the offering niche (ka-door) in one end of thewest wall while the entrance doorway is at the opposite end of the east wall.The L-shaped chapel follows the form of the uninscribed stone chapels of thesubsidiary tombs of the Zoser complex. Th e form may perhaps be disceriieclin the open-air crude brick chapels recorded by Petrie at Tarkh an from Dyn. I.

The stone mastaba with interior L-shaped chapel containing one ka-doorwas developed by Cheops for members of his family at Giza, and this typeformed the basis of the further development of the stone mastaba. A t Saq-qarah the cruciform chapel in a modified form (with flat shallow nichework)continued in use until Dvn. V I but the L-shaped chapel was introduced evena t that site.

At Giza the L-shaped chapel with one niche continuecl in use until the endof the reign of Chephren, after which it was displaced by the inter ior Lsha pedchapel with two niches representing the f u l l faade of a mastaba. After theend of Dyn. IV the corridor chapel in its various forms with alcove at one encl

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584 GEORGE A. REISNER.was employed generally. About the end of Dyn. V and in Dyn. VI the mul-tiple-room interio r chapel was favored in larg e stone mastabas. One particu larelement of these lat er ch apels is to be noted occ urring e ither alone o r sur-rounded by othe r rooms. This elem ent consists of one lo n g N-S corridor,often with two niches, which opens southwards into the east end of a long E-Wroom, which has in its narrow western end an elaborate shallow false door.

Space does not permit me to describe the development of the masonry usedi n the stone m astabas nor other points con cernin g their history. This wholequestion has been taken up in our first two volumes of the series on the Gizamastabas, the first of which The Development o t he Egyptian Tomb down t o t heAccession of C he ops is now in press.

LE CAIRE. -IMIPRIMERIEDE LINSTITUT FRANCAIS DARCHOLOGIE ORIENTALE.