A doorway that could never open still marked the place where a powerful Egyptian official was meant to receive offerings from the living after death.
At Saqqara, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a funerary chapel belonging to Sekhentyu-Ptah, an official who lived during Egypt’s Old Kingdom. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) dates that period from approximately 2649 B.C.E. to 2150 B.C.E., making the tomb more than 4,000 years old. Its doorway had not been moved, and a complete collection of inscribed alabaster ritual objects remained arranged before it.
Nearby burial shafts held human remains and objects from much later burials, showing that people returned to this corner of Saqqara long after Sekhentyu-Ptah’s time.
For Mohamed Abdel Badie, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector, finding the entire ritual set together in its original position offers researchers valuable evidence of how Old Kingdom funerary ceremonies were performed, according to a press release from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
A Tomb Built for a Man Close to the King
The hieroglyphs gave archaeologists more than Sekhentyu-Ptah’s name; they also preserved something resembling a résumé. Sekhentyu-Ptah served as a royal chamberlain, oversaw the king’s works and royal documents, guarded the secrets of royal commands, supervised scribes, and served as a priest of Maat.
Explore All OptionsAlthough the ministry did not identify the ruler he served or narrow the tomb to a particular dynasty, his titles suggest Sekhentyu-Ptah worked close to the center of royal power.
The objects in his chapel included an offering table and disk, a purification basin, a pitcher, and a washbasin. Researchers can learn as much from where the ritual objects were found as from the objects themselves. According to The Met, ancient Egyptians placed offerings before false doors, which they believed the spirit of the deceased could pass through to receive sustenance.
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More Than One Era of the Dead
The Egyptian team made the discovery during its first season excavating an area just west of the Bubasteion, an ancient burial ground at Saqqara. According to Egypt’s official Discover Egypt’s Monuments site, Saqqara served as one of the cemeteries of Memphis and contains monuments spanning much of ancient Egyptian history. It also holds Djoser’s Step Pyramid and the pyramids of several Fifth- and Sixth-Dynasty rulers.
The burial shafts contained evidence from a much later period. Archaeologists recovered painted cartonnage, a material used for funerary masks and coverings, along with pottery, a wooden falcon statue, and three closed stone sarcophagi.
All three sarcophagi were still closed when archaeologists found them, even though ancient robbers had reached other parts of the burial complex by cutting openings between chambers. Despite those break-ins, the surviving evidence may help researchers reconstruct the cemetery’s internal layout and figure out how it changed as people returned to use it.
The shafts also contained more than 100 faience ushabti figures. Ancient Egyptians buried these figurines with the dead, believing they would perform work for them in the afterlife.
Some of the finds may shed light on Egypt’s Late Period, which began more than 1,400 years after the Old Kingdom ended, according to The Met’s chronology.
What Saqqara May Still Hold
To separate one period of activity from another, the team is recording each archaeological layer and documenting the site through architectural records, photography, and digital tools. Researchers are also conducting linguistic studies and comparing the objects with finds from elsewhere in Egypt.
The ministry said the results will eventually be submitted to peer-reviewed journals. Excavators also see signs that more structures and artifacts remain underground.
More than four millennia after his burial, Sekhentyu-Ptah is still known mostly through his titles. But the objects left before his false door preserve something those titles cannot: a trace of the ceremonies once performed for him after he died.
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Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
- This article references information from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: The tomb of "Sekhentiu-Ptah" and a system of burial shafts and numerous archaeological finds were discovered in Saqqara.
- This article references information from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: Saqqara
- This article references information from The Met: Mastaba Tomb of Perneb
- This article references information from The Met: Shabti of Seniu
- This article references information from The Met: List of Rulers of Ancient Egypt and Nubia
