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Results for mastaba:

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mastaba

CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Arabic word for 'bench', a mudbrick superstructure of Egyptian tombs, mainly of the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom, including the royal tombs of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty. It was a low, rectangular building with a flat roof and vertical or slightly inclined walls that enclosed the shaft to the underground burial chamber. Later versions were reinforced with stone and more elaborate. It often contained a chapel, a statue of the deceased, and sometimes large numbers of rooms. The pyramids were a direct development from them. At first, kings as well as their nobles and officials were buried in mastabas, but from the 3rd Dynasty, pharaohs had pyramids and the mastabas of their eminent subjects were built around the pyramids.

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Abu Sir

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abusir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient site between Giza and Saqqara where several 5th Dynasty (c. 2494-2345 BC) kings built their pyramids, a sun temple, a number of mastaba tombs, and Late Period (747-332 BC) shaft tombs. The pyramids were poorly constructed; those of King Userkaf and King Neuserre have been excavated.

barrel-vault

CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A semi-cylindrical roof, used especially for lids of Old Kingdom sarcophagi and which may have been used for mastaba superstructures.

batter

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: batter (v.)
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The slope of a wall, pier, terrace, or bank, from the perpendicular; a receding slope, etc. The term also refers to the slope of a structure built specifically to increase the stability of a wall; usually subterranean. This functional and decorative technique was regularly employed for the walls of mastaba tombs as well as the enclosure walls of Egyptian temples, where it was associated with pan bedding and sectional construction. Inclination is expressed as one foot horizontally per vertical unit (in feet).

Dakhla Oasis

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ad-Dakhilah Oasis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of a chain of oases located in the Libyan Desert, west of the Egyptian city of Luxor. The main pharaonic sites in Dakhla include a town site of the Old Kingdom (2686-2160 BC) and its associated cemetery of 6th Dynasty mastaba tombs, near the modern village of Balat.

Dendera

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Iunet, Tantere, Tentyris
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Egypt with a well-preserved temple of Hathor from the Middle Kingdom and frequently added to by later rulers through to the Roman emperor Trajan. It was the site of the ancient capital of the sixth Upper Egyptian nome, located near modern Qena, close to the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat route to the Red Sea, making it an important center in Dynastic times. The Dendera necropolis of mastaba tombs ranges in date from the Early Dynastic (Old Kingdom) period to the First Intermediate Period.

Emery, Walter Bryan (1903-1971)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British Egyptologist noted for his careful surveying and study of prospective sites. He discovered galleries of the Bucheum in Armant, burials of Nubian X-Group kings, queens and nobility of 4th-6th century AD, and at Saqqara, excavating many Archaic Period mastabas. His most important discovery was a row of 1st-Dynasty tombs attributable to kings or nobles. He excavated at Thebes-West Bank, Nubia's Buhen and Ballana and Qustul.

Giza

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the pyramid complexes of the Egyptian kings Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure on the west bank of the Nile opposite modern Cairo. It is most famous for the Great Pyramid of Khufu, two only slightly smaller pyramids, the Great Sphinx (statue of a human-headed lion) and its temple, and the tomb of Hetepheres, erected in the 4th Dynasty c 2600-2500 BC. The Great Pyramid is 481 feet (146.6 m) high and covers 13.1 acres. The earliest known monument is Mastaba V, which probably dates to the reign of the 1st Dynasty ruler Djet (c 2980 BC). The royal pyramid cemetery derived from earlier tomb types as seen at Saqqara. Elaborate measures were adopted to prevent disturbance of the royal burials, but all the pyramids were looted in antiquity.

Meidum

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Maydum, Medum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient Egyptian site of the remains of the first true Egyptian pyramid complex, near Memphis on the west bank of the Nile River in the Fayyum region. It is the earliest-known pyramid complex with all the parts of a 'normal' Old Kingdom (c 2575-c. 2130 BC) funerary monument. These parts included the pyramid itself, a mortuary temple, and a sloping causeway leading to a valley temple built near the Nile River. The pyramid is usually ascribed to King Huni (c 2650-2575 BC), last king of the 3rd Dynasty, but completed by his successor Snefru. The pyramid is also associated with mastabas of the early 4th Dynasty.

