Early Dynastic Egypt

by Toby A H Wilkinson

  Like its predecessors at Saqqara and Zawiyet el-Aryan, the Maidum pyramid was originally planned as a seven-stepped monument. In a second building phase, the pyramid was enlarged to an eight-stepped monument (Petrie 1910; Edwards 1993:72). A more dramatic change of plan converted the step pyramid into a true pyramid, and it is this innovation, linked with fundamental changes in the Egyptian conception of the afterlife, that has been attributed to Sneferu, first king of the Fourth Dynasty. The courses of masonry used in the two phases of the step pyramid slope inwards towards the centre of the monument, a technique common to all Third Dynasty pyramids (and also shared by the lower half of Sneferu’s ‘Bent Pyramid’ at Dahshur). By contrast, the conversion to a true pyramid used horizontal courses, characteristic of Fourth Dynasty pyramid-building (and used in the upper part of the ‘Bent Pyramid’ and throughout Sneferu’s northern pyramid at Dahshur). Access to the burial chamber, located near ground level beneath the

  centre of the pyramid, was via a descending corridor leading from an opening in the pyramid’s north face. At the end of the corridor, a vertical shaft connected with the burial chamber itself (Edwards 1993:75). No trace of a sarcophagus was found by the first archaeologist to enter the pyramid in modern times, but the monument is likely to have been robbed in antiquity.

  An open causeway led from the pyramid to the valley temple. Due to its location beneath the modern water-table, this part of the complex has not been excavated. By contrast, the mortuary temple on the east side of the pyramid is well preserved. It is entirely devoid of decoration, and the lowest courses of masonry were left undressed, suggesting that the temple was never finished. Two uninscribed, round-topped stelae, presumably intended as funerary stelae, were found inside (Edwards 1993:76–7). The location of the mortuary temple, to the east of the pyramid, contrasts with earlier Third Dynasty practice—Netjerikhet’s mortuary temple lies to the north of his Step Pyramid— and may indicate that it belongs to the latest building phase at Maidum, when the step pyramid was converted to a true pyramid.

  THE CHANGING SYMBOLISM OF ROYAL MORTUARY ARCHITECTURE

  The form of the royal mortuary complex, its architecture and constituent components provide the best guide available to conceptions of the afterlife in the Early Dynastic period (cf. Edwards 1993:278). The royal tomb was not simply the repository and final resting place for the body of the king. It was also the means by which the king could participate in the afterlife. The tomb complex provided both the necessary material goods for the eternal sustenance of the royal ka—the commodities and other grave goods interred with the king—and, just as importantly, the architectural symbolism to create and foster the right conditions for his rebirth and life in the hereafter. A detailed examination of royal mortuary architecture over the course of the first three dynasties reveals the rich symbolic vocabulary with which it was imbued. Through the prominence of different symbolic elements over time, we can chart the course of afterlife beliefs during the Early Dynastic period. Two symbols emerge as pre-eminent: the primeval mound and the replica royal palace. Each points to a different aspect of royal mortuary ideology.

  As we have seen, the superstructures of the royal tombs at Abydos have been reconstructed as simple mounds of sand, held in place by a mudbrick revetment. The symbol of the mound seems to have been so important that a second, hidden tumulus covering the burial chamber became a regular feature of royal tomb architecture. It seems likely that the form of the burial mounds recalled symbolically the primeval mound which first emerged from the floodwaters of chaos at the time of creation (cf. Badawy 1956:183). The primeval mound was, in later periods at least, a powerful symbol of rebirth and resurrection. Its incorporation into the royal tomb seems to indicate that the resurrection of the dead king was a primary objective, and one which could be assisted magically by the very architecture of the tomb. In the case of the Third Dynasty step pyramids, the symbolism may have been more complex than merely a stepped version of the primeval mound (see below).

