Tag Archives: Dynasty 4

Inventory Stela: Pious fraud?

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Writing, Combating the Fringe, Uncategorized

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Every now and then something is unearthed in Egypt that can give pause to historians. It doesn’t happen all that often anymore, but the historical record can provide us numerous examples. One of the best examples is an unassuming, rather unimportant little stela usually called the Inventory Stela, also known as the Stela of the Daughter of Cheops (Khufu).

The stela was uncovered in 1858 at Giza by the Frenchman Auguste Mariette (1821-1881). Mariette was one of the titans of Egyptian studies at the dawn of Egyptology. He worked in a time when his European and American colleagues were first trying to wrap their minds around the great pharaonic civilization, digging frantically all over the Nile Valley in a quest not only to find gold but to wrest facts and details from the very distant past.

Mareitte

Auguste Mariette (1821-1881)

The historians of Mariette’s time were only beginning to flesh out the dynastic history of Egypt. Hieroglyphs had been deciphered by the Frenchman Champollion only 36 years before the Inventory Stela was excavated. Given these limitations,a little monument such as this stela was certain to cause some measure of confusion and possibly lead some folks down the wrong path.

Mariette found the stela in the rubble out front of the farthest-left (southernmost) little pyramid to the east of the Great Pyramid. These little pyramids had been made for either the wives or daughters of Khufu, the king for whom the Great Pyramid was built. The little pyramid in question is today known as G1-c (see red circle below):

giza-pyramids.gif

Pyramid G1-c to the east of the Great Pyramid

 

Each of the three little pyramids had a small mortuary temple to its east, mirroring the larger arrangement of the Great Pyramid. Each queen or daughter buried there would’ve had her own mortuary cult and cadre of priests to service her afterlife needs, just as Khufu himself did, albeit on a much larger scale. These mortuary temples today are in ruins.

G1-c Pyramid

The ruins of the mortuary temple for G1-c

It was in this jumble of ruined masonry that Mariette found the Inventory Stela. The stela is made of hard limestone. It’s 30 inches high and 15 wide, contains four registers of  inscriptions, and relief carvings of divine statues (Zivie-Coche 2002: 83). It’s the inscription that caused confusion in Mariette’s day and the inscription has become the darling of many fringe adherents, who are quick to glom onto most anything that might suit their agenda.

InventoryStela

Inventory Stela (Cairo Museum, JE 209)

The stela is in rough shape and there are numerous lacunae, but enough is intact to make sense of what the stela was for. You will come across different translations of the text on the stela, some very poor and some more on the mark. Here I provide a reliable and professional translation from Zivie-Coche’s book (ibid 85):

Live the Horus Medjed, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Cheops, given life. He found the house of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramids, next to the house of Haurun, northwest of the house of Osiris, Lord of Rasetau. He (re)built the pyramid of the king’s daughter Henutsen beside this temple. He made an inventory, carved on a stela, for his mother Isis, the mother of the god, Hathor, Mistress of the Sky. He restored for her the divine offerings and (re)built her temple in stone, that which he found in ruins being renewed, and the gods in their place.

When studying and interpreting an inscription like this one, the student is obligated to follow it to the letter and not insert information that doesn’t belong. Therefore, it’s critical to start with a reliable and modern translation.

Fringe adherents have abused this inscription in all manner of ways. They have an obsession with trying to establish that the pyramids and Sphinx are thousands of years older than anyone thought and were built by some nebulous, unproven, and lost advanced civilization that existed there prior to the Egyptians. Or maybe it was aliens. This stands foolishly against modern science and the evidence from carbon dating that shows these pyramids and temples were erected around the very time we always thought (Bonani et al 2001).

So in taking the stela at face value, it would seem the Sphinx and pyramids were already there when Khufu came along. The inference is, he just repaired things and took them as his own. You will see this preached time and again in fringe literature. You will even see fringe writers claim the inscription “proves” Khufu found the Great Pyramid itself already in place, even though the inscription nowhere says that.

Referring to the inscription above, you can see where it clearly states Khufu was supposed to have “(re)built the pyramid of the king’s daughter Henutsen beside this temple.” This is the little pyramid designated G1-c, built, as mentioned, for one of Khufu’s wives or daughters, The temple in question is today’s jumble of ruins out front of G1-c that was originally the little pyramid’s mortuary chapel. The chapel in the inscription is referred to as “the house of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramids.” In other words, it was a chapel dedicated to Isis, the great mother-goddess.

What we know today is that the old mortuary chapel really did become a temple to Isis, but not in Khufu’s time (Dynasty 4, c. 2500 BCE). On archaeological grounds, the conversion to the temple can be dated to some time in the Third Intermediate Period. We can narrow it down to the reign of Psusennes I (1047 BCE-1001 BCE), in Dynasty 21, based on his cartouche found in the ruins (Petrie 1883: 65). By the time of the Third Intermediate Period, the monuments on the Giza Plateau had been abandoned for many centuries.

In Mariette’s day the stela was already causing confusion because of its inscription. Flinders Petrie felt the stela was either a refurbished copy of a very old monument, or “more probably an entire invention” (ibid 49). Others, such as Maspero, believed the stela should be taken as an historical document (Maspero 1894: n. 364-65).

So, is the stela from the Old Kingdom or from some later time? A great deal of time has elapsed from the days of Mariette, Petrie, and Maspero, and thus we have the benefit of generations of steady scholarship and concerted studies. We have learned a tremendous amount since those distant days and have greatly refined our abilities to interpret and understand things like the Inventory Stela.

This being the case, certain features on the stela present immediate problems. For one thing, in style and form the stela is not of the type one generally sees from the Old Kingdom. That’s immediately noticeable. That might possibly be explained away in some manner, but there’s more.

