"The Tombs of Officials. Houses of Eternity," Egyptian Art in the Age Of
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EGYPTIAN ART IN THE AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK DISTRIBUTED BY HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC., NEW YORK This volume has been published in ulIljunction 1\\1 ri~brs reserwd. No pari 01 Ibis pnhli":II;on 'I'Llnsl:lli,,,,, Iwnl tbe I:relll·b hy .I:III1l·S p. Allen with the exhibition «Egyptian Art in the Age of Illay he reproduced or 'T:lIlSlllilled hy any Ill"ans, of essays hy Nadine CIl<'rpion and .Iean-Philipl'" the Pyramids," organized by The Metropolitan electronic or mechanical, indllding phorocopyin~, I.ann; hy .Iobn McDonald of essays by Niu,las Museum of Art, New York; the Reunion des recording, or information retrieval system, with Crilllal, I\ndran I.abrollsse, .Ie'lIl I.edant, and musees nationaux, Paris; and the Royal Ontario out permission from the publishers. Christiane Ziegler; by Jane Marie Todd and Museum, Toronto, and held at the Gaieries Catharine H. Roehrig of entries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, from April 6 John P. O'Neill, Editor in Chief to July 12, 1999; The Metropolitan Museum of Carol Fuerstein, Editor, with the assistance of Maps adapted by Emsworth Design, Inc., from Art, New York, from September 16, 1999, to Ellyn Childs Allison, Margaret Donovan, and Ziegler 1997a, PI'. 18, 19 January 9, 2000; and the Royal Ontario Museum, Kathleen Howard Toronto, from February 13 to May 22, 2000. Patrick Seymour, Designer, after an original con Jacket/cover illustration: Detail, cat. no. 67, cept by Bruce Campbell King Menkaure and a Queen Gwen Roginsky and Hsiao-ning Tu, Production Frontispiece: Detail, cat. no. 67, King Menkaure Robert Weisberg, Computer Specialist and a Queen The exhibition is made possible by Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman. Site and new object photography by Bruce Hieroglyphic dedication on page v from White; additional new object photography at Teachings ofPtah-hotep, 509-10. Addironal support has been provided by the Metropolitan Museum by Anna-Marie The Starr Foundation. Kellen and Oi-Cheong Lee, the Photograph Stu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data dio, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Egyptian art in the age of the pyramids An indemnity has been granted by the Federal York. For a more complete listing of photograph p. em. Council on the Arts and the Humanities. credits, see p. 53 6. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sept. 16, 1999 Educational programs have been supported by Set in Sabon and Adobe Weiss by Professional Jan. 9, 2000. the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation. Graphics, Rockford, Illinois Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87099-906-0 (HC). - ISBN 0-87099 The publication is made possible by The Adelaide Separations by Professional Graphics, Rockford, 907-9 (pbk.) -ISBN 0-8109-6543-7 (Abrams) Milton de Groot Fund, in memory of the de Groot Illinois 1. Art, Egyptian Exhibitions. 2. Art, and Hawley families. Ancient-Egypt Exhibitions. 3. Egypt Printed and bound by Arnoldo Mnndadori, Antiquities Exhibitions. 4. Egypt-Architec Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, S.p.A., Verona, It,tly ture Exhibitions. I. Metropolitan Museum of New York Art (New York, N.Y.) N5350.E37 1999 Copyri~ht <D I \/\/\/ by The Merropolitan 709'·3 2'0747471-----<!C2I 99-22246 Museulll of I\rI, New York elP CONTENTS Lenders to the Exhibition VIII Directors' Foreword Franfoise Cachin, Philippe de Montebello, Lindsay Sharp x Acknowledgments Dorothea Arnold, Krzyszto( Grzymski, Christiane Ziegler XI Contributors to the Catalogue and Key to the Authors of the Entries XIV Maps XVI Notes to the Reader XVIII Chronology A Note on Egyptian Chronology Elisabeth David XIX Dynastic and Regnal Dates James P. Allen XX Introduction Dorothea Arnold, Christiane Ziegler XXI INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE OLD KINGDOM 3 Jean Leclant THE STEP PYRAMID PRECINCT OF KING DJOSER Jean-Philippe Lauer PYRAMIDS AND THEIR TEMPLES 21 Audran Labrousse THE TOMBS OF OFFICIALS: HOUSES OF ETERNITY 27 Peter Janosi OLD KINGDOM STATUES IN THEIR ARCHITECTURAL SETTING 41 Dieter Arnold ROYAL STATUARY 51 Krzyszto( Grzymski NONROYAL STATUARY 57 Christiane Ziegler RESERVE HEADS: AN ENIGMA OF OLD KINGDOM SCULPTURE 73 Catharine H. Roehrig ROYAL RELIEFS 83 Dorothea Arnold THE HUMAN IMAGE IN OLD KINGDOM NONROYAL RELIEFS 103 Nadine Cherpion FURNITURE OF THE OLD KINGDOM II7 Julie Anderson STONE VESSELS: LUXURY ITEMS WITH MANIFOLD IMPLICATIONS 121 Dorothea Arnold and Elena Pischikova EXCAVATING THE OLD KINGDOM: FROM KHAFRE'S VALLEY 133 TEMPLE TO THE GOVERNOR'S CITY AT BALAT Nicolas Grimal EXCAVATING THE OLD KINGDOM: THE GIZA NECROPOLIS AND 139 OTHER MASTABA FIELDS Peter Der Manuelian EXCAVATING THE OLD KINGDOM: THE EGYPTIAN 155 ARCHAEOLOGISTS Zahi Hawass CATALOGUE THIRD DYNASTY 168 FOURTH DYNASTY 194 FIFTH DYNASTY 314 SIXTH