From the position of the tomb of Den-Setui, it is seen naturally to follow the building of the tombs of Zet and Merneit. It is surrounded by rows of small chambers for offerings, and for the burial of domestics. The king’s tomb appears to have contained a large number of tablets of ivory and ebony, for fragments of eighteen were found, and two others are known, making in all twenty tablets from this one tomb. The inscriptions on stone vases are, however, not more frequent than in previous reigns. This tomb appears to have been one of the most costly and sumptuous. The astonishing feature of this chamber is the granite pavement, such considerable use of granite being quite unknown until the step pyramid of Saqqâra early in the third dynasty. At the south-west corner is a strange annex. A stairway leads down from the west and then turns to the north. At the foot of the first flight of steps is a space for inserting planks and brickwork to close the chamber, like the blocking of the door of the tomb of Azab.1 This small chamber was therefore intended to be closed. Whether this chamber was for the burial of one of the royal family, or for the deposit of offerings, it is difficult to determine. Of the various rows of graves around the great tomb there is nothing to record in detail. An ebony tablet, presumably of the time of Den, found among the first dynasty tombs, represents a scene in which a king is dancing before Osiris, the god being seated in his shrine. This tablet is the earliest example of those pictorial records of a religious ceremony which, as we now know, was continued almost without change from the first dynasty to the thirty-third. It is interesting to note on this engraving that the king is represented with the hap and a short stick instead of the oar.
It should be noted also that the royal name, Setui, occurs in the lower part of the tablet, so that there is a strong presumption that the tablet is of the time of Den-Setui, and the presumption is almost a certainty when the tablet is compared with some sealings found in its vicinity. Mr. F. LI. Griffiths has written at length on this important inscription.*
* Royal Tombs of the first dynasty, Part I: Eighteenth
Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, London, 1900, page 42.
He thinks that this tablet and two others somewhat similar were the brief annals of the time, and record the historic events and the names of government officials. He translates a portion of the inscription as “Opening the gates of foreign lands,” and in another part he reads, “The master comes, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Moreover, he translates certain signs as “Sheikh of the Libyans,” and he identifies a place named Tny as This, or the capital of the nome in which Abydos lay.
Of this reign also is an ivory tablet finely polished, but blackened with burning, which has engraved upon it the oldest architectural drawing in the world.
The inscription on this precious fragment apparently refers to the great chiefs coming to the tomb of Setui, and a picture of a building in the middle of the inscription may be taken as representing on the left the tomb chamber of Den-Setui, with a slight mound over it. The upright strokes represent the steles outside the tombs, adjacent to which is the inclined stairway, while on the right is a diagram of the cemetery, with graves ar-ranged in rows around the tomb, with small steles standing up over the graves.