  From late Predynastic times, concepts of the royal afterlife seem to have given a prominent role to the palace. The architecture of tomb U-j at Abydos (dating to the late Predynastic period, Naqada IIIa2, c. 3150 BC) seems to mimic the layout of the royal palace, with interconnecting chambers. The symbolism becomes more explicit from the reign of Djer onwards, when the king’s tomb on the Umm el-Qaab was accompanied by a separate funerary enclosure on the low desert. Judging from the Step Pyramid complex of Netjerikhet, the purpose of the enclosure was to provide an arena in which the rituals of kingship could be played out for all eternity. That a replica royal palace was considered an essential element of the royal mortuary complex has important implications for Early Dynastic conceptions of the afterlife. The deduction must be that the afterlife of the king was envisaged, on one level at least, as a continuation of his earthly existence. In death as in life, royal ceremonial was central to the function of the king, and proper provision for its celebration was a necessity in the planning of the royal mortuary complex. The royal tombs of the Second Dynasty at Saqqara emphasise the tomb as a dwelling-place for the king’s ka. The layout of the innermost chambers consciously imitates the private apartments of a house, and this aspect of the design may have made a separate funerary enclosure redundant (although the anonymous enclosures to the west of the Step Pyramid complex may date to the Second Dynasty).

  Certain other aspects of the royal tombs at Abydos hint at the afterlife beliefs of First Dynasty Egyptians. As we have seen, there is a gap in the line of subsidiary burials surrounding some of the royal tombs; in each case, the gap occurs at the south-west corner, aligned with the prominent cleft in the cliffs behind Abydos. Evidence from later periods suggests that the cleft was believed to be an entrance to the underworld; if this belief was current in Early Dynastic times, the gap in the line of subsidiary burials may have been provided to allow the ka of the deceased king to travel freely from the tomb to the underworld. A belief in the royal ka is also suggested by the separate annex to the south-west of Den’s tomb. In the Third Dynasty step pyramid complexes, this aspect of the design is transmuted into the South Tomb, a second miniaturised tomb to the south of the main pyramid.

  The overall orientation of the royal tomb may also be significant. In the tombs of Den and his successor Anedjib, the entrance stairway approaches the burial chamber from the east, perhaps aligned to the rising sun, a powerful symbol of rebirth. The change to a northerly orientation in the tomb of Qaa foreshadows the tombs of the Second Dynasty at Saqqara and the step pyramid complexes of the Third Dynasty. In the last, the northerly orientation may well be connected with the circumpolar stars, identified as the souls of dead kings in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts. Seen from the burial chamber, the entrance corridor in the Third Dynasty step pyramids ‘would resemble a large ramp which pointed northwards towards the circumpolar stars’, providing the means for the king to ascend to the ‘astral heaven’ (Edwards 1993:284). It is tempting to speculate that the architecture of Qaa’s tomb has a similar significance, indicating that the belief in an astral afterlife for the king was already current at the end of the First Dynasty.

  The first unequivocal evidence for a celestial aspect to royal mortuary ideology may be provided by the fleet of funerary boats discovered adjacent to—literally moored alongside—the Shunet ez-Zebib. Their date is still uncertain: the associated pottery suggests the boat burials are contemporary with the Shunet itself, but the stratigraphy of the site seems to indicate an earlier date, perhaps the first half of the First Dynasty.

  Symbolically, they seem to foreshadow the solar barks buried next to Old Kingdom royal pyramids, although a more prosaic explanation is also possible: that the boats were used to transport the king’s body and funerary goods from the Residence at Memphis. Boat burials are attested in connection with First Dynasty private tombs (at Saqqara, Abu Rawash and Helwan), but the boats next to Khasekhemwy’s funerary enclosure provide the earliest royal parallel for this practice. Their pr
esence next to the king’s most prominent mortuary construction demonstrates their symbolic importance. As well as enjoying an afterlife modelled on his earthly activities (for which a replica royal palace was necessary), the king was apparently considered to participate in some way in the cosmic cycle. Henceforth, the celestial component of the royal afterlife—if it may be called such—was to become increasingly important. By the end of the Third Dynasty, it had completely eclipsed earlier concepts of an afterlife characterised by royal ceremonial. The triumph of the ‘celestial model’ is emphasised in the symbolic architecture of the Old Kingdom pyramids.

  The step pyramid complex of Netjerikhet comprises a multitude of symbolic elements, each of which provides a piece of evidence for contemporary concepts of the royal afterlife. The continuing importance of the replica palace—to provide an arena for royal ritual—is emphasised by the enclosure with its recessed ‘palace-façade’ decoration. The identity of the various royal rituals which the funerary enclosure was designed to accommodate is hinted at by specific architectural features. The three most important rituals seem to have been the appearance of the king on a raised dais, the Sed-festival, and the ceremony known as ‘encompassing the field’. Despite this evidence for increasing sophistication in mortuary ideology, the ancient symbol of the primeval mound was retained. In the earliest phase of the complex, a mastaba covered the king’s burial chamber, recalling the superstructures of the First Dynasty tombs at Abydos and their Second Dynasty successors at Saqqara.

  The change from mastaba to step pyramid is likely to have been motivated, at least in part, by ideological considerations. As we have seen, the northward orientation of the entire complex—a feature which dates back to the end of the First Dynasty—probably reflects the importance of astral religion. When viewed from Egypt, the stars surrounding the pole-star are never seen to set. For this reason, the Egyptians called them ỉh mw-sk, ‘the ones that know not destruction’. It was the king’s wish to ascend to the circumpolar stars, and the Pyramid Texts (Utterances 267 and 619 [§§365 and 1749]) speak of the king doing so by means of a great staircase. The step pyramid may have been designed as just such a staircase, providing the king with a very concrete means of ascending to the sky. (Note that the determinative of the Egyptian verb r, ‘to ascend’, resembles a step pyramid [Edwards 1993:281].) Although the Pyramid Texts were only written down in the late Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, their language and content strongly suggest an earlier composition (cf. Edwards 1993:284). Therefore, it is not entirely inappropriate to use them to illuminate royal mortuary ideology of the Early Dynastic period. It has also been suggested that the step pyramid represented a repetition of the primeval mound symbol, the piling up of mounds, one upon another, intensifying the symbolic assistance in the rebirth of the king.

  At the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, the step pyramid at Maidum was converted into a true pyramid. This conversion represents the end of the distinctive tradition of Early Dynastic mortuary architecture. The purpose of the royal funerary monument—to

  enable the king to ascend to a celestial afterlife—remained the same, but the symbolism and underlying ideology had changed dramatically. The design of Early Dynastic royal tomb complexes paints a picture of increasing sophistication in royal mortuary ideology, and a growing dominance of celestial, as opposed to earthly, concepts of the afterlife. From simple ideas of rebirth and resurrection, the eternal celebration of royal ritual came to play a central role, reflecting a concept of the afterlife more concerned with the continuation of royal power than with the incorporation of the king in the great rhythm of the universe. As the Early Dynastic period drew to a close, concepts of the royal afterlife underwent a major transformation: at his death, the king was absorbed into the supernatural order, relinquishing his guidance of the ship of state for a place in the celestial bark of the supreme deity.

  EXCURSUS: THE ROYAL TOMBS AT ABYDOS: BURIALS OR CENOTAPHS?

  Following Petrie’s excavations on the Umm el-Qaab, the royal tombs of the First and late Second Dynasty kings were recognised as the burial places of these rulers. The tombs with their accompanying subsidiary burials and pairs of funerary stelae spoke unequivocally of their occupants’ royal status. Then, in the two decades following 1936, Emery excavated the Early Dynastic cemetery at North Saqqara with its massive mudbrick mastabas. The impressive size and architecture of the North Saqqara tombs led scholars to question the identification of the smaller tombs on the Umm el-Qaab (Lauer 1957:156). Emery, in particular, was in no doubt that the North Saqqara mastabas were the true burial places of the First Dynasty kings. He interpreted the tombs on the Umm el- Qaab as southern ‘cenotaphs’, dummy Upper Egyptian counterparts to the ‘true’ burials in Lower Egypt, reflecting the duality of Egyptian kingship (Emery 1961). Thus began a protracted scholarly debate over the proper interpretation of the two cemetery areas, the Umm el-Qaab and North Saqqara (cf. Hoffman 1980:280–7). Since the debate focused on many of the crucial aspects of early royal mortuary architecture, it is of interest and importance for the history of Egyptology and its appreciation of the Early Dynastic period.

  The detailed arguments for both sides of the debate have been presented in detail elsewhere (especially Lauer 1957 and Stadelmann 1985 in favour of Saqqara as the royal burial ground; Kemp 1967 and Kaiser 1992 in favour of Abydos), and it is not necessary to rehearse them again here. Recent excavations at Abydos have strengthened the case for identifying this site as the First Dynasty royal necropolis. In particular, Aha’s tomb complex on the Umm el-Qaab seems to have been built somewhat later than mastaba S3357 at North Saqqara, to judge from the ceramic evidence. The time-lag between the two tomb complexes argues against the notion that the Saqqara monument is the true burial of the king and the Abydos complex merely his southern cenotaph (Dreyer 1990:65; cf. Helck 1984b: 394–8). The case for identifying the tombs at Abydos as the true royal burials is increasingly convincing. The combination of tomb and funerary enclosure at Abydos provides a logical ancestry for the Third Dynasty Step Pyramid complex (Kaiser and Dreyer 1982:259). It is generally accepted that ‘the kings were buried at Abydos and that the tombs at Saqqara were for high officials or members of the

  royal family’ (Kemp 1967:23), although one scholar, in a reversal of Emery’s argument, has identified the Saqqara tombs as northern cenotaphs (Hoffman 1980:287). The belief that the true royal burials of the First and Second Dynasties were located at Saqqara, though steadfastly maintained by a few scholars (principally Lauer 1969, 1988; Brinks 1979; Stadelmann 1987), is now firmly ‘a minority view’ (O’Connor 1991:7).

  CHAPTER EIGHT CULTS AND SHRINES‌

  The Early Dynastic tombs and funerary enclosures at Abydos and Saqqara loudly proclaim the concern of the king and his courtiers to provide for themselves in death. However, supernatural assistance and divine intervention were equally necessary in life: Egyptians believed that the daily hazards and periodic disasters which faced them could be prevented, or at least mitigated, by appealing to the gods. This applied just as much to the king, in his fight against the forces of chaos, as it did to the ordinary peasant farmer, concerned for the health of his crops or the survival of his children.

  The evidence for Early Dynastic cult—the practices and beliefs that characterised the Egyptians’ interaction with the divine sphere—is piecemeal and often difficult to interpret. Yet, with patience, it can be deployed to illuminate many aspects of religion in the first three dynasties. The picture that emerges is one of great complexity and remarkable sophistication. In particular, Egypt’s early kings seem to have been adept at using religion for their own ends: to strengthen the bonds which held the country together and to buttress the institution of kingship itself.

  The buildings in which early cult was practised ranged from small community shrines to substantial, government-sponsored temples. The difference in scale and elaboration between state and private places of worship emphasises the division in early Egyptian society between the ruling él
ite and the populace. In religion, as in the other spheres of activity discussed in preceding chapters, the evidence suggests that the concerns of the court were often rather different from those of its subjects.

  CULT

  Conceptions of god

  An attempt to understand ancient Egyptian theology is a difficult enough task for the better-documented periods of dynastic history; for the Early Dynastic period it presents huge problems, not least because of the very limited source material. The names of the deities themselves provide valuable evidence for Egyptian conceptions of the divine, stretching back to the very beginning of the written record (Hornung 1983:100). Certain deities seem to have had particularly strong local origins; this is sometimes reflected in the name of the deity which may be derived directly from the place which served as the principal cult centre or from a local topographical feature (Hornung 1983:72). The clearest example is Nekhbet, ‘she of Nekheb (Elkab)’; the god of Herakleopolis, Hrỉ-š=f, ‘He who is upon his lake’, is an example of the latter type.