A notable problem is the name Haurun in the inscription. This is a reference to the Great Sphinx. Haurun was originally a Canaanite god and one of manifestations of Baal. Egypt did end up assimilating this deity, as it did numerous foreign gods and goddesses, but Haurun did not end up becoming part of the Egyptian pantheon until the New Kingdom—many centuries after the time of Khufu. Only at some later time was Haurun associated with the Sphinx, to the point that it became a name for the Sphinx. How this occurred is not known, but it may have been the presence of Canaanite workers living in the area; perhaps they identified the Sphinx with their deity Haurun (Wilkinson 2003: 108). But to be certain, referring to the Sphinx as Haurun is a noticeable anachronism; we don’t even know what the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom might have called the Sphinx.

Similar anachronisms appear on the stela. As mentioned, the stela includes relief carvings of divine statues. This is the “inventory” portion of the stela. It’s a listing of statues that were once featured in the little temple to Isis. This goddess herself presents an immediate problem, as does the mention of Osiris: neither of these deities appears to have been part of Egyptian veneration as early as Dynasty 4. Neither appears in the Egyptian pantheon  until the end of Dynasty 5. For that matter, the title attributed to Isis on the stela, “mistress of the pyramids,” is nowhere else given to her in Egyptian history.

We can say the same about some of the other divine statues on the stela, including the mention of such deities as Nephthys, Harendotes, and Harmokhis. These did not exist in the pantheon in Khufu’s time.

Yet another problem exists with the mention of the “king’s daughter Henutsen.” She is supposedly the royal daughter for whom the little pyramid, G1-c, was erected. While the pyramid was certainly built for one of Khufu’s royal women, daughter or wife, there is no evidence contemporary to Khufu for a daughter named Henutsen (Dodson and Hilton 2004: 53). She’s an invention for the narrative.

Everything considered, then, this stela cannot date to the Old Kingdom. So to what point in time can it be dated?

We’ve seen that the little temple to Isis was first established in the Third Intermediate Period, probably Dynasty 21. But the stela itself is much later. The Giza Plateau fell into ruins after this period and sat abandoned for a number of centuries, until Dynasty 26 (664 BCE-525 BCE). This is also known as the Saite Period due to the capital city of the time: Sais, in the Delta. Egypt itself had been much diminished by then, but there was a brief resurgence under the powerful king Psamtik I Wahibra. This king restored much of the stability and power of Egypt, at least internally, and a lot of attention was given to Giza, which experienced a renaissance.

The stela is of the style and form of the Saite Period. While many of the deities mentioned on the stela were unknown in Dynasty 4, they all would’ve been familiar to the Egyptians of Dynasty 26. The stela was simply part of the plan to bring grandeur back to Giza.

Most scholars today agree that the Inventory Stela dates to Dynasty 26. Therefore, the stela can be thought of as a pious fraud. The Egyptians had their own sense of history, but this must not mean we should believe they viewed history the way we do. Their perspective was far removed from our own (Zivie-Coche 2002: 87-88). They were not trying to pull one over on anyone but were, indeed, honoring the past and the memory of one of their great, distant monarchs, Khufu.

This is a lesson in critical thinking. We have to view things in context and dig deeper. The stela tells us everything we need to know. It is the mistake of the fringe not to dig deeper but to jump to conclusions based on a thin veneer.

I welcome comments and questions, and thanks for reading.

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Bonani, Georges et al. “Radiocarbon Dating of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt.” 2001.

Dodson, Aidan and Dyan Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. 2004.

Maspero, Gaston. The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldea. 1894.

Flinders, Petrie. The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. 1883.

Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. 2003.

Zivie-Coche, Christiane. Sphinx: History of a Monument. 2002.

 

The Osiris Shaft: a Giza cenotaph

18 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

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On the Giza Plateau and below the stone-hewn causeway of Khafre’s pyramid complex lies an unusual tomb structure. It’s known today as the Tomb of Osiris or, more commonly, the Osiris Shaft. The latter was so-named by Zahi Hawass, former Minister of Antiquities Affairs. The existence of the shaft tomb has been known for many years, but it was only until relatively recently that it was properly excavated and reported.

A thorough excavation was conducted by a team led by Hawass in 1999. Subsequently Hawass wrote an article called “The Discovery of the Osiris Shaft at Giza” for inclusion in a collection of essays in the publication The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David B. O’Connor (2007). Although Hawass certainly didn’t “discover” this subterranean shaft complex, his team was the first to excavate it all the way to the bottom. His essay in the 2007 publication is a summary of the excavation report generated from the findings.

Hawass’s publication of the Osiris Shaft generated widespread interest among archaeologists, Egyptologists, and laypeople alike. To Egyptologists and other professional researchers the Osiris Shaft provided further insight into the general usage of the Giza necropolis down through pharaonic history, and served as an interesting example of the reuse of a putative Old Kingdom cenotaph in the Saite Period (Dynasty 26), when Giza experienced a resurgence of attention and devotion among ancient Egyptians. To laypeople the Osiris Shaft seemed very enigmatic and unusual, even if such might not be true.

And to New Agers, Rosecrutians, and other fringe sects the Osiris Shaft was fuel for vivid imagination and wild speculation, from which has been generated all sorts of mistaken, misleading, and implausible information. You will see web pages, for example, which show mysterious tunnels branching off the Osiris Shaft this way and that, implying secret passages to the Dynasty 4 pyramids at Giza. There are intimations of initiation rites and mystery schools and other phenomena not truly of relevance to pharaonic Egypt. I’ve come across such notions many times myself. Probably you have, too.

