Private Tombs of Ancient Egypt
Private Tombs of Ancient Egypt
The Belief in Afterlife and the House of Eternity
The ancient Egyptian's belief in life after death – an eternal, everlasting life after which there is no further death – was a driving force that led him to take every possible measure to preserve his body. This was achieved by placing it in a coffin and burying it in a suitable tomb whose walls were filled with both secular and religious scenes, as well as offerings, funerary furniture, and all the elements of religious belief such as statues, offering tables, stelae and false doors, etc.
The ancient Egyptian called his tomb per-djet, meaning "the house of eternity," the place in which, according to his conception, he would attain immortality. For this reason we see him building his tombs of solid, durable material capable of withstanding the ravages of time – namely stone – while he built the dwellings of this world from mud brick; consequently most of the latter have disappeared, while his tombs remain as testimony to his concern for eternity.
In order to provide still greater security for the tomb and to guarantee its permanence, and thus the permanence of his body, he placed his body – whenever the opportunity arose – in a stone sarcophagus.
He chose dry soil in the desert for the construction of his tombs in order to ensure that the body would not perish. With the passage of time he began to cut his tombs in the rock in pursuit of the same goal.
The Egyptian buried his dead on the west bank of the Nile and on its east bank, taking into account his religious thought and beliefs, as well as the desire to keep away from damp ground, with which there could be no permanence for his body.
Early Tomb Development: From Neolithic to the Proto-Dynastic Period
From the Neolithic period the features of the tomb began to become clear. It consisted of a simple oval or roughly circular pit dug within the framework of their dwellings or in an independent cemetery outside them. The body of the deceased was placed in a contracted position, lying on its right side with the arms against the chest, the face sometimes directed towards the east; more often it lay on its left side facing west.
The deceased was sometimes wrapped in matting or placed in a coffin made of reed stalks or tree branches. After the earth had been heaped over him following burial, the surface of the tomb was marked with a few stones as a distinctive sign.
This type of tomb was widespread in the Merimde Beni Salama culture (near the village of El-Khattatba, about 50 km northwest of Cairo), in the Maadi culture, and at Deir Tasa near El-Badari in Assiut. In the Naqada I and II cultures a pillow of straw or folded leather came to be placed under the head of the deceased.
Towards the end of the Naqada II culture the shape of the tomb developed from oval to rectangular or square. The internal walls of the tomb were lined with mud and covered with reeds, matting or tree branches.
The idea of allocating one place for burial and another for funerary furniture and offering magazines began to appear, paving the way for the development of a plan that included side chambers.
The tomb of El-Kom el-Ahmar (Hierakonpolis) (opposite El-Kab, north of Edfu), which bears the number 100 and is also known as the Painted Tomb, represents an important stage in the development of private tombs. Its walls were built of mud brick, the floors were likewise paved with the same brick, and the idea of using partitions to divide the pit into several units appeared.
The tomb is distinguished by its paintings, which represent boats similar to those painted on the exterior surfaces of pottery, in addition to the traditional representation of animals such as the oryx and men fighting. At Naqada (one of the towns of Qena Governorate, 30 km north of Luxor), at El-Amra (southeast of Abydos), and at Kafr Hassan Dawud (El-Qassasin – Ismailia) tombs have been found that appear more carefully made and richer in their contents; they date to a few decades before the beginning of the First Dynasty, i.e. to the Proto-Dynastic period. The development of the tomb is clear in the adoption of a rectangular shape for the burial chamber, the increased use of mud brick, the lining with wood, and the development of the use of mud-brick barriers to divide the pit into several sections – the method that had already begun to appear in the tomb of El-Kom el-Ahmar mentioned above.
Thus the tomb came to consist of three or five chambers, the central one of which was allocated for burial, a feature that is clear in some of the cemeteries of the beginning of the First Dynasty at El-Amra and Naga ed-Deir.
First Dynasty Tombs: Abydos and Saqqara
Abydos (centre of El-Balyana – Sohag) witnessed a major development, both in royal tombs and in private tombs, in the transitional stage between the Predynastic period and the beginning of the First Dynasty. The excavations of the German expedition at Abydos showed that some of the tombs oriented southwards towards the site of the royal cemetery consist of a single chamber lined with brick. However, a tomb consisting of twelve rooms with an area of 7.30 × 9 m was also found; it was constructed in two stages. The first stage comprised the building of the burial chamber to the northwest and nine storage rooms to the east of it; then two chambers were added along the length of the tomb on the southern side. The building was roofed with wood and reeds.
Beginning in 1936, Emery began to uncover a group of large mastabas with palace-façade exteriors in North Saqqara, dating to the First Dynasty. For a long time the prevailing opinion was that they were the tombs of the kings of the First Dynasty and the actual burial places (as we mentioned when discussing the development of the royal tomb), while the tombs of Abydos were merely symbolic tombs.
The discoveries in the First-Dynasty cemetery at Abydos reopened the debate and advanced the view that it was the actual burial cemetery, while the tombs of Saqqara – despite their size – belonged to certain high officials of this period.
Some of the Saqqara tombs were distinguished by the presence of a funerary chapel consisting of several chambers, located to the north of the superstructure; fragments of wooden statues were found in them.
In the tombs of the early part of the First Dynasty the burial chamber and the rooms surrounding it lay below ground level, so that the mastaba (the upper part) became a solid mass.
Among the most important tombs of this period is the tomb of Hemaka, one of the officials of King Den (one of the kings of the First Dynasty), in which storage rooms were cut around a burial chamber with a wooden roof.
The transfer of most of the rooms underground resulted in a reduction in the number of palace façades on the exteriors of the mastabas, and tombs with two simple niches at the two ends of the eastern façade began to appear; the southern niche was allocated as a place for presenting offerings. This is clear in the cemeteries of Helwan and Tarkhan.
Old Kingdom Mastabas: Third to Sixth Dynasty
To the north of Djoser's Step Pyramid there is a broad plateau, the northern part of which was allocated to the tombs of certain high officials of the Third Dynasty. Here the mastaba retained its basic architectural characteristics (the representation of the palace façade and the retention of two niches, the southern niche – allocated for the presentation of offerings – containing a stone or wooden panel carved with scenes and texts representing the deceased seated before an offering table, in addition to his name and titles).
The tomb of Hesire is perhaps the most important tomb of this period; it has preserved for us wooden panels containing splendid scenes and inscriptions.
In its upper part the tomb of Hesire consists of a corridor containing eleven niches running the length of the mastaba; each niche contained a wooden panel on which the tomb owner was carved seated or standing, accompanied by hieroglyphic texts bearing his name and titles. At the entrance of the tomb on the eastern side there was a small chamber known as the serdab, allocated for the placement of the statue of the deceased so that visitors could see it.
In addition to the Third-Dynasty mastabas at Saqqara there are other mastabas of the same dynasty at Beit Khallaf (6 km west of Girga) and at Giza.
Meidum (centre of El-Wasta, Beni Suef Governorate) contained many famous tombs, such as the mastaba of Rahotep and his wife Nofret, from which their famous statues in the Egyptian Museum came, and the tomb of Nefermaat, from which the Meidum Geese panel came.
In the Fourth Dynasty (in the reign of King Khufu) private mastabas were built in regular rows, especially on the western side of the pyramid. Most of them were large in size and built of limestone, and in most cases they lacked niches. In front of the southern part of the mastaba stood a building containing a vestibule, an offering chamber, and a funerary stela on which the tomb owner was carved seated before the offering table, where the religious rituals were performed.
The burial chamber was cut in the rock beneath the mastaba and could be reached via a shaft that began from the surface of the mastaba. The entrance of the burial chamber was closed with stone blocks.
The private tombs of the Fourth Dynasty contained a number of rooms, and in the upper part (the mastaba) their walls were filled with numerous secular and religious scenes.
In the Fifth Dynasty the mastabas developed in terms of an increase in the number of rooms; some of them were provided with a courtyard preceded by a row of columns, and the scenes became more varied. This is clear in the tombs of this dynasty at Saqqara, such as those of Ti and Ptahhotep, and at Giza such as the tombs of Re-wer and the dwarf Seneb.
In the Sixth Dynasty the mastabas increased in splendour and the number of chambers and halls multiplied. An example is that of Mereruka at Saqqara, which contains more than thirty rooms and has a columned hall.
The False Door and Architectural Elements
Among the most prominent architectural elements in the private tombs of the Old Kingdom is the false door. It is a symbolic door executed in stone or wood; it contains scenes representing the tomb owner and his family and also includes the offering formula. Offerings were presented in front of it, and it was believed to be the place where the ka (the double of the deceased) received the offerings and from which the spirit could pass to the body of its owner.
The false door was usually fixed in the western wall of the offering chamber or in the façade of the mastaba. Private tombs of the Old Kingdom spread in the provinces, whether built or rock-cut. Examples include the tombs of Abusir el-Meleq, Deshasheh and Sedment el-Gebel in Beni Suef; the tombs of Sheikh Said, Tihna el-Gebel and Fraser in Minya; the tombs of Meir, Qasr el-Amarna and Deir el-Gabrawi in Assiut; the tombs of El-Hawawish, El-Salamuni and Naga ed-Deir in Sohag; and the tombs of the nobles on the west bank at Aswan.
First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Tombs
In the First Intermediate Period rock-cut tombs increased, especially in the provinces in many cemeteries such as Sedment el-Gebel (west of Heracleopolis), El-Hawawish (near Akhmim) and El-Moalla (southeast of Esna). An example is the tomb of Ankhtifi at El-Moalla (northeast of Tahta), which began with a columned hall, then a causeway ending in a pylon, followed by a courtyard surrounded by colonnades leading to another courtyard with a portico of columns, which in turn led to a rock-cut hypostyle hall in the mountain, followed by special offering chambers leading to a statue chapel.
The tombs of the high officials of the Middle Kingdom in the provinces followed approximately the same pattern in the regions of Beni Hasan, El-Bersha, Meir, Aswan and elsewhere. The visitor began at an entrance at the foot of the mountain that led to a causeway, which in turn led to a columned courtyard in front of the entrance of the tomb cut into the mountain. The rock-cut tomb consisted of one or two halls; in the floor of the last hall a shaft led to the burial chamber.
Examples of the tombs of this period are the tombs of Amenemhat and Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan (centre of Abu Qirqas in Minya). There is also the tomb of Meketre near the temple of King Mentuhotep Nebhepetre at Deir el-Bahari.
New Kingdom Private Tombs
In the New Kingdom private individuals built their tombs in cemeteries close to the cemeteries and temples of their kings. They were rock-cut and generally consisted of a courtyard, followed by a transverse vestibule leading to a long corridor that led to a chapel whose rear wall contained a niche holding a statue of the tomb owner.
This type is clearly visible in the cemeteries of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Qurnet Murai and others on the west bank of Luxor. Among the most famous tombs are those of Rekhmire, Sennefer, Ramose, Userhat and Menna.
The tombs of the artisans and foremen at Deir el-Medina differed somewhat from those in the other cemeteries of western Luxor. Some of them were built on level ground and consisted of an entrance in the form of a pylon leading to a courtyard surrounded by mud-brick walls that contained a small garden. At the rear of the courtyard stood a mud-brick pyramid built on a low base in which an offering chapel with a vaulted roof was prepared; in the façade of the pyramid was a niche that held a statue of the tomb owner. Access to the burial chamber and the rooms attached to it was by means of a shaft cut in the courtyard. Among the most famous tombs of Deir el-Medina are those of Sennedjem, Pashedu, Inherkhau and others.
From this brief survey of the development of private tombs up to the end of the New Kingdom it can be said that throughout this period (and in the subsequent periods until the end of ancient Egyptian history) the Egyptian showed great concern for his tomb (as the house of eternity) in terms of plan, solidity of building materials, and the care taken to record on the walls of his tombs every activity he practised in this world – scenes which he hoped would come to life just as he himself would come to life when he was resurrected.
Module Key Takeaways
- The tomb as "per-djet" (house of eternity): Ancient Egyptians built their tombs from durable stone for permanence, contrasting with mud-brick dwellings of the living, driven by the belief in eternal life after death.
- Evolution from pit to mastaba to rock-cut tomb: Private tombs developed from simple Neolithic oval pits through multi-chambered mastabas with palace-façades to sophisticated rock-cut tombs with columned halls, courtyards, and offering chapels across three millennia.
- The false door and the ka: The false door, fixed in the western wall of the offering chamber, served as the symbolic portal through which the ka received offerings and the spirit passed between realms, remaining a central architectural and religious element throughout private tomb development.