(PDF) Shareholders: The Menkaure Valley Temple Occupation in Context

This article assesses the settlement structures in the Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT) in the wider context of settlement at the southeastern base of the Giza Plateau, including the Khentkawes Town (KKT), adjacent to the MVT, as well as domestic structures in other pyramid temples and enclosures, mainly those of Raneferef (Fifth Dynasty) and Wedjebten (Sixth Dynasty). I look at the hypothesis that the MVT and KKT together formed one pyramid town. From extensions of the KKT to the east, discovered in the last few years, doorways opened north to the adjacent Central Field East cemetery, which developed in a Fourth Dynasty quarry during the Fifth Dynasty, contemporary with the main occupation of the KKT and MVT. Seen in these wider architectural, settlement, and cemetery contexts, the occupation of the MVT court appears as one node, like that of the Raneferef court, in a complex network of affiliations of pyramid towns and tem- ples, including a tight relationship between the foundations of Khafre, Menkaure, and Khentkawes I.

Towards a New History for the Egyptian Old Kingdom Perspectives on the Pyramid Age Edited by Peter Der Manuelian and Thomas Schneider LEIDEN | BOSTON For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Editor’s Introduction vii Preface viii 1 Ancient Egyptian History as an Example of Punctuated Equilibrium: An Outline 1 Miroslav Bárta 2 Economic Implications of the Menkaure Triads 18 Florence Dunn Friedman 3 Did the Old Kingdom Collapse? A New View of the First Intermediate Period 60 John Gee 4 The Chronology of the Third and Fourth Dynasties according to Manetho’s Aegyptiaca 76 Roman Gundacker 5 The Entextualization of the Pyramid Texts and the Religious History of the Old Kingdom 200 Harold M. Hays† 6 Shareholders: The Menkaure Valley Temple Occupation in Context 227 Mark Lehner 7 Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition Contributions to Old Kingdom History at Giza: Some Rights and Wrongs 315 Peter Der Manuelian 8 Cattle, Kings and Priests: Phyle Rotations and Old Kingdom Civil Dates 337 John S. Nolan 9 The Sed-Festival of Niuserra and the Fifth Dynasty Sun Temples 366 Massimiliano Nuzzolo For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV vi contents 10 The State of Egypt in the Eighth Dynasty 393 Hratch Papazian 11 The Old Kingdom Abroad: An Epistemological Perspective With Remarks on the Biography of Iny and the Kingdom of Dugurasu 429 Thomas Schneider 12 The Dawn of Osiris and the Dusk of the Sun-Temples: Religious History at the End of the Fifth Dynasty 456 Racheli Shalomi-Hen 13 Centralized Taxation during the Old Kingdom 470 Leslie Anne Warden Index 497 For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV chapter 6 Shareholders: The Menkaure Valley Temple Occupation in Context Mark Lehner Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA); Research Associate, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Abstract This article assesses the settlement structures in the Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT) in the wider context of settlement at the southeastern base of the Giza Plateau, including the Khentkawes Town (KKT), adjacent to the MVT, as well as domestic structures in other pyramid temples and enclosures, mainly those of Raneferef (Fifth Dynasty) and Wedjebten (Sixth Dynasty). I look at the hypothesis that the MVT and KKT together formed one pyramid town. From extensions of the KKT to the east, discovered in the last few years, doorways opened north to the adjacent Central Field East cemetery, which developed in a Fourth Dynasty quarry during the Fifth Dynasty, contemporary with the main occupation of the KKT and MVT. Seen in these wider architectural, settlement, and cemetery contexts, the occupation of the MVT court appears as one node, like that of the Raneferef court, in a complex network of affiliations of pyramid towns and temples, including a tight relationship between the foundations of Khafre, Menkaure, and Khentkawes I. 1 Introduction When George Reisner excavated the Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT) between July 1908 and April 1910, he found packed into the central court a dense warren * Major support for this work was provided by David H. Koch and Mr. and Mrs. Lee M. Bass; The Glen Dash Foundation for Archaeological Research; Ann Lurie; Ed and Kathy Fries; Lou R. Hughes; Bruce Ludwig; Piers Litherland; Cameron and Linda Myhrvold; Marjorie Fisher; Ann Thompson; Jon and Janice Jerde; and Matthew McCauley. Raymond Arce, Michael and Lois Craig, Richard S. Harwood, Don Kunz, Nathan Myhrvold and Rosemarie Havrenak, Jeffrey Raikes, Dr. Bonnie M. Sampsell, Craig Smith, and many AERA members helped make possible AERA’s fieldwork at Giza. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004301894_007 For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 228 Lehner of small bins, round silo bases and walls defining small houses or apartments; “the general appearance was that of a poor modern village.”1 Barry Kemp characterized this occupation as the “villagization of a monument,”2 a process that must have started soon after Menkaure’s successor, Shepseskaf, finished the temple in mudbrick upon his predecessor’s death when all major stonework on this pyramid complex stopped.3 This article looks at the MVT “village” together with the nearby Khentkawes Town (KKT) and domestic structures at the pyramids of Raneferef (Fifth Dynasty) and Wedjebten (Sixth Dynasty). Like those settlements, the MVT was a node in a wider network of affiliations of pyramid towns and temples. Individuals who benefitted from the MVT node were buried in the Fifth Dynasty cemetery of the Central Field East, immediately north of the MVT and KKT. Part 1 reviews the royal decrees for the Menkaure Pyramid and its town. Part 2 surveys the occupation structures in the MVT court. Part 3 compares the MVT settlement to occupation structures around the Wedjebten pyramid. Part 4 examines the secondary “houses” occupying the court of the Raneferef pyramid temple and relates those structures to textual information in the Raneferef papyrus archive. Part 5 reviews the hypothesis that the MVT occupation and the Khentkawes Town (KKT) functioned together as the pyramid town of Menkaure. Part 6 describes the extension of the KKT to the east, discovered in the last few years by teams from Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA) and looks at the possible relationship of the extended settlement to the cemetery in the Central Field East. 2 Decrees for the Menkaure Pyramid and Its Town The impetus for the growth of a “village” inside the MVT was probably a decree issued by Shepseskaf, carved on a limestone stela, the earliest known example of a genre of royal decrees. Introduced by the formula, ɩ̓r.n-f m mnw-f, “he made it as a monument,”4 the edict sets up pekher offerings in the pyramid of Menkaure and mentions wꜤb [purification] priests appointed forever.5 Reisner, Mycerinus, 49. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 207–09, fig. 74 and “Old Kingdom,” 93–94. Reisner, Mycerinus, 34–54. Papazian, Domain of Pharaoh, 305 restores “[for] (the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Mn-kꜢ.w-RꜤ).” 5 Reisner, Mycerinus, pl. 19b, d; Urk. I, 160; KD, 16–21; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 97–98, no.16; Papazian, Domain of Pharaoh, 260–62, 305–06. 1 2 3 4 For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 229 Pẖr, in the sense of “offerings” is derived from the verb pẖr which means to “turn back” or “turn around”, that is reversionary offerings. [The document of Shepseskaf] endows the cultic foundation of Menkaure with the privilege of being a recipient of patronage, which would entitle it almost certainly to daily deliveries of provisions from the reigning administration.6 Reisner found fragments of the limestone stela bearing this Shepseskaf decree in the debris on the floor of the portico (space 7) of Menkaure’s Upper Temple, along with fragments of two other limestone stela, some of which appear to derive from two decrees of the Sixth Dynasty king, Merenre,7 showing that a cult for Menkaure had been continued or periodically renewed more than two centuries after Shepseskaf. The attention of subsequent kings to the Menkaure pyramid complex is evidenced as well by the mudbrick wall built across the portico of the upper temple, screening it off from the open court, in effect separating the outer from the inner temple like the pyramid temples of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Some later king also ordered his builders to begin work on the new inner stone temple between the base of the pyramid and the back wall of the original temple, a work left unfinished.8 The find spot of the decree fragments suggests that people posted these stone-etched documents in the mudbrick screen wall, although on this point we should note that Reisner found the bottom right corner of the Shepseskaf decree9 in a pile of debris far to the east, just outside and north of the entrance corridor to the upper temple, at the end of the causeway.10 The later decrees indicate that the “village,” nestled down in the lower temple, like the upper temple, was renewed and sustained in the late Sixth Dynasty. This renewal came after a wadi flood destroyed the sanctuary, and after people abandoned the “first temple” as finished by Shepseskaf.11 Near the end of his excavations in 1910, Reisner found in the entrance vestibule (space 377) of the Valley Temple the more complete decree of Pepi II, dated to his 31st occasion, inscribed on a limestone slab.12 The addressee of the decree can be 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Papazian, Domain of Pharaoh, 260–62. Reisner, Mycerinus, 15, pl. 19, e. i. g, h; Urk. I, 276; KD, 78–80, Abb. 6. Reisner, Mycerinus, 31–33. KD, 17, Abb. 1. Reisner, Mycerinus, 13, pl. 19d. Reisner, Mycerinus, 45; Lehner, Kamal, and Tavares, “The Khentkawes Town (KKT),” 178–79. Reisner, Mycerinus, 38, pl. A; KD, 148–80, Abb. 12; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 106–07, no.23; Urk. I, 277–78; Boston 47.1654. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 230 Lehner restored as the Overseer of the Pyramid Town of Menkaure (named after the pyramid, “Divine is Menkaure”). The very first vertical lines below the address list three people and their titles: “the ɩ̓ry-pꜤt (Hereditary Prince, nobleman), eldest king’s son, Nemtyemzaf; the ḥꜢty-Ꜥ (count), Sole Companion, Charmed of Arm, Imapepy; and the ḥꜢty-Ꜥ, Sole Companion, Overseer of the ḫntjw-š (literally, “those at the head of the š, a basin, land tract, or precinct) of the pr ꜤꜢ (literally Great House, the palace), Khnumhotep. The royal decrees mandate royal offerings and provisions from reigning kings to Menkaure’s memorial, offerings that would revert in shares to the officials in charge of the pyramid town and its purpose. Indeed these individuals are placed foremost. Nigel Strudwick noted, “It would appear from this text that, in addition to the royal cult, three private cults were associated with the temple and benefited from it.”13 A certain paleographic detail may prove important to understanding the occupation structures within the MVT. In his translation, Strudwick adds after each of the three listings, “(his) altar,”14 where Hans Goedicke has, “1 Kopie.” Goedicke understood a horizontal (Gardiner sign-list Y1 or Y2), mḏꜢt, which Goedicke sign as the book roll, took to mean a copy of the official edict for each person.15 No horizontal sign appears below the three names plus titles in Reisner’s original drawing of the piece; he indicates the signs are worn away.16 Strudwick cites Ron Leprohon17 who permitted him to consult an unpublished copy of the text by Klaus Baer.18 Strudwick translates the horizontal signs as the offering slab, (Gardiner sign-list R4), ḥtp, “altar.” This may find its proof and explanation in the finds from the secondary enclosure around the Wedjebten pyramid (see below), which means the text refers to three physical altars in the MVT. The three vertical columns containing the names and titles of the officials end at another horizontal register, “the Lector Priest, Scribe of the Phyle, Ishefi,” for whom no altar is given, although the text immediately below is worn away, while the lower text mentions both the pyramid and pyramid town of Menkaure.19 I " 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 106. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 107. KD, 148–51, Abb. 12, n. 7. Reisner, Mycerinus, 13, pl. A. Leprohon, Stelae I, 156–59. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 444. KD, Abb 12; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 107. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 3 231 Occupation Structures in the MVT Court A review of the architectural setting of the MVT settlement, combining the MVT proper that Reisner excavated, the eastern Annex that Selim Hassan excavated,20 along with the new findings from AERA’s resurvey and targeted excavations,21 establishes how “on-high” and segregated was the settlement in the MVT court. This little settlement (between 18 and 20 m above sea level— asl) was perched some 6 to 8 meters above the flood plain of its time (estimated around 12 to 12.5 m asl).22 One ascended to the MVT on ramps and corridors, probably flanking a deep basin, similar to the layout east of the Khentkawes Town, discovered since 2007.23 To reach the settlement in the court of the temple proper, one had to pass through two columned vestibules, each within their massive, fortified walls, and four doorways, each fitted with wooden doors on the evidence of the limestone thresholds with pivot sockets. 3.1 Occupation Phases Reisner found three major horizons of small apartments, bins, and granaries in the MVT court interspersed with two layers of debris from plunder, neglect, and decay of walls.24 20 21 22 23 24 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 51–62, where he takes the Annex as the “Valley-Temple of Queen Khent-kawes. Lehner, Kamal , and Tavares, “The Khentkawes Town (KKT)”; Lehner, “KKT-AI.” Lehner, “Capital Zone Walkabout 2006," 142. See articles by Jones and Lehner on the KKT-E in GOP 5, 15–33. It is worth noting the similarity between the lower causeway corridor of the Menkaure complex, which meets the western back of the temple, turns south, then east around the southwest corner of the valley temple, and continues as a corridor running east, to that of the Khentkawes complex, which takes a turn north down the “Northern Lateral Ramp” (NLR), then east around the northwest corner of the Khentkawes valley complex (a terraced basin), to continue east as a corridor once framed by thick mudbrick walls. Both causeway corridors are close to 1.60 m in width. Reisner, Mycerinus, 50–53. In future seasons the AERA team hopes to move from re-clearing and studying the eastern third of the MVT and the Annex into the court and the structures of the settlement, which promise to be relatively intact and as Reisner left them, due to the fact that as he excavated the eastern MVT, he backfilled the court and western parts. In our Season 2012 our clearing of the wall between the eastern MVT and the court partially exposed the westernmost apartment in the court. Here I offer a preliminary assessment of the court settlement sequence and structure. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 232 • • Lehner Occupation 1: Small structures directly on the floor of the court and Annex (Reisner’s a horizon, phase II.1). Debris 1: A layer of debris, which included fragments broken from Menkaure’s statues, 40 to 70 cm deep at the sides of the court and sloping down to 20 cm deep over the central limestone pathway. Occupation 2: The most orderly and best preserved of the small structures built in the court, Reisner’s b horizon, phase II.3. Reisner distinguished five residences, or apartments, in a fairly orthogonal, bonded complex of rooms in the southern side of the court. The occupants reserved the northern side of the court for “circular granaries and single rooms or pairs of rooms.”25 The small rooms may have been storage bins. The rebuilding of the magazine walls (rooms 355–371) south of Vestibule 1 probably belong to this period. Reisner gave them a different phase number (phase II.6), but ascribes them to the same general time as the apartments, bins, and granaries of phase II.3.26 Debris 2: Decayed mudbrick from the walls of Reisner’s “first temple”—the “deposition of debris to a depth of 150–200 cm. in the magazines, and from 40–100 cm. in the court; the sanctuary apparently kept clear.”27 A flash flood “through the western wall of the offering room (1) and the formation of a surface of decay” contributed to this general horizon of debris.28 Occupation 3: Thin walls forming small rooms or bins, and more circular silos “over the walls of the first temple,” less substantial and less orderly than those of Settlement 2 (Reisner’s c horizon, phase III.10). Debris 3: Toppled, decayed mudbrick from the “second temple” walls formed a final “surface of decay” before sand covered the site (Reisner phase III.11). • • • • The three major periods of settlement structures within the temple that Reisner delineated correspond nicely with three major mudbrick construction or rebuilding periods following on the monolithic core walls and foundation laid in under Menkaure (phase I). Reisner recognized only two major mudbrick building phases, his phases II and III of the “first temple” and “second temple.” However, he indicated that during the Fifth Dynasty, people undertook significant works and additions in the MVT that amount to a sub-phase. 25 26 27 28 Reisner Mycerinus, 51–52. Reisner Mycerinus, 53. Reisner Mycerinus, 54, phase II.8. Reisner Mycerinus, 54, phase II.9. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 233 3.2 Occupation 2 and Reisner’s Fifth Dynasty Building Sub-Phase Of the settlement horizons within the MVT, we know best Occupation 2. People must have built these structures shortly after certain significant modifications and renewals in the MVT during the Fifth Dynasty. Reisner recognized significant changes to the MVT proper in the Fifth Dynasty, but he did not assign them a major phase. Rather, he assigned them sub-phases of his phase II, “the first crude brick temple, erected by Shepseskaf.”29 Reisner’s record shows this intermediate mudbrick and limestone building phase as a significant expansion of his phase II.2, to which he assigns the building of a mudbrick screen wall across the portico. This phase, probably dating to the Fifth Dynasty and taking in structures of the eastern Annex, is more substantial than Reisner saw. Reisner noted that it was probably in the Fifth Dynasty (in his phase II.2) when someone built a thick mudbrick wall and doorway across the portico (room 1) of the MVT, a refurbishing of the original phase II (Shepseskaf) parapet wall retaining the high floor level of the portico (Fig. 6.1).30 This screen wall was similar to the screen wall across the portico and offering hall in the upper pyramid temple, and to the thinner screen wall added to the portico of the chapel of subsidiary pyramid GIII-a. Reisner believed the screen walls were added about the same time, he thought early in the Fifth Dynasty.31 In both temples, the wall effected a stricter separation of the inner from the outer temple, a separation we find in Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramid temples. Reisner noted that the limestone threshold of the double-leaf doorway through the added screen wall, and a small stone ramp that rises .50 m up to it, must have been built at the same time as the screen wall, that is, in the Fifth Dynasty, as a replacement for an original ramp and threshold.32 He found a similar threshold for the doorway that once opened through the screen wall in the upper temple. The limestone ramp rises at the end of a limestone pathway that leads straight across the MVT court from the limestone threshold in the doorway between room 377, with four alabaster column bases (Vestibule 1), and the court (Fig. 6.1). In 2011 we cleared the eastern side of the latter threshold, but we have not yet seen the pathway across the court. The limestone pathway across the central MVT court was most probably installed at the same period as the limestone pathway that crosses the open court (space 206) of the Annex to connect room 202 (Vestibule 2), with its 29 30 31 32 Reisner, Mycerinus, 41, 53. Reisner, Mycerinus, 41. Reisner, Mycerinus, 32, 41. Reisner, Mycerinus, 41. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 234 Lehner Figure 6.1 Reisner’s reconstructed plan of the MVