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King Tut: rock star, pop idol, enigma

25 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Writing, Museums

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It was November 4, 1922, and another hot day in the Valley of the Kings. It was always hot, and dry, and dusty. But the Valley had yielded countless finds and many treasures, so the heat and aridity did not stop industrious diggers from their pursuits.

The British Egyptologist Howard Carter was just the latest in several generations of archaeologists who had been exploring the Valley in their search for tombs of the great kings of ancient Egypt’s glittering New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE). He had been digging in Egypt since 1891, but his main pursuit since the days following World War I was the tomb of a little-known pharaoh named Tutankhamun. They had found a handful of his statues, they had seen his name on monuments, but where was he buried?

Carter’s sponsor was the British noble Lord Carnarvon (George Herbert), and it was Carnarvon who was financing Carter’s search for Tutankhamun. But Carnarvon was getting tired of shelling out his fortunes for so little gain, and this dig in November 1922 was in fact Carter’s last chance. It was supposed to have ended already, but Carter had talked Carnarvon into one last season.

So imagine Carter’s amazement on that dusty day when one more sink of the pickaxe struck a stone step under the sand. Clearing the sand away, they found a stairway that descended below ground to a door—and that door still bore the necropolis seals. This tomb promised to be intact.

The discovery of this tomb, designated KV62 according to the ordering system in the Valley, is the stuff of archaeological legend. We needn’t dwell on it here. There is a mountain of literature about the discovery and tomb clearing, and I would refer to the reader to most any book written by a reputable historian or researcher.

Door-to-Tomb

The opened door to the tomb. Carter is second from the right; Carnarvon is to Carter’s right.

Suffice it to say, Carter and his team spent years clearing almost 5,400 artifacts from this small tomb: foodstuffs, furniture, jewelry, shrines, statues, chariots. funerary items, and of course his mummy. It was like a neglected garage that had never been cleaned. It certainly made Carter famous, and although he never dug again, he spent much of the rest of his life on the lecture circuit, recounting his glories to enthralled audiences all over Europe and the United States.

Carter was the right man for the excavation. He was disciplined and meticulous. He and his team labeled, photographed, and plotted every last object retrieved from the tomb. You can see pretty much all of it on the Griffith Institute’s website Anatomy of an Excavation. At the same time, Carter was a challenging man to work with. He didn’t seem to care much for most people and disliked crowds even more so. The media was little more than a nuisance to him, so he was overly selective in whom he allowed to cover his excavation efforts. He certainly did not get along well with the Egyptian government, nor did the government care much for him.

The discovery caused a sensation the world over, so this must not have sat well with Carter in some ways. Every day people stopped by to watch the work, and Carter was often stopping his progress to give impromptu tours to important Europeans on holiday in Egypt. Carter was aware of the excitement his discovery was causing, but he would rather he and his team have been left to their own devices.

So I sometimes wonder what Howard Carter would think of people’s fascination with Tutankhamun today. Working in two different, beautiful ancient Egypt exhibits in Chicago, I am not surprised by how often the subject of King Tut comes up. If the average person thinks of an object that represents the glory and mystery of ancient Egypt, I’m willing to bet the Great Pyramid is what comes to mind. If the average person thinks of an individual, it is likely to be King Tut.

There is an irony to this. To those of us today, Tutankhamun might seem to be the most famous king from ancient Egypt. But in point of fact, Tut was a fairly minor king. He was at the end of a long line of very powerful kings we call the Tuthmosides. To this line belongs some truly powerful kings revered by later generations of Egyptians, such as Tuthmosis I, Tuthmosis III, and Amunhotep III. Also in this line are highly controversial and endlessly fascinating kings like Hatshepsut and Akhenaten, who were erased from history by later kings. And of course later there were powerful kings like Ramesses II, against whom Tutankhamun did not measure up.