I’d like to summarize the known facts about the Osiris Shaft and hope to present a realistic understanding of what this shaft complex below Khafre’s causeway actually is. I will draw mostly from Hawass’s essay mentioned above. The schematic diagrams I will be using are drawn from Hawass’s essay; other diagrams and photos come from various other Web resources.

Earlier Archaeological History

As mentioned, the feature now typically called the Osiris Shaft has been known at Giza for a very long time. In my research I could find no certain mention of the Osiris Shaft under any designation in Porter and Moss’s venerable 1974 publication of the Memphite necropolis (what we call “Giza” today was in ancient times just one extension of the massive and sprawling Memphite cemetery, which also includes Saqqara). The earliest mention I could find for the shaft complex was Selim Hassan’s 1933-34 excavations report for Giza. Hassan describes the finding of the opening to the shaft complex in the sixth season of his work, and goes on to report:

Upon the surface of the causeway they first built a platform in the shape of a mastaba, using stones taken from the ruins of the covered corridor of the causeway. In the centre of this superstructure they sank a shaft, which passed through the roof and floor of the subway running under the causeway to a depth of about 9.00 m. At the bottom of this shaft is a rectangular chamber, in the floor of the eastern side of which is another shaft. This descends about 14.00 m. and terminates in a spacious hall surrounded by seven burial-chambers, in each of which is a sarcophagus. Two of these sarcophagi, which are of basalt and are monolithic, are so enormous that at first we wondered if they contained the bodies of sacred bulls.

In the eastern side of this hall is yet another shaft, about 10.00 m. deep, but unfortunately it is flooded. Through the clear water we can see that it ends in a colonnaded hall, also having side-chambers containing sarcophagi. We tried in vain to pump out the water, but it seems that a spring must have broken through the rock, for continual daily pumping over a period of four years was unable to reduce the water-level. I may add that I had this water analysed and finding it pure utilized it for drinking purposes (Hassan 1944: 193).

Hassan and his men, then, were able to get part way down the shaft complex, but found the remainder flooded. Efforts at pumping were unsuccessful. Hassan was not the only person to find the water in the shaft pleasing because for many years hence it was, in fact, a source of drinking water on the Giza Plateau. In other times Giza guides and nearby village children would swim in the shaft, when the rising water table flooded the complex still further.

Particularly interesting to me in this old report is the suggestion of some sort of superstructure which Hassan notes was “in the shape of a mastaba.” That the shaft complex should have a ground-level structure of some sort is not the least unusual, for if it indeed had been used for burial, such a feature is to be expected. But in more modern publications, Hawass’s included, the remains of a ground-level structure are not reported. It’s possible the ruins of the superstructure were still in evidence in Hassan’s day but have since disappeared.

Take note also of Hassan’s mention of a “subway running under the causeway.” The use of the word “subway” is sometimes mishandled by modern people trying to make sense of the archaeology of the shaft complex, and they take it to reinforce the New Age notion that there are “subways” running this way and that below the surface of the Giza Plateau. All the term refers to is a small tunnel burrowed under the causeway of Khafre’s pyramid complex. This tunnel probably served as a shortcut for priests and other temple personnel to bypass the causeway; a similar bypass was excavated under the remains of Khufu’s ruined causeway, to the north (Hawass 2007: 395).

Hawass’s Excavation: The Physical Plan

Zahi Hawass and his team performed the first full-scale excavation of the Osiris Shaft in 1999. By this point the water table on the Plateau had lowered to the point that a thorough excavation was possible, although groundwater still flooded the lowest areas. Constant pumping operations were required to reach the very bottom chamber of the complex. Hawass’s team revealed three different shafts comprising three different levels, as seen here (from Hawass 2007):

Overview of the Osiris Shaft

The opening to the Osiris Shaft lies near the western wall of the tunnel running under Khafre’s causeway; the tunnel itself is situated south to north under the causeway. The opening to Shaft A can be seen in this photo, in which is visible a modern metal ladder providing access to the first chamber. At its widest the entrance is about 10 feet. The depth of Shaft A is about 32 feet.

Shaft A opens into the first chamber, Level 1. It’s a roughly rectangular chamber 9 feet at its highest point and 13 feet at its widest point. The chamber runs to about a length of 28 feet. As with all three chambers it is roughly cut. No artifacts were found in Level 1.

Shaft B sinks down from the north end of the chamber in Level 1. This second shaft is about 6 feet square and descends to a depth of about 43 feet; the shaft includes a small niche in one wall. Shaft B opens at the bottom into Level 2, which is about 7 feet in height; the original chamber (Chamber B below) was about 12 feet wide and 22 feet long. However, during the resurgence of interest in the necropolis in the Saite Period (Dynasty 26), Level 2 was expanded for the purpose of intrusive burials to include six new, small burial chambers (Chambers C-H below, from Hawass 2007):

Level 2 of the Osiris Shaft

A number of artifacts were excavated from these side chambers, including pottery sherds, ceramic beads, and ushabtis (small servant figurines). Additionally, basalt sarcophagi were found in Chambers C, D, and G; badly decomposed skeletal remains were found in the sarcophagi in Chambers C and G. Based on stylistic grounds the artifacts, sarcophagi included, date to Dynasty 26 (ibid: 386-87).

In a large niche in the southeast corner of Level 2, Shaft C sinks down to the lowest chamber in the Osiris Shaft complex. Shaft C is about 6 feet at its widest point and descends to a depth of 25 feet. There are seven little niches carved into the walls around the opening to Shaft C, in Level 2. It is believed these little niches were used as anchor points for wooden braces used to lower a sarcophagus down Shaft C to the lowest chamber (ibid: 388).

