EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY Some recent discoveries at

Ali el-Batal, Saleh Soleiman and Ragab Turkey report on some hitherto unknown tombs at the site of Gisr el-Mudir, Saqqara.

Among the most impressive tombs in Egypt are brilliantly decorated private tombs of Saqqara, but those usually shown to the tourists represent only a small percentage of the whole necropolis. The three years before the revolution of January 2011 witnessed intensive Egyptian archaeological activity at Saqqara, especially in the area of the Gisr el-Mudir site. Located west of the step pyramid of Zoser and the pyramid at Saqqara, the name means ‘enclosure of the mudir’ (= director), after Selim Hassan who had conducted excavations here. This site has escaped attention until recently; three successive seasons of work (2008- 2010) have now been carried out, revealing an extensive cemetery of nobles of modest rank dating to the Old Kingdom along the north side of the pyramid enclosure of Sekhemkhet (Third Dynasty).

Left: the shaft from which Tjeneh's tomb was discovered. Above: the false door inside Tjeneh’s tomb.

One discovery in the south-east corner of the site was the offerings, while her left is placed on her breast. She is the rock-cut tomb of the adorner of the king and overseer clad in a tight long robe and wears a long wig. of the maid-singers, Tjeneh. Unfinished, it measures 5.2 m At the entrance, a lintel bears three lines and a column by 2.2 m, including the chapel, and is undecorated inside of inscription cut in a plaster coating over an earlier except for a false door, painted pink to imitate granite inscription, suggesting that the tomb was re-used for and featuring a scene of Tjeneh with her funerary repast. Tjeneh. The tomb is fronted by a courtyard measuring Tjeneh is shown seated on a chair at the offering table 3.5 m by 2.5 m, accessible via six steps. We suggest the loaded with loaves of bread, raising her right hand towards late Fifth Dynasty as a date for the tomb. Ali el-Batal.

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Above: southern façade of the tomb of Tjeneh. Right: steps leading to the courtyard, looking west. Below: Tjeneh with lotus flower. Photographs by Ali El-Batal.

In 2010, the Egyptian expedition of the MSA (then SCA) under the supervision of Abd el-Hakeem Karer, Ali el-Batal and the author (Saleh Soleiman) discovered a further Old Kingdom tomb within the cemetery, a somewhat unexpected find as no other tomb of comparable decoration had been discovered among the 25 tombs of nobles and 150 commoner tombs excavated since 2008. It consists of three levels: a top one representing its core, surrounded by an enclosure wall; a chapel on its second level, consisting of two rock-cut courts (the first open, the second vaulted) and an offering room, cased with Tura limestone. The third level represents its burial chamber. The owner of this tomb has been identified as Ptahshepses, whose good name is Tjemi, who lived under three kings (Isesi, Unas and ) at the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Dynasties. The three kings’ names are still preserved in the offering room. The tomb

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is reached by rock-cut steps leading down east to west to the open courtyard, which includes the burial shaft of Ptahshepses’ wife. A gate to the west leads to the second court and on to the rectangular offering room. Badly preserved, the restoration of the chapel took six months of work under often exhausting conditions, yet eventually revealed beautiful scenes of daily life, such as fishing and fowling, farming, dancing and music, the preparation of food, as well as the transporting of Ptahshepses’s funeral furniture. Ptahshepses main title (of more than forty) was that of an inspector of the royal house. His chapel includes two limestone false doors; the first is uninscribed and located in the façade wall, south of the entrance; the second is inscribed and fixed in the west wall of the offering room, with a platform with aḥ tp-sign cut into it. Saleh Soleiman.

Top: the site before excavation. Centre: the three levels of Ptahshepses’s tomb Bottom: part of the site after excavation, showing the location of Ptahshepses’s tomb (west to east, showing the Step Pyramid in the background). Photographs by Saleh Soleiman.

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Left: the restorer Bakr Hashem working on the west wall in the tomb of Ptahshepses. Below: some of the workshop activities on the east wall, showing sculptors, carpenters and metal-workers. Photographs by Saleh Soleiman.

While I was at my work documenting the objects in the store-room behind the Museum at Saqqara, I was called by my colleagues Ali el-Batal and Saleh Soleiman to go up to the site, as something new had been discovered: a tomb and inscription of Sennedjem, a high official during the Old Kingdom. Senedjem had constructed a huge mud-brick mastaba, with a large limestone false door of 0.9 m by 0.5 m by 0.3 m. Due to the size of the inscription we were obliged to transfer it from its original place to the museum store- room where there is more security. The tomb itself measures 17.9 m north-south by 12.5 m east-west. The facades of the mastaba were decorated with panelling of compound niches. The outer faces of the recessed panelled walls were coated with a very thin layer Above: the lower part of the false door of Senedjem. Photograph of mud-plaster and covered with white stucco bound with by Ragab Turkey. straw. The upper part is missing. Attached to the north-east side of the eastern façade is a separate mudbrick structure with an entrance at the western end of its south wall. The walls on either side are damaged. The remains of potsherds and limestone fragments on the solid tafl ground could bear witness to its function as an offering place. Remnants  Ali Abdalla El-Batal and Saleh Soleiman are Inspectors of of white painted stucco on the surfaces of the retaining Antiquities for the Saqqara inspectorate. Ragab Turkey is Director walls were observed. Ragab Turkey. of the Museum store-room II at Saqqara

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