El Kab

by James Edward Quibell

Suten rekh se hez neter hon Nefer-shem-em.

(Number in Ghizeh Catalogue, 650.)

The mastaba D of Nefer-shem-em is of the ordinary type, with two niches on the east, two chambers filled with brick earth, and a central well. This well was filled with bodies, not buried with care, but thrown down in every contorted attitude. The position of twenty-three skulls and bodies was noted, and then, as no plan or arrangement appeared, the rest were left to be taken out by the men. A scarab of Amen-ankh-as, found in one of the bodies on the upper level, appears to give the late XVIIIth dynasty as the date for this mass of burials.

9. The next mastaba (E) is of a curious form; the S. niche is over one of the wells instead of being in the outer wall. Both wells were cleared until we were stopped by water. From one came the fragments of a pottery sarcophagus of the small type.

The small mastaba (301) nearer the town wall was of more interest. In its well were found fragments of the rough early pottery ([Pl. XII]), of the short type of earthenware coffin, and of a majūr ([XX], 5), also a piece of a diorite bowl, on which the name Sneferu had been very roughly scratched, and a small (¾-inch) black stone cylinder ([XX], 32). This is of a type already fairly well known from bought specimens (there are twenty-one in the Edwards Coll.), and suspected to be early, but not hitherto found by a European. The engraving shows a figure seated before a table and wearing a huge wig.

10. The next mastaba (No, 288) was inside the town. Just to the south of the tomb passage, as if thrown out from it, lay a great many pots of coarse pottery of the shapes shown in the top of [Pl. XII]. These pots were also found in the passages between mastabas, and fragments of them in very great quantities were scattered over the tombs, especially over those of the “stairway” type. This suggests that the coarse pottery was used, not in the interment, but for the offerings brought by relatives to the tombs. They were placed, probably, opposite the niches, and when they became inconveniently numerous, were thrown away over the tomb wall. Several hundreds of these pots were found, heaped together, behind two mastabas to the north of the wall ([Pl. VII], C, D).

The tomb had been robbed. Fragments of one of the large, circular, bowl coffins ([XX], 5) were scattered through the earth all down the shaft, and the great slab which had closed the door was thrown over at the bottom of the well. The chamber was empty, but under the flat stone were found fragments of a slate dish, of an alabaster table, and of four diorite bowls. Of one of these, the largest I have seen ([Pl. II], 1), more than two-thirds of the pieces remained; it was inscribed, in neat, deep characters, suten biti Sneferu, the name of the king being written without the cartouche. In this tomb was also one of the coarse bars of pottery that I have found both in Old Kingdom and in Neolithic tombs, the use of which is by no means clear. They were, when complete, about 2 feet 6 inches long, and 4 inches thick; they are flat on one side, rounded on the other. The sides of one Neolithic tomb at Ballas were lined with bars of this kind. In another, the body was sheltered by a large inverted dish resting upon several of them; frequently fragments of two or three were found in a tomb. Perhaps they were used as supports for the coffin.

In tomb No. 312, which was probably a mastaba, though the walls were not observed, the well was but 2 metres deep. The chamber was at the west, and was just large enough to contain the pottery coffin and a few pots. The coffin was of the short type (3 feet long); the body lay on its left side, crouched up, head to the N., and face E. One bone from the foot lay outside the coffin at the foot end, where also lay a small bowl of diorite, part of another in limestone, bracelets in shell and horn, an ivory hairpin, and a shell containing green paint. Through the earth in the tomb-shaft were scattered a large number of coarse pots ([Pl. XII], two of 41, 45, 43, a hundred and four of 22, more than a hundred of 31).

In tomb No. 318, the burial chamber lay to the west of the well, 2 m. above the bottom of it, 3·7 m. from the top. The bones were scattered and broken, but the chamber was so small that the burial must have been a contracted one. There remained a diorite bowl (11 inches diameter), a vertical alabaster jar, a smaller one containing green paint, and part of a bowl in a good red ware, of the same open shape as the bronze bowl of Ka-mena’s tomb.

No. 315 contained a fragment of sculpture ([XVIII], 55). No. 319 had the regular group of alabaster table and small and large diorite bowl, with two of the long egg-shaped pots ([XI], 12), a vase with a spout ([Pl. XII], 55), and one of the open red pottery bowls, as in No. 318, and Ka-mena ([Pl. XII], 51).