Shaft C opens into Level 3, the lowest space in the Osiris Shaft. This chamber is more complex architecturally, although still rough-cut. The length of the eastern wall is about 29 feet, the western wall about 30 feet, the northern wall about 31 feet, and the southern wall about 28 feet. Therefore, the chamber in Level 3 is more or less squarish in nature. There is a narrow ledge carved into the living rock around the edges of the chamber, and at center a large rectangular emplacement also carved from the rock. This provides a trench running around the stone emplacement, and during excavation operations this trench remained water-filled. At the corners of the trench were the remains of four square pillars, roughly cut and now almost completely destroyed.

A shallow pit had been excavated from the center of the emplacement, and in the pit was found a pseudo-anthropoid sarcophagus carved from basalt. The lid had been found in the floor of Shaft C and Hawass’s team hoisted it back on top of the coffer. Skeletal remains were found inside the sarcophagus which, together with amulets and other artifacts found within Level 3, date to Dynasty 26 (see photo here and plan below, from Hawass 2007).

Level 3 of the Osiris Shaft

An important find in Level 3 was red-polished pottery with traces of white paint, which stylistically can be dated to Dynasty 6, from the end of the Old Kingdom. Therefore, this pottery represents the oldest possible datable material in the entire complex.

As an aside, Hawass does not include it in his 2007 publication, but on his website he has a page devoted to the Osiris Shaft in which he describes an unusual tunnel found in Level 3:

One interesting feature of the Osiris Shaft is a narrow tunnel that extends from the northwest corner of the lowest level. This tunnel is only large enough to admit a young child at its entrance, and further along, it becomes filled with mud. In 1999, I sent a boy into the tunnel to explore it. He was able to go only 5 meters before it became too narrow for even his slight frame…

The web page includes this photo of the young boy exploring the tunnel. Whatever reason the original workmen had for excavating this tunnel, they abruptly ceased their work on it after about 16.5 feet. It would appear to follow the course of a natural fissure, but robotic exploration and endoscopic cameras were unable to learn anything substantial about the course the natural fissure took. This failed side tunnel, then, represents the only “passage” within the entire complex of the Osiris Shaft, which represents an otherwise sealed and self-contained environment. Contrary to New Age and fringe notions, there are no vast networks of secret passageways intersecting with the Osiris Shaft.

Interpretation of Osiris Shaft

From the archaeological evidence the Osiris Shaft seems to date originally from the Old Kingdom and specifically to Dynasty 6 (2355-2195 BCE). As was established during the excavation certain parts of the complex were expanded and/or repurposed for intrusive burials in the Late Period, specifically in Dynasty 26 (Saite Period, 664-525 BCE). Intrusive burial was an extremely common phenomenon throughout the 3,100 years of pharaonic Egypt, and tombs of any sort from earlier ages were basically ready-made for the purpose. Intrusive burials were especially common in the countless tombs of the sprawling Memphite necropolis during the Late Period and subsequent periods.

The Osiris Shaft might date to as early as Dynasty 6 but there is no certain evidence for a burial from Dynasty 6. As stated, the sarcophagus found in Level 3, the original and deepest part of the complex, dates to the Late Period. Hawass argues that the Osiris Shaft was a cenotaph for the god Osiris (ibid: 390). I agree with the possibility of this but not necessarily with all of the conclusions Hawass reaches in his essay to support the argument. There is indeed a well-known cenotaph for Osiris in Abydos: the Osireion in the large temple complex of Seti I. Like the Osiris Shaft at Giza, the Osireion at Abydos was a subterranean ritual tomb for Osiris, and the Osireion seems to have been deliberately built so that its lowest area would be constantly flooded. I question whether the groundwater in the Osiris Shaft was, however, a deliberate design feature of this complex at Giza. It certainly might have been but, in my opinion, it’s not definitively understood. The water table at Giza has fluctuated significantly down through time, and for all we know the men who originally cut the Osiris Shaft encountered no water seepage during their work.

Also, it seems to me Hawass draws on perhaps too much later material to form his conclusions about the nature of the Osiris Shaft. The Osireion at Abydos, for example, was built in Dynasty 19, around 1,000 years after the earliest possible period for the Giza tomb. Now, Osiris as a god does not seem to have been prominent until later in the Old Kingdom, and the earliest evidence for any cult for him is during the reign of Djedkare-Isesi in Dynasty 5 (Wilkinson 2003: 120-21). This means a date of Dynasty 6 will work for Hawass’s argument, so that much is in his favor.

Hawass also notes that the Giza Plateau was known as “House of Osiris, Lord of Rosetau” (pr Wsir nb rA-sTAw) in the New Kingdom (Hawass 2007: 391). This is, however, the New Kingdom, not the Old Kingdom, so the Egyptian word “Rosetau” (rA-sTAw) needs further attention. It’s typically translated as “entrance to underground regions” (Zivie-Coche 2002: 75) or in similar ways. The literal translation for Rosetau is “passage of dragging,” a reference to the sloping entranceway to tombs; eventually the word was extended to mean “cemetry” in general and the Memphite necropolis specifically, later also being applied to Abydos (Lesko 1991: 119-20). Christiane Zivie-Coche argues that Rosetau went on to refer to a specific place at Giza south of the Great Sphinx (2002: 75).

Hawass notes that the water-filled trench in Level 3 bears a resemblance to the hieroglyphic biliteral for pr, “house.” This is perhaps an overemphasis on Hawass’s part for seeing the original construct of the shaft complex as “House of Osiris, Lord of Rosetau.” I personally am not convinced that the tench in Level 3 was designed for that purpose. It seems to me to be a bit of a stretch. The shaft complex itself is uninscribed.