DYNASTY 434 Glossary 494 Bibliography 495 Indexes 517 Photograph Credits 53 6 THE TOMBS OF OFFICIALS Houses of Eternity PETER JANOSI Make good your dwelling in the graveyard, Make worthy your station in the West. The house ofdeath is for life. From the "Instruction of Prince Har-djedef" hile our attitude toward the transitoriness Pyramid Age does not contradict this idea; yet it also of life often is primarily negative and demonstrates that this concept represents an oversim tends to avoid contemplating death, plification that leaves unexplored a number of crucial Wancient Egyptians regarded the prepara features or phenomena that are vital to the understand tion for their welfare after death as a major task to be ing of Egyptian concerns about the afterlife. undertaken during life. Providing for the afterlife meant In general, Old Kingdom tombs, regardless of their not only building a tomb and equipping it with the neces size and the status of the owner, consist of two parts: a sities but also establishing a mortuary cult maintained substructure situated below ground level containing the by individuals who would provide for the requisite offer interment, and a superstructure, the mastaba,I erected ings and perform the essential rituals after the tomb above the burial place, which is the monument of the owner was buried. Certainly, preparing for life after deceased. The parts form a unit but developed separately death involved one of the largest investments Egyptians and in different ways in the course of history. had to make. It was in the Second and Third Dynasties that the idea Only the elite of Egyptian society had enough means of the dead living in their tombs was most evidently man to create and support an eternal abode. The tombs and ifested in funerary architecture. A number of mastabas of burial customs of ordinary men and women for the most the period surmount complex substructures comprising part remain unknown, for throughout pharaonic hist?ry a multiplicity of chambers, some of which duplicated the majority of Egyptians were interred simply, in shal installations the deceased would have used in earthly low pits with a few necessary items. This must be stressed life. 2 The superstructure, built of mud bricks and adorned to make clear that in studying Egyptian tombs and their with elaborate Palace Facade paneling since the First extraordinary reliefs, statues, and burial equipment, we Dynasty, gradually became simplified in this period, until are concerned with the art, architecture, and funerary the paneling was relegated to a single side. 3 The tomb of practices and beliefs of only a small portion of the soci Hesi-re (Saqqara 2405), from the later part of the Third ety, the upper class. Dynasty,4 shows a substructure that retains a complex of Inscriptional as well as archaeological evidence seems rooms (even disposed on a number of different floor to support the idea that the Egyptians regarded their levels) as well as a superstructure that has become more tombs as houses or dwelling places for eternity. A survey complicated, with corridors, an offering chamber, a of the development of funerary architecture during the serdab, or statue chamber, delicately carved wood panels Detail, Slab Stela of Prince Wep-em-nefret (cat. no. 52) 27 o ~ Menkaure I Khafre :i " " " .,,/~{ '." " " " ;:'ck-cut tombs~ '." " " " " " " " " " " "'. " " D " " " n " " " " " o ~ CJ o 300m ----+-------'C> c::=J Mastaba cores erected under Khufu Fig 13. Map of the Giza necropolis. Drawing by Liza Majerus after Reisner 1942, general plan of the Giza necropolis 28 Burial chamber Offering place i::[]sh'" ~ lli~~S~rL-JlaFb~st;=el=a=~~~r~t~OP~iC~~~~~~~~gw Burial chamber a 5 10m ~. '-------'--'-'----'----'---'--------" Sarcophagus Fig. 14. Core mastaba with mud-brick chapel, from the reign of Khufu. Drawing by Liza Majerus after Junker 1929, figs. 3, 3a, 4, 6 set into the false doors (cat. no. 17),5 and wall decora to the east and west of his own funerary monument. The tions, all features demonstrating that the accessible part tombs to the east were given to his wives (who were of the tomb has gained importance.6 buried in small pyramids) and close relatives, while the With the Fourth Dynasty the classic type of Old King mastabas to the west were built for his officials and more dom tomb, the stone mastaba, emerged,? as limestone distant relatives. The tombs of these initial, or nucleus, 1 gradually replaced the mud bricks that were still the pri cemeteries, the oldest in the necropolis, 3 display a num mary building material at the beginning of the period.8 In ber of features that seem to set them apart from the Meidum, offering chapels (of Nefer-maat and Itet, Ra funerary architecture of the previous reign and from later hotep and Nofret) and burial chambers (such as the monuments as well. The mastabas in the various sections example in the anonymous mastaba M 17)9 were erected are set in rows equidistant from one another and sepa in limestone during the reign of Snefru.