Tutankhamun just did not live long enough. He came to throne around 1343 BCE and was only around nine years old. He was dead ten years later. So he simply didn’t have the longevity to accomplish much and make a name for himself. Added to this was his association with the oddball king Akhenaten, the heretic who proscribed the worship of many traditional gods. Later kings wiped out Akhenaten’s memory, and part of that memory was the boy Tutankhamun. This is why so little had been found by archaeologists by Carter’s time.

Nevertheless, today King Tut is one of the most recognizable icons of pharaonic times. The exhibits featuring artifacts from his tomb pack in millions of people the world over. I worked one of them at the Field Museum in 2006. It was at our museum for eight months and brought a million people just through our doors. There are countless books about King Tut, both non-fiction and fiction, there are movies—there is a whole pop-culture craze that swirls around this dead boy king. I have a tissue dispenser in the shape of Tut’s famous death mask: the tissues come out of his nose.

MrPeabody

King Tut in the 2014 film Mr. Peabody and Sherman

The 2016 film Mr. Peabody and Sherman even features King Tut. The young heroine Penny seems smitten with the boy king and agrees to marry him, and nothing Peabody and Sherman say can dissuade her. The only thing that changes her mind is when Tut’s advisor tells her that when the king dies, she also must die. I spent a lot of time at the museum after this movie came out, ensuring kids that in real life back then, the queen was not put to death when the king died. I eventually watched the movie myself, and inaccuracies aside, I recommend it for some good laughs. It’s just another part of the Tut phenomenon.

It is simply Tut’s tomb that made him so famous to us. It contained so much gold and bling and riches, so many mysterious and fascinating objects, that even from 1922 it made Tut a household name. A great deal of mystique and mystery have been attached to Tut because of KV62, because until that point in time, every royal tomb that had been excavated, had already been picked clean by raiders millennia ago. Just imagine what might have been inside the tombs of kings like Tuthmosis III, Amunhotep III, and Ramesses II.

A great deal of nonsense has also been attached to King Tut and his tomb. One of the greatest misconceptions is the curse of King Tut, which is more Hollywood than reality. Some of it was caused by the misinterpretation of inscribed artifacts within the tomb, but there simply is no curse inscribed in that tomb.

Back in 2006, when we had the exhibit at the Field Museum, I remember sitting at home one evening and watching a local news affiliate talk about the exhibit. One of the most beautiful objects on display was one of four gold coffinettes that used to hold Tut’s preserved organs:

Coffinette1

Gold coffinette of Tutankhamun.

The news anchor showed an image of the coffinette and there was a closeup of hieroglyphs that one could see inside it. The anchor proceeded to explain that those hieroglyphs were a written curse. I very nearly screamed at my TV. Or maybe I did scream. The inscription was not a curse but a ritual prayer. This is a good example of how the modern media tends to distort the facts.

There are all sorts of wild, half-baked fringe ideas about Tut. One of the most popular is that Akhenaten and King Tut were aliens, mostly because the artwork of that period shows their bodies in distorted styles. One of the amuletic devices found on Tut’s mummy was a meteoric dagger, and because meteors come from space, this only encourages some in the fringe to build on the alien scheme.

But as the pages of my humble blog reveal, the fringe has attached itself to ancient Egypt and has no shortage of ways to distort and misrepresent this ancient culture.

As I write this article, there is a new exhibit in the works for Los Angeles: King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh. It opens March 2018. As far as I have been able to determine, Los Angeles is the only venue. This exhibit is in preparation for the installation of Tut’s treasures in the new museum Egypt has been building at Giza, which will be opening in the near future (or so they say). Once Tut’s treasures are in place at Giza in the new museum, they might not travel ever again. But we’ve all heard that before.

There is much we still don’t know about King Tut. How he died remains one of the greatest questions today. His mummy has been poked and prodded and studied more than any ancient body from history, literally right down to his DNA, but there is still no universal agreement on cause of death. There is still much we don’t know about the Amarna Period, the time period in Dynasty 18 when Tut lived, mainly due to the later kings so industriously wiping away Akhenaten and Amarna history. We still can’t be absolutely certain of the order of succession between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. Many questions remain, and that only adds to the mystique.