The first god to be associated with Rosetau was not Osiris but Sokar. Originally Osiris appears to have risen as a deity in the southern regions and especially at Abydos, whereas Sokar, a hawk-headed deity, was the original afterlife god of the Memphite region (Wilkinson 2003: 209-10). This means that in the time of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, in all likelihood Sokar held more prominence at Giza than did Osiris. The sum total of archaeological evidence from Dynasty 4 at Giza would seem to bear this out, given the absence of Osiris until the end of Dynasty 5.

The Osiris Shaft as a cenotaph for Osiris remains plausible for Dynasty 6, but equally plausible is as a cenotaph for Sokar. Then again, also plausible is that Level 3 was indeed used for the burial of someone from late in the Old Kingdom, even if no archaeological evidence remains to clarify the possibility.

I might disagree with some of Hawass’s conclusions about the nature and purpose of the Osiris Shaft, but I applaud him and his team in 1999 for their thorough excavation of the complex under unpleasant and dangerous conditions. They at last brought this little-understood feature into the light of day. We can outright dismiss misguided notions that the Osiris Shaft is part of some vast network of secret passageways, and we can equally dismiss arguments that the Osiris Shaft had anything to do with the three Giza pyramids. There is simply nothing archaeological to substantiate such an idea. We can continue to debate what exactly the shaft complex was originally intended for, but at the same time we needn’t expend effort or time in arguing things it was clearly not intended for.

Zahi Hawass’s essay can be downloaded from this link: The Discovery of the Osiris Shaft at Giza.

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Faulkner, Raymond O. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. 1962.

Hassan, Selim. Excavations at Giza, Vol. V: 1933-1934. 1944.

Hawass, Zahi. “The Discovery of the Osiris Shaft at Giza,” The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Essays in Honor of David B. O’Connor. 2007.

Hawass, Zahi. “The Mysterious Osiris Shaft of Giza.” http://www.drhawass….iris-shaft-giza

Lesko, Leonard H. “Ancient Egyptian Cosmogonies and Cosmology,” Religion in Ancient Egypt. Ed. Byron E. Shafer. 1991.

Porter, Bertha and Rosalind L. B. Moss. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings: III. Memphis. 1974.

Wilkinson, Richard. Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. 2003.

Zivie-Coche, Christiane. Sphinx: History of a Monument. 2002.

The Great Pyramid as tomb

10 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Combating the Fringe

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Probably no monument of ancient Egypt has been so intensively poked, prodded, explored, researched, and published as the Great Pyramid. Similarly, among fringe circles, no monument of ancient Egypt has suffered so many bizarre speculations as the Great Pyramid: from the landing site of alien spacecraft championed by Zecharia Sitchin (1980) to a giant psi-org energy plant posited by Moustafa Gadalla (2003). Other decidedly odd fringe arguments for the Great Pyramid include a colossal water pump and nuclear reactor. Fringe themes range far and wide, but in the end none of them stands up to scrutiny.

Among many in the fringe camp, the Great Pyramid is stated emphatically not to have been a tomb. Fringe adherents will put forth numerous examples for why this is so, but such arguments also fall in the face of scrutiny. One of the chief problems with the fringe position is the tendency to pull the Great Pyramid out of context, as though it somehow stands alone, unrelated, in the span and breadth of pharaonic Egypt. This dooms the fringe stance from the start.

I would like to relate some points in the orthodox position that makes it clear the Great Pyramid was a tomb. This article is not about how the pyramid was built, which is another debate altogether. I will discuss evidence relating only to the pyramid’s purpose as a royal burial.

Provenance & Attestation

To begin, we need to establish a couple of things: when the Great Pyramid was built and for whom it was built. Both points are often called into question by fringe adherents. A common fringe theme is that the Great Pyramid was built by a lost civilization on the order of 10,000 or more years ago. However, on two separate occasions, in 1984 and 1995, numerous monuments dating to the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom were subjected to extensive carbon dating; more than 450 organic samples were extracted for analysis (Bonani et al 2001: 1297). More than forty samples were extracted from the Great Pyramid alone–principally from mortar in many different spots all over the monument. The orthodox date for the Great Pyramid is generally 2500 BCE, and the carbon dating has established that the Great Pyramid might have been erected a little earlier (c. 2604 BCE) but no more than around 150 years earlier than conventionally thought (ibid: 1315).

Naturally, when presented with this science, fringe adherents typically resort to such statements as: “Well, the dating is wrong because C14 is not reliable.” This statement itself is wrong. By this point in time C14 dating has become a highly accurate and reliable method for dating most anything organic up to about 50,000 years old. Indeed, all such a statement shows is the fringe’s inability to learn about the science or to deal with it in realistic terms.

As mentioned, also questioned by the fringe is the fact that the Great Pyramid was erected for King Khufu, in Dynasty 4 (conventionally spanning 2597-2471 BCE). Khufu is believed to have reigned between 2547 to 2524 BCE. The carbon dating might be telling us he lived somewhat earlier, but the fringe camp argues that the Great Pyramid bears no inscriptions proving the pyramid was built for Khufu. This is incorrect. There is ample graffiti in the sets of relieving chambers above the King’s Chamber that prove the Great Pyramid was built for Khufu.

I’d like to return to the workmen’s graffiti a little later, but provenance and attestation are established: the Great Pyramid was built in the Early Bronze Age, during Dynasty 4 of pharaonic Egypt, and it was built for Khufu.

