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Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
I.
EXCAVATIONS AT LISHT
early occupation was not a long one, and
with its abandonment the site became real
desert once more, barren even from the
archaeologist's point of view, and so it remained for some fifteen hundred years.
Not until 2000 B. C. does the history of
the site really begin. Then it was that
Amenemhat I, shifting his capital from
Thebes to some point as yet undiscovered
near the mouth of the Fayum, the better
FIG.
2.
A GROUP
THE
SIDE
OF HOUSES
OF THE
BUILT
AGAINST
PYRAMID
The story of the site, briefly, is this. In to control the northern end of his newly
3500 B. C., or thereabouts, the ground now acquired kingdom, selected this particular
covered by Amenemhat's pyramid and spot for his future place of burial, and set
temple was occupied by a village or settle- on foot the construction of his pyramid. It
ment of the semi-nomadic predynastic was an ambitious monument that his archipeople. No trace of the actual village re- tects projected, too ambitious to be carried
mains, but the pottery and fragments of to completion in the strenuous years that
stone vases that we find among the later .remained to him of his comparatively short
antiquities are clear proof of its existence. reign, and we get as a result the first stumThe cemetery in which its inhabitants were bling-block to the modern excavator of the
buried is still to seek: it lies in all probabil- site, in the shape of a considerable modiity under ground now cultivated, for there fication of the original plan. The site
is evidence that in this particular spot the chosen was not a good one from the buildcultivable area has made considerable in- ers' point of view, for it sloped rapidly
roads upon the old line of desert edge. This away both eastwards and southwards. As
5
BULLETIN
FIG.
3.
GROUP
OF HOUSEHOLD
GODS
PERIOD
VILLAGE
FIG.
GROUP
4.
OF COPPER
VILLAGE
FIG.
5.
GROUP
IMPLEMENTS
PERIOD
OF WOODEN
VILLAGE
PERIOD
COMBS
FIG.
6.
FIG.
7.
VIEW
DOWN
CLEARING
DYNASTY
AT END
SOUTHWEST
TO XII
LEVEL
OF WORK, TAKEN
OF PYRAMID
CORNER
FROM
SECTION J-K
SCA
S
Io
LEGE
m
FIG. 8.
GROUND
PLAN OF EXCAVATION
AT XII
DYNASTY
Brick
ON WEST
LEVEL
S5tone
SIDE OF
BULLETIN
OF THE METROPOLITAN
FIG.
9.
CORNER
temple of Amenemhat, reused as foundation blocks for the temple; (3) actual temple relief; (4) temple relief copied from Old
Kingdom models.
To return to the history of the site.
Amenemhat died and was buried, and his
successor, Senusert I, after building himself a larger and more magnificent memorial
about a mile and a half to southward, in due
course followed him. Round the two
pyramids sprang up the tomb-superstructures of the courtiers and officials, each as
near to the royal monument as its owner
DEPOSIT
FOUNDATION
MUSEUM OF ART
AT SOUTHWEST
OF PYRAMID
THE EGYPTIAN
EXPEDITION
FIG.
IO.
FOUNDATION
I920-21
DEPOSIT
FIG.
CLEARED
II.
DEPOSIT,
BRICK
FROM
SHOWING
FOUNDATION
PLAQUE
WITHIN
OF THE METROPOLITAN
BULLETIN
FIG.
12.
BLUE
PASTE
LION
FIG.
13.
SERPENTINE
MUSEUM OF ART
STATUETTE
THE EGYPTIAN
EXPEDITION
I920-2I
FIG.
SERPENTINE
14.
LIMESTONE
TABLE
STATUETTE
ON
OF OFFERINGS
BULLETIN
OF THE METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM OF ART
of being built up in the ordinary way, consisted of a solid core of bed-rock, faced
round with fine dressed blocks of limestone.
Clearly this core was intentionally left at
the time that the pyramid cutting was
made, and we are forced to the conclusion
that the mastaba formed an integral part
of the original pyramid plan, and that it
was intended for the burial of some close
relative of the king. It was not, however,
the queen's tomb. That we know for
certain, for there were still remaining blocks
of relief in the offering chamber, relief
which failed, it is true, to give the name of
the owner of the tomb, but which showed
quite unmistakably that it was a man and
not a woman that was being commemorated. There are a number of interesting
features of construction in this mastaba,
apart from the one already mentioned.
At the south end there is an inscribed offering chamber, most of which has unfortunately been broken up by quarriers. The
burial pit is cut through the rock core at its
northern end, and communicates with the
burial chamber by means of a long sloping
passage. Underground water unfortunately prevents us from getting into this
chamber at present: when we do we shall
probably solve the vexed question of ownership. Beneath the corners there were
foundation deposits, each one of the four
consisting of twenty-four tiny pottery
saucers and a tiny pottery pointed vase.
Many of the stones of the foundation
FIG. 15.
GRANITE STATUE OF
course were reused temple blocks of the
Old Kingdom, confirmatory evidence this
MENTUHETEP
that it was the king himself who was
the pyramid, and, in conjunction with the responsible for the erection of the tomb.
built-up platform walls on its south and On one of them there was a procession of
east sides, serves as a kind of outer en- cattle, with an inscription above each
closure wall to the royal monument. An animal showing the name of the Khufu
area such as this should by rights be re- farm to which it belonged. Around the
served strictly for the tombs of the king's whole tomb proper there was a brick enimmediate family, and in our earlier exca- closure wall, built close against the sides
vations we found that it had in fact been of the pyramid cutting, with a large enseverely respected. What, then, of the trance gate exactly opposite to the door of
large mastaba tomb, of white limestone, the offering chamber. On the south side
that dominates our photograph in figure 7 ? the whole of the space between this enIts position is significant, but still more so closure wall and the stone wall of the
is the fact that its superstructure, instead mastaba was filled by a series of six vaulted
2Forthe sake of clearnessthe late housewalls chambers of brick, entered from the mastaba side by means of three limestoneand silos have beenomittedfromthis plan.
We shall get a better idea of the photographs and of the lie of the land generally
if we refer to the ground plan in figure 8.2
We should notice, first of all, that the
whole of this excavated area lay within
the cutting that was made to level the
ground for the construction of the pyramid.
This cutting, shown in hatched outline on
the plan, occurs also on the north side of
I4
THE EGYPTIAN
EXPEDITION
FIG.
I6.
GROUP
I920-2I
OF IVORY
WANDS
FIG.
17.
BACK
AND
FRONT
MAGICAL
OF AN
IVORY
WAND
THE EGYPTIAN
EXPEDITION
FIG. I8.
PA][NTED
19.
LIMESTONE
WEIGHT
VASE
had apparently been used as a glaze factory. In one of the rooms there was a
large stone sunk in the floor which had
evidently been used as a kneading place
for the powdered limestone and water
which formed the basis of the object to be
and finally the pyramid sign as determinative. The curious thing is that we knew,
or thought we knew, that the name of this
pyramid was Ka-nefer. There is a stela in
the Louvre dedicated to a man who was
priest of the Ka-nefer pyramid of Amenem-
FIG.
1920-21
WITH
TITULARY
OF SENUSERT
BULLETIN
OF THE METROPOLITAN
FIG.
20.
IVORY
CROCODILE
FIG.
21.
IVORY
LION
MUSEUM OF ART