Tutankhamun is both enigma and rock star. He is one of history’s greatest icons. He will continue to enthrall everyday people, and I will continue to talk about him and answer questions at the museum. I don’t mind in the least. Tut is not one of my own “favorite” pharaohs, but his Amarna Period is endlessly fascinating to study. The romance of King Tut just never seems to get old in popular culture.

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Brier, Bob. The Murder of Tutankhamen. 1999.

Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen. 2003 edition.

Griffith Institute (The) – University of Oxford website.

Hawass, Zahi, et al. “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family.” JAMA. 2010.

Silverman, David P., Josef W. Wegner, and Jennifer Houser Wegner. Akhenaten & Tutankhamun: Revolution & Restoration. 2006.

The forgotten pharaoh

19 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in Ancient Egypt

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Egypt’s fortunes had fallen. The stability and fortunes of the Middle Kingdom were in the past, and foes pressed in from north and south. To the north in the Delta were the hated Hyksos, a kingdom of Canaanites who had migrated into Egypt over a long stretch of time and now held sway over all of Lower Egypt. They were pressing south, hoping to swallow up more of the Nile Valley. To the south, Egypt’s ancient Nubian enemies made inroads north to expand their terrotiry.

Egypt’s autonomy had shrunk to the region of Thebes in Upper Egypt, where long-smoldering resentments had led to war with the Hyksos. Kings like Seqenenre-Tao, Kamose, and Ahmose led prolonged efforts to drive the Hyksos from the sacred Two Lands. Seqenenre would die in that war, his badly preserved, wound-riddled  body telling us today how violent his end had been.

This was the Second Intermediate Period (1781-1550 BCE), one of three intermediate periods during which the Egyptian kingdom fractured, toppled, and led to rival kingdoms and concurrent dynasties. By their nature these intermediate periods are a challenge to research and understand. The fall of central authority led to fewer historical records and confusing and sometimes contradictory evidence. For instance, in the time of Seqenenre, Kamose, and Ahmose, we recognize the kingdom of Thebes as Dynasty 17 and the rival Hyksos kingdom as Dynasty 15, even though they were concurrent. There was a minor eastern Delta kingdom known now as Dynasty 14. Prior, Dynasty 13 was split in two, tumbling from the Middle Kingdom into the early Second Intermediate Period and a plethora of minor, short-lived kings. There is still a lot about the Second Intermediate Period we don’t understand.

One of those has turned out to be the number of other minor regional kingdoms that might have existed at the time. The University of Pennsylvania under Josef Wegner has been digging for many years at the Upper Egyptian site of Abydos. Located not far to the north of Thebes, Abydos is one of Egypt’s most ancient sites and was the original burial ground of Egypt’s earliest kings, who reigned over 5,000 years ago.

egypt-nome-map

Map of ancient Egyptian nomes and historical sites. Note Abydos in Upper Egypt.

Egypt’s earliest history still has a lot to tell us, and archaeology is key. We know significantly more about the era of the kingdom’s founding in c. 3100 BCE than scholars did even 50 years ago, but there is much more to learn. Teams like Wegner’s will make it happen. But along the way archaeologists can never be certain what they might find to help fill in the gaps in other historical periods.

Wegner and his team were digging in the southern area of Abydos in January 2014 when they came upon something unexpected. One of the first things they unearthed was a massive stone sarcophagus chamber that turned out to have belonged originally to a king named Sobekhotep (probably Sobekhotep I, first king of Dynasty 13, c. 1780 BCE).

sobekhotepsarcophagus

Lower-right: massive sarcophagus chamber of King Sobekhotep (in background are other tombs subsequently unearthed).

But as it turned out, it seemed that Sobekhotep’s sarcophagus chamber had been dragged from its original interment and reused in a different tomb. Exactly whose tomb that was is still not certain. But further excavations led to the discovery of other tombs, and they opened up a new window on a forgotten dynasty in ancient Egypt.

One of the other tombs was simple in design but of high-status for its time and place, and in clearing away the sands, Wegner and his team unearthed inscriptions.  The four-chambered tomb turned out to belong to a king who had been lost to history.

burial-chamber

The painted and inscribed burial chamber of the new tomb, designated CS9.

The inscriptions tell us the king was named Senebkay, whose name means “My spirit is healthy.” The tomb had been looted in ancient times, so there was no great treasure of the likes of Tutankhamun. Chances are, Senebkay couldn’t have afforded that sort of burial, anyway. Excavations unearthed the fragments of a canopic box in which the king’s organs had been stored after mummification, and the canopic box, like the sarcophagus chamber in the nearby anonymous tomb, turned out to have come originally from Sobekhotep’s burial. Ancient Egyptian kings had a penchant for helping themselves to earlier kings’ goods, which was perfectly legitimate for a ruler and also very helpful if that ruler was not flush with wealth.

In sum, Wegner and his team had discovered the burial ground of a line of kings who appear to have been rulers of just the Abydos nome. Senebkay was among them. The painted tomb reveals his full name to have been Woseribre Senebkay, and one of the epithet’s record that he was “King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” That was a bit of a stretch, given that Senebkay’s reach wouldn’t have extended much beyond the Abydos nome. One of the other inscriptions refers to him by the traditional epithet “Son of Re.”

seneb-kay-cartouche2

Cartouche of Senebkay preceded by the epithet “Son of Re.”

Wegner dates this local Abydos kingdom to 1650-1600 BCE, placing it late in the Second Intermediate Period. How it might fit into the current order of Second Intermediate Period dynasties is not clear.

By good fortune Senebkay’s remains were found in his tomb, although the body had been reduced to bones. But his skeleton is largely complete.

senebkay-skeleton

The skeletal remains of Senebkay.

This allowed for a thorough examination of the remains and some interesting findings about how the king lived and met his end. Muscle attachments in the pelvis and legs were robust and highly suggestive of someone who spent a lot of time on horses. This was something of a surprise because horsemanship in Egypt had only recently entered the kingdom, probably through the Hyksos and their connections with others in northern areas. The first widespread uses of horses was to be for chariot warfare, and it may have been developing in around Senebkay’s time but would not become common place until the succeeding New Kingdom.

More interesting were the insults inflicted on Senebkay’s body. He bore numerous wounds, some of them likely lethal. His skull bears evidence of violent axe wounds, which probably did result in his death.

senebkay-skull

The skull of Senebkay, anterior  and posterior, revealing lethal wounds likely inflicted by battle axes.

The remains also revealed numerous wounds to the feet, lower legs, and hands. This suggests Senebkay was attacked while in an elevated position—such as on a horse. It’s possible while in battle on horseback, Senebkay found himself surrounded by foes who were hacking at him until they were able to drag the king from the horse to the ground, and finish him off with blows to the head.

It’s eerily similar to the grisly end met by Seqenenre-Tao, the king of Thebes.

The poor state of Senebkay’s preservation, especially by royal standards, suggests the king may have died in battle away from home and could not be properly mummified in time.

It’s possible the line of Abydos kings was composed of equestrians. It’s unexpected because although chariotry was arriving on the scene at that time, combat while riding horseback was not the norm.

But who killed Senebkay? That’s not so easy to answer. It does appear he died in battle, so we can narrow down the assailants from there. An obvious culprit would be the Hyksos. After all, Senebkay and his Abydos nome lay between the Theban kings and the rival Canaanite warriors in the Delta. And if Senebkay lived and died around 1600 BCE, this places him in the timeframe of known hostilities between Thebes and the Hyksos.