Old Kingdom

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pyramid Age
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A period in Egyptian history including the 3rd through 8th Dynasties, c 2575-2130 BC. It preceded the Middle Kingdom and is marked by the building of colossal stone pyramids. Most of the royal pyramid complexes and private mastaba tombs of the Memphite necropolis were built during this time. The first significant ruler of the 3rd Dynasty was Djoser Netjerikhet (2667-2648 BC), whose Step Pyramid still dominates the skyline of northern Saqqara. Also, the term refers to one of the two main periods of Hittite history, covering c 1700-1500 BC (the New Kingdom, or Empire, was c 1400- 1180). With the end of the 8th dynasty the Old Kingdom state collapsed.

pyramid

CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A monumental tomb in the shape of a pentahedron, a square base and four straight sides converging to an apex, built by the ancient Egyptians in stone or brick to cover or contain the burial chamber of a pharaoh. Its origin lay in the mudbrick mastaba of the Archaic Period, which in the Old Kingdom became more elaborate with the use of stone, regularity of shape, and larger size. It evolved from the step pyramid as seen at Sakkara, Dahshur, and Meidum. The pyramid is the central monument in a pyramid complex and was the preferred tomb in the Old and Middle Kingdoms (3rd-12th Dynasties). The largest and most famous is the Giza group and Khufu's is the biggest with a 230 meter long base and original height of 146 meters. The elaborateness of the funerary ritual, witnessed by the mortuary temples attached to all pyramids, had the same purpose, of guaranteeing the eternal well-being of the deceased. This sepulchral chamber having been connected with the upper world by a passage sloping downwards from the north, the graduated structure was regularly built over it, the proportions of the base to the sides being constantly preserved. The building was continued during the lifetime of its destined tenant, and covered and closed immediately upon his death. The construction of the pyramids as early as the 26th century BC was an extraordinary achievement of engineering and architecture. The tradition of the pyramid as a royal tomb was revived by the kings of Napata and Meroe. In Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and South America, pyramids were used as temple-platforms. There are over 80 pyramids in Egypt and ancient Nubia (Sudan).

Saqqara

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sakkara, Saqqarah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the principal necropolis of the ancient city of Memphis, near Cairo, Egypt, used from the 2nd Dynasty to the Christian period. There are 15 royal pyramids, mainly of the Old Kingdom (c 2575-2130 BC), the most being the Step Pyramid erected by Imhotep for Djoser, pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty, c 2630 BC. The royal mastaba tombs of the nobility making up most of the cemetery have yielded much evidence on the Archaic Period. Also buried here, at the Serapeum, were the sacred Apis bulls. With the passage of time burial chambers were more massively constructed of stone, and eventually hewn from solid rock. There are a large number of important private tombs of the Archaic through the Graeco-Roman period.

serdab

CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Egyptian architecture, a chamber found in some mastabas of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC), appearing during the reign of Djoser and widespread in the Giza and Saqqara cemeteries after Menkaure's reign. It consists of a walled-up chamber provided in a mortuary chapel or burial shaft to contain an image or statue of the deceased. Statues of the ka of the deceased were usually placed here. It derives from the Arabic word for 'cellar'.

serekh

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palace facade decoration
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Hieroglyphic symbol comprising the recessed paneling described in modern times as 'palace facade' decoration. It is the image of a brick facade to a palace or enclosure, with a rectangular space above. It is believed to have been modeled on the design of the earliest royal residences beginning in the Early Dynastic Period. It is found on mastaba tombs, false door stelae, coffins, sarcophagi, and numerous other funerary and ceremonial contexts throughout Egyptian history. A falcon (the sign for Horus) perches on the top horizontal of the rectangle, which encloses a king's Horus name (the first name in a king's titulary).

step pyramid

CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A form of Egyptian royal tomb, transitional between the mastaba of the early Archaic Period and the true pyramid of the Old Kingdom. Djoser's at Saqqarah is the only completed step pyramid known. The pyramid itself evolved through numerous stages from a flat mastaba (an oblong tomb with a burial chamber dug beneath it, common at earlier nonroyal sites) into a six-stepped, almost square pyramid (a terraced structure rising in six unequal stages to a height of 60 m, its base measuring 120 m by 108 m). The substructure has an intricate system of underground corridors and rooms, its main feature being a central shaft 25 m deep and 8 m wide, at the bottom of which is the sepulchral chamber built of granite from Aswan. The Step Pyramid rises within a vast walled court 544 m long and 277 m wide, in which there are remnants of other stone edifices.

Zawayet el-Aryan

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of two unfinished pyramids, a number of mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC), and a cemetery of the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC), located on the west bank of the Nile, between Giza and Abusir.