The Pyramid in Cultural Development

Many fringe arguments are very misleading, either on deliberate grounds or simply due to a lack of familiarity with the known facts of pharaonic Egypt. For instance, you will often see a fringe argument stating in wonder how the Great Pyramid seemed to have popped up out of nowhere, with no observable cultural or architectural antecedents; indeed, this is often stated of the dynastic civilization in general. It is patently false. Egypt became a kingdom around 3100 BCE, some 600 years before the Great Pyramid was erected, and there is ample evidence in the archaeological and material record for the dynasties preceding Khufu’s time.

The earliest kings of Egypt came from the south or upper valley; in the current literature this is sometimes referred to as Dynasty 0, more often as Dynasty 1 of the Early Dynastic Period, and also often by the designation Naqada IIIc; again, this was around 3100 BCE. These kings were buried in tombs at an ancient cemetery at the site of Abydos (ancient Abdju). Specifically, they were buried in Cemetery B, known by the modern Arabic name Umm el Qaab. Nearby is an even older site known as Cemetery U, where powerful regional rulers had been interred in the times soon before state formation; in Cemetery U was found the tomb designated Uj, from which was excavated the oldest-yet known hieroglyphs, dating to around 3200 or 3300 BCE. About a mile to the north of the tombs at Umm el Qaab, these kings erected large enclosures of mud brick. The largest that survives is that of Khasekhemwy, last king of Dynasty 2. It goes by the name Shunet el Zebib today. The precise purpose for the enclosures is uncertain, but there is consensus among scholars that some sort of cult for the deceased king took place in them (O’Connor 2009: 159-163). This pattern will be seen in pyramid complexes, which I’ll discuss below.

Several royal tombs dating to Dynasty 2 were built in Saqqara, revealing that the siting of the royal necropolis was moved from ancient Abydos to the area of the new administrative capital of Memphis (ancient Mennefer), in the north. These tombs are poorly understood because the pyramid complex of King Djoser, to be discussed presently, was built over a couple of them and the superstructures were obliterated (Verner 2001: 122). The same is true for a couple of other Dynasty 2 royal tombs just to the south, which were obliterated by the pyramid complex of King Unis in Dynasty 5. In fact, while the subterranean spaces of these Abydos and Saqqara royal tombs are fairly well preserved, their superstructures are not. It’s not clear what form the above-ground portions took. It’s evident at Abydos that the royal tombs were topped by a large, landscaped mound, at least over the areas of the burial chambers, and this was likely the genesis of the mastaba tomb, which would be a common means of burial for elite individuals throughout the Old Kingdom.

A powerful king named Netjerikhet came to the throne around 2663 BCE, at the start of Dynasty 3. Netjerikhet was most likely the son of Khasekhemwy, mentioned above. Netjerikhet is more commonly known today by the name Djoser, which may have been an alternate name for him but this much is unclear. The name Djoser appears in graffiti dating much later, but this is the name I’ll use because it’s more familiar to the general reader. Djoser’s principal claim to fame is his magnificent Step Pyramid complex in Saqqara. Rightly so. This complex represents not only many innovations in stone architecture by ancient Egyptian craftsmen, but features as its focal point the first pyramid built by mankind. It is actually a series of stepped mastabas, one atop the other, and careful analysis of the monument has revealed that it underwent a number of architectural revisions before it was completed. This was the first royal tomb also to bring the various elements into one place: the tomb in which the king was buried, and the cultic buildings wherein his soul was venerated and sustained (recall the Abydos tombs and their temple-like enclosures a mile to the north). Djoser’s complex includes structures for the eternal celebration of his Sed-festival, a ceremony of renewal forever guaranteeing the existence of the deified king (ibid: 129).

So we can see through these examinations how the royal tomb developed from Dynasty 1 to Dynasty 3 into a pyramid. Several unfinished pyramids date to after the reign of Djoser, and the next great king to come to the throne was Sneferu at the start of Dynasty 4, who reigned 2597-2547 BCE. Sneferu was the greatest builder of the entire Old Kingdom and erected three different pyramids during his reign: his first pyramid at Meidum and then the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid, both at Dashur. The Medium pyramid, also known as the Tower Pyramid from the exposed core due to the outer casing stones collapsing in ancient times, is sometimes argued to have been built by Huni, last king of Dynasty 3. Most scholars today, however, agree that it was Sneferu’s first pyramid. The significance with Sneferu is that he was the first to perfect the true pyramid. This was actually the Bent Pyramid, despite its odd shape. The Meidum pyramid began as a stepped structure and analysis has shown that it was converted to a true pyramid later in Sneferu’s reign. And in these three pyramids of Sneferu we see design and architectural elements that were perfected in the Great Pyramid (ibid: 176-177), such as the corbelled ceiling.

Sneferu’s son and successor was none other than Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid. Thus far, then, we can trace the history of royal-tomb building all the way back to Dynasty 1, if not even farther. We can see how the pyramid evolved in royal mortuary architecture, and how it developed from stepped to true form. This brings us to the Great Pyramid.

Akhet Khufu

The Egyptians called the Great Pyramid Akhet Khufu, the “Horizon of Khufu.” This king took the throne around 2547 BCE (I continue to use conventional dates, although reminding the reader that the carbon-dating analyses might be pushing us a little farther back in time). The sites discussed so far–specifically Abydos, Saqqara, Meidum, and Dashur–were royal necropoli. Cemeteries for kings, in other words. At these sites were interred family members of these kings as well as noblemen and other officials who served in the courts of these kings. The same is true for Giza, which Khufu established as a new royal necropolis when he ascended to the throne. These were not farm fields or sites of industry but cemeteries, exclusively. They were cities for the dead.

The carbon dating establishes that the orthodox timeline is essentially correct for the Great Pyramid, and the above-mentioned workmen’s graffiti establishes that the Great Pyramid was built for King Khufu. I’d like to spend a moment discussing this graffiti now. It’s important to understand that this graffiti was written within relieving chambers designed to lessen the stress on the King’s Chamber, given the enormous mass of masonry existing above the King’s Chamber. These relieving chambers were sealed and entirely unknown to us until an explorer named Colonel Richard Howard Vyse blasted his way into them in March 1837. The lowest chamber actually had been found by Nathaniel Davison in 1765 but contained no graffiti; Vyse speculated there may have been more chambers above this one. His method of getting into the upper chambers was certainly reckless, but he was correct. It was in these chambers that the graffiti was found.

Fringe adherents have tried to argue that the graffiti was a hoax on the part of Vyse. This was strenuously argued by Stichin in The Stairway to Heaven (1980), but his argument and all subsequent arguments built along these lines have been absurd. There is no question the graffiti is authentic. Some of it disappears between massive blocks of masonry, and can be seen but not accessed in loose joins. In other words, some of this graffiti had to have been painted onto the stones before they were put into position inside the relieving chambers. The graffiti is without question contemporary to the time of the building of this pyramid. It’s also quite interesting.

Deciphering the linear glyphs was arguably not fully possible in the time of Colonel Vyse, but it is fairly well understood today. The earliest such graffiti is actually found on the Meidum pyramid of Sneferu and records the names of phyles (work crews) that had labored there (Roth 1991: 125); the graffiti in the relieving chambers of the Great Pyramid contain even more information. The names of three different phyles are extant, all based on permutations of Khufu’s name (ibid):

  • Seven blocks of masonry with the king’s Horus name, Medjedu (Hr-mDdw)
  • Ten blocks of masonry with the king’s full name, Khnum-Khuf (Xnmw-xwf)
  • Two blocks of masonry with the king’s abbreviated name, Khufu (xwfw)

In fact, the spatial arrangement of the graffiti allows us to determine which crews were responsible for specific parts of the relieving chambers as they were being built (ibid: 127). These phyles left us no doubt the great monument they were building was for their king, Khufu.

Although the Great Pyramid has several architectural features and arrangements that make it stand out a bit from other pyramids before and after, it is not so different that we have license to pull it out of context and separate it from pharaonic Egypt altogether. It belongs in the development of royal tomb architecture and it is but the largest pyramid built for the interment of a king. Also clarifying the purpose of burial is the granite sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber. This is one of the earliest sacrophagi of granite the Egyptians ever attempted, but to the point, sarcophagi in pharaonic Egypt served one purpose and one purpose only: the interment of a body. It is strictly a form of burial equipment. In my own experience, I have never seen a fringe adherent adequately provide an alternative explanation for this sarcophagus.

Ancillary Constructions

No Egyptian pyramid stands alone. In every case where one was built, it was part of a wider complex. This is so with Khufu’s, and it is another reflection of the development of royal burial cults. The pyramid was the structure in which the king’s body was interred and from which his soul would ascend to the heavens, but adjoining the pyramid was a temple connected to another temple via a stone-built causeway. The temple adjoining the pyramid, usually on the east face as is the case with Khufu’s, is typically referred to as the mortuary temple. At the other end of the causeway was the structure typically called the valley temple. In Khufu’s case only a small portion of the valley temple has been found because nearly all of it lies under the modern suburban sprawl of Cairo. The causeway itself is in ruined condition. All that one sees of the mortuary temple today, against the east face of the pyramid, are the basalt paving stones. However, careful archaeology of the site over the years has enabled us to get a working idea of what it might have originally looked like.

Archaeology has also recovered fragments of inscribed masonry once adorning the walls of the mortuary temple, causeway, and theoretically the valley temple. These fragments have been excavated from the Giza site itself (example here), and others have been recovered from the Dynasty 12 pyramid of a Middle Kingdom king named Amenemhat I (1994-1964 BCE); his pyramid is at Lisht. It was common for kings throughout pharaonic history to incorporate bits and pieces of monuments from the reigns of earlier kings, particularly kings who were remembered as great in their time. These inscribed fragments from Giza and Lisht show typical mortuary scenes such as personified estates, male and female, bringing offerings to sustain the soul and the cult of the deceased king (Hawass 2006: 69). Numerous instances of Khufu’s titulary are also extent in the fragments. Other fragments bear scenes of the Sed-festival (ibid: 72), stressing the renewal of Khufu just as Djoser had done for himself in his complex at Saqqara. Khufu’s fragments further preserve an unusual scene depicting the canid god Wepwawet (ibid). The name of this god means “Opener of the Ways” and he is seen in numerous examples of iconography dating all the way back to Dynasty 1 (Wilkinson 2000: 297-298). Although Wepwawet served functions to the king’s cult in life, he was a primary underworld deity who guided the king into his afterlife.

Other fragments preserve scenes of the king with foreigners, in some instances receiving them and in others subduing them in typical pharaonic combat posture. These fragments are believed to have come from the valley temple or along the early portions of the causeway, based on extant examples in other pyramid complexes. Altogether, these fragments reveal the traditional purpose for the temples and pyramid: the site where the king’s soul would ascend to the heavens, and where he would forever be venerated and sustained. Moreover, the cemetery that grew around the Great Pyramid, much of which was probably being planned and laid out at the same time as the pyramid itself, contains the burials of family members to the east and high court officials to the west. Included among the former is Khufu’s mother, Hetepheres; a prince named Kawab; another prince named Djedefhor who would end up succeeding Khufu under the name Djedefre (he would build a pyramid at Abu Rawash); and yet another prince named Khafkhufu who would succeed Djedefre under the name Khafre (he would return to Giza, where he built the second pyramid) (Hawass 2006:95-96). And of course there were the three small queens’ pyramids outside the east face of the Great Pyramid.

All of these structures–Great Pyramid, mortuary temple, causeway, valley temple, neighboring tombs–were built at about the same time. There is no doubt the entire complex was funerary in nature.

Tomb Robbing

A frequent argument put forth by fringe adherents is that no body was found in the Great Pyramid, so it cannot have been a tomb. This is one of the weakest arguments of all. There were more than three thousand years of kings in pharaonic Egypt, and with but a scant handful of exceptions–the tomb of Tutankhamun and a couple of royal tombs from a later period, at the site of Tanis–no royal tomb has yet been found unviolated. Indeed, it’s safe to say that of all of the tombs in general which archaeologists have excavated, the vast majority had experienced tomb robbing at some point in ancient times. It is extremely rare for archaeologists to find an intact or mostly intact tomb. Pharaonic Egypt experienced numerous periods of decline and destabilization–especially during the three intermediate periods–and in each of these periods, the breakdown of state authority was matched by the influx of tomb raiding.

Giza was no different. The first instance of the breakdown of state authority began around 2200 BCE, at the end of Dynasty 6. This marks the close of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the First Intermediate Period. This period lasted at most about 200 years but was particularly marked by destabilization and civil war. The Giza necropolis bears ample evidence of plundering during the First Intermediate Period (Kákosy 1989: 145). It’s not so easy to say that the Great Pyramid was violated at this time, however. In fact, it’s unlikely that it was, although its attendant temples and neighboring tombs probably were. Exactly when the Great Pyramid was raided has long been debated, although Strabo records a movable stone in the face of the monument that led to a sloping passage; Arab accounts in the early Islamic period mention numerous mummies found within the pyramid (ibid: 159, 161), suggesting intrusive burials from later pharaonic periods. Based on available evidence, the lower corridors and chambers were raided first and the upper ones at a later time. In all probability Khufu’s monument could’ve been raided in the later Persian Period, prior to the conquest of Alexander the Great, although raiding could’ve occurred as late as the time of Caliph Al-Ma’mun, in the ninth century CE. (ibid: 162).

The point is, at some point in time the Great Pyramid was raided. All Egyptian pyramids were. Almost nothing contemporary to the time of a pyramid has been found in that pyramid by archaeologists. In only a couple of cases have human remains of a king been found in the burial chamber. Tomb robbers were thorough, and tomb robbing occurred in the same tombs down through time until literally nothing worth taking was left.

An argument based on the absence of a body is, quite honestly, pointless.

Pyramid Texts

This is the last evidentiary point I wish to make. I usually shy away from arguments employing the Pyramid Texts in relation to the Great Pyramid because no know example of the Texts exists from the time of Khufu. The earliest Pyramid Texts we have are those inscribed inside the pyramid of King Unis (2385-2355 BCE), who reigned at the end of Dynasty 5. This was roughly 150 years after the time of Khufu.

Still, it can be useful to turn for a moment to the Pyramid Texts, which is the oldest religious corpus in the world. These were funerary spells devised to aid the soul of the deceased king in its journey up into the heavens. That they existed prior to the time of Unis is generally agreed by scholars; earlier examples were probably written and kept on papyrus and did not survive. The language of the Texts is written in a form antiquated even by the time of Unis; the language evidences phonological and grammatical differences from other inscriptions of the Old Kingdom, and it’s clear the orthography was still in the process of development (Hornung 1999: 5). Changes in pronoun usage suggest the Texts were undergoing different applications of a funerary nature through time (ibid: 4).

The spells that comprise the Texts make it abundantly clear that they were used for the dead. They are replete with references to the pyramid as a tomb. Many of them were probably read aloud during the funeral, and their permanent inscription onto the stone masonry made them available to the soul of the king forever. The spells were inscribed in such a way that an order is observable. They start in the burial chamber and continue in a logical sequence past the antechamber and down the corridors to the exit of the pyramid: in other words, the direction in which the soul of the king was meant to travel. The burial chamber corresponds to the underworld, from which the soul of the king would arise to rejoin his mummy; the antechamber represents Akhet, the horizon, where the soul of the king became an akh, or “effective spirit;” the corridor leading from there to the exit represents the passage by which the king’s soul would arise into the heavens. All of the spells inscribed into the walls make this clear.

Khufu’s pyramid may not have Pyramid Texts, but bear in mind Unis’ pyramid was built only around 150 years later. The Pyramid Texts in his burial and in all of the pyramids down to the end of Dynasty 6 reveal that the pyramid was regarded as a tomb. It would be highly illogical to suspect that the purpose of a pyramid fundamentally changed between the time of Khufu and Unis.

The pyramid was a tomb. In the above article I have attempted to explain some of the highlights whereby orthodox research has made this clear to us. And as long as this article is, trust me, I have provided but a summary of evidence. I could fill a book, as many professional historians have–and much abler than I have. The Great Pyramid cannot be viewed out of context. It does not exist in a vacuum. When viewed in its proper context, there can be no other conclusion than that it was built for King Khufu and was specifically for the burial of this great monarch of Dynasty 4.

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Allen, James P. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. 2005

Bonani, Georges et al. “Radiocarbon Dating of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt.” 2001

Hawass, Zahi. Mountains of the Pharaohs. 2006

Hornung, Erik. The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. 1999

Kákosy, László. “The Plundering of the Great Pyramid.” 1989

O’Connor, David. Abydos: Egypt’s First Pharaohs and the Cult of Osiris. 2009

Roth, Ann Macy. Egyptian Phyles in the Old Kingdom. 1991

Verner, Miroslav. The Pyramids. 2001

Wilkinson, Toby. Early Dynastic Egypt. 2000