Or was it Thebes? Perhaps Senebkay came up against the army of Seqenenre, Kamose, or Ahmose in their efforts to consolidate power in their prolonged push against the Hyksos. For that matter, was it the Nubians? We have evidence of a tentative alliance between them and the Hyksos, so that enemies could crush Thebes from both sides. Perhaps Senebkay got caught up in such a conflict, although ultimately we know that Nubia’s efforts to seep north at this time did not amount to much.

However it happened, Senebkay met a bloody end. He was buried over 3,600 years ago in a four-chambered tomb we call CS9, and over time the sands swept in and buried the final resting places of Senebkay and his fellow Abydine rulers. They were entirely forgotten until Josef Wegner and his team came along in 2014.

This leaves one to wonder what else might still lie buried at Abydos and other ancient sites in Egypt. This is the kind of story I like because it’s a vivid reminder of discoveries still to be made and new knowledge to be absorbed. Archaeology is key. The more we dig and explore, the more we fill in the blanks of one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known.

In all probability Senebkay and his fellow Abydos kings were largely forgotten by the dawn of the New Kingdom, in 1550 BCE. Sweeping north, Ahmose was finally successful in driving the hated Hyksos from Egypt. He would besiege and slaughter their remnants in a fortress in the Negev. Thus began Egypt’s greatest age of glory, when it enjoyed unprecedented wealth, reach, and power.This was Egypt’s age of empire and onto the stage of history came truly powerful pharaohs like Tuthmosis III, Ahumhotep III, and Ramesses II. Senebkay and his fellow Abydos kings disappeared into history as the sands swallowed up their humble tombs, and there they would wait quietly for 3,600 years.

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“Gant Sarcophagus Leads Penn Museum Team in Egypt to the Tomb of a Previously Unknown Pharaoh.” www.penn.museum. January 2014.

Gleeson, Molly. “Summer 2016 Conservation in South Abydos.” www.penn.museum. July 2016.

“New Forensic Evidence Confirms Violent Death of Pharaoh Senebkay.” www.penn.museum. February 2015.

Wegner, Josef. “Discovering Pharaohs Sobekhotep & Senebkay.” www.penn.museum. April 2014.

Verhelst, Paul and Matthew Olson. “First Glimpse of a New Pharaoh: The Remains of Senebkay.” www.penn.museum. PDF.

Nip Tuck: circumcision in ancient Egypt

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Writing, Museums

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Main_PhotoRecently for practice I translated an ancient Egyptian stela on display at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, Illinois. It’s a large and colorful stela of an official named Uha, and it’s unusual in that it contains information about his circumcision. I had never translated a monument with this aspect of the ancient culture, so was interested in seeing what it had to say in the original ancient language.

Along the way I spent some time researching the subject and thought it might be worthwhile to compose an article about it. There is a lot of interesting information out there, and I noted that some of it on the internet is misleading or incorrect. I also was reminded of the polarizing effect the subject of circumcision has on modern people, some of whom are not disturbed by it, some of whom find it “barbaric,” and others who regard the practice as a religious or cultural norm.

My article for the most part will be limited to the subject of circumcision as it pertains to ancient Egypt.

The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the mid fifth century BCE, stated the Egyptians “practise circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be cleanly than comely.” He also wrote: “They [Egyptians] are the only people in the world—they at least, and such as have learnt the practice from them—who use circumcision.”

Were we to take Herodotus at his word, then, we might think circumcision was a universal male practice in ancient Egypt and that the Egyptians invented the practice. But neither case can be stated absolutely. No one knows who first instituted the act of circumcision, and it certainly was not a universal practice among males. Examinations of mummies has shown, however, that circumcision was commonly practiced (Filer 1995: 90) among ancient Egyptian males.

Try as I might, I could find no corroboration that female circumcision was practiced in ancient Egypt. Examinations of female mummies have not revealed evidence of circumcision (Aufderheide 2003: 474). What we can say with a high level of confidence, then, is that circumcision in ancient Egypt was a male practice.

The prevailing evidence shows that circumcision was conducted in the pre-adolescent stage of a male’s life. This is borne out in textual evidence as well as in the examinations of male mummies. As with other African peoples to this day, it was not done in infancy but perhaps in some cases marked an initiation rite between boyhood and manhood. At the same time, there is no extant evidence that circumcision was required for all males; likewise, there is no evidence that circumcision was governed by one’s social class or status (Nunn 2002: 171).

Not even all of the kings appear to have been circumcised, in so far as it is observable on their mummies. Consider Ahmose I (1549-1524 BCE), founder of Dynasty 18 and the New Kingdom:

Mummy of Ahmose I, Dynasty 18

Mummy of Ahmose I, Dynasty 18

Kings were of course at the peak of social hierarchy, the epitome of manhood, and the divine intermediaries of the gods. It has been speculated that perhaps Ahmose wasn’t circumcised because he was sickly or suffered from hemophilia (Harris & Weeks 1973: 127), but other kings such as Amunhotep I and Amunhotep II also appear not to have been circumcised. The more plausible scenario is that it wasn’t a cultural absolute.

As a museum docent I am sometimes faced with odd or somewhat embarrassing questions. Such questions are often (though not always) posed by children. On display in our Egyptian exhibit at the Field Museum is the unwrapped mummy of a boy who died around 2,500 years ago, at ten to twelve years of age:

LP-Mummy-Boy

Late Period mummy of a boy (Field Museum)

One afternoon I came across a young boy of around seven who was squatting down and studying what he could see below the hands of this mummy. The mummy is so well preserved that his genitals are intact. The young museum visitor looked up at me and asked why this mummified boy was not circumcised. I’ve never paid much attention to what one can see below the mummy’s hands and am not inclined to now, either, but my first thought upon this young boy’s question to me was, Where are this kid’s parents? To cut it short I answered frankly that not everyone was circumcised, and then pretended to be caught up by another group of visitors.

While on the subject of museums, let’s return to the stela of Uha on display at the Oriental Institute:

Stela of Uha, First Intermediate Period (Oriental Institute)

Stela of Uha, First Intermediate Period (Oriental Institute)

The stela comes from the site of Nag ed-Deir and dates to the First Intermediate Period (c. 2100 BCE). It shows Uha in his kilt and broadcollar and clutching a sekhem-scepter (emblem of power); behind Uha, in diminutive size, stands his wife Henutsen, who affectionately clasps Uha’s hand. Uha carries numerous titles in the lengthy horizontal inscription, among them seal bearer of the king and lector priest. The fourth and fifth registers are specific to his circumcision.

The translation is my own but can be compared against the published translation in the O.I.’s companion book to the exhibit (Teeter 2003: 34): iw sab.k Hna s(w) 120 nn.s xaA nn.s xAw im nn AXa im nnw AXa im (“When I was circumcised, along with 120 men, none therein struck, none therein were struck; none therein scratched, none therein were scratched”). Basically Uha is bragging that neither he nor his male companions struggled or had to be forced in their circumcisions. This is a common theme in the few monuments which mention circumcision, but what makes the stela unusual is that Uha was apparently in the company of 120 other men (Hna s[w] 120). Mass circumcisions are otherwise unattested in ancient Egyptian monuments. If such an occasion did occur, it must have been a highly unpleasant sight to behold.

Incidentally, in my preparations for conducting my translation, I broke one of my own rules and turned to the internet, just to see what was out there. It turns out Uha’s stela is easy to find on the web, and there are numerous translations. On several I came across mention that there were “120 men and 120 women” on the day of the mass circumcision. This is incorrect. While the stela clearly mentions the figure of 120 men, no women are mentioned in the group. As noted earlier, evidence is lacking that females underwent circumcision in ancient Egypt.

Considering the impressive length of pharaonic history and the practically countless inscribed monuments, circumcision is not well represented historically in ancient Egypt. There are only two monuments which specifically depict the act of circumcision: in the tomb of Ankhmahor at Saqqara and in the temple precinct of Mut at Karnak (Filer 1995: 90). Other monuments such as Uha’s mention circumcision but do not depict it. Circumcision is not mentioned in the extant medical papyri (ibid).

The depiction in Ankhmahor’s tomb is worth reviewing. Dating to Dynasty 6 and specifically to the reign of King Teti (2355-2343 BCE), it is the oldest extant depiction of the act of circumcision from ancient Egypt. Here is a line-art version of the depiction, which appears on the east thickness of a doorway in the tomb:

Tomb relief showing circumcision, Saqqara

Tomb relief showing circumcision, Saqqara

Ankhmahor was a high-ranking official whose tomb was small but beautifully decorated with relief carvings. It is found in the pyramid complex of Teti. His titles included overseer of all the king’s works, overseer of the two treasuries, priest of Maat, and lector priest (Kanawati, N. & A. Hassan 1997: 11-12).

The above scene depicts two men being circumcised. The scene has been interpreted in different ways but the nude male at right is surmounted by an inscription in which he says: sin wnnt r mnx (“Sever, indeed, thoroughly”). The man kneeling before him says: iw(.i) r irt r nDm (“I will proceed carefully”).

All our male readers are probably squirming by now. At left is one man restraining the nude male there, while another kneels before him to preform the procedure. The glyphs in front of the kneeling man identify him as a Hm-kA, mortuary priest. In the inscription he is telling the man doing the restraining: nDr sw m rdi dbA.f (“Hold him fast. Do not let him faint”). The restrainer says: iri.i r Hst.k (“I will do as you wish”).

(These translations are from Kanawati, N. & A. Hassan 1997: 49.)

The nude male at left is not given lines. Presumably he is doing everything he can not to pass out. This is understandable.

As I mentioned, the depiction has been interpreted in different ways. Below the elbows of the restrained male at left is the word sb, which is typically translated as “circumcise.” The Egyptologist Ann Macy Roth has plausibly argued that this word should act together with Hm-kA to form the sentence sbt Hm-kA (“Circumcising the mortuary priest”), which makes the restrained nude male at left the mortuary priest (Nunn 2002: 170-171).

Roth’s proposal makes sense because it’s otherwise confusing why a mortuary priest should be performing circumcisions. The scene as a whole is somewhat odd in its context because, while the tomb of Ankhmahor shows other scenes involving medical care, the circumcision depiction is isolated on a door thickness and does not even include Ankhmahor. It’s been argued that one or both of the nude males might be sons of Ankhmahor, who are depicted elsewhere in the tomb.

In an entirely different interpretation, it’s been stated that perhaps the man at right isn’t being circumcised but is undergoing a procedure to correct phimosis. In other cases it’s been argued that the same man is undergoing a procedure to numb his penis prior to being circumcised.

So it remains unclear under what circumstances a male in ancient Egypt would be circumcised. While it seems clear Herodotus’ accounts of the practice are exaggerated, the fact is many men were circumcised (again, evidently in late puberty). It might come down to how some people in ancient Egypt viewed purity rites. To the ancient Egyptians purity was not so much a state of mind as it was a physical phenomenon (Teeter 2011: 32). There are scattered references that circumcision was an act of physical purity (ibid), and I personally have always wondered if it was a preference or perhaps an obligation among men in certain priestly classes. Recall that in both our examples here—Uha and Ankmahor—these men carried priestly titles.

Remember that in both ancient times and modern, circumcision has been a fixed cultural feature and an act of initiation into manhood. While some modern people find the practice “barbaric,” it is not one’s place to force his or her attitudes into someone else’s cultural or religious beliefs.

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome comments.

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Aufderheide, Arthur C. The Scientific Study of Mummies. 2003.

Filer, Joyce. Disease. 1995.

Harris, James E. and Kent Weeks. X-Raying the Pharaohs.1973.

Kanawati, N. and A. Hassan. The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara: Volume II: The Tomb of Ankhmahor. 1997.

Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. 2002.

Teeter, Emily: Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago. 2003.

—Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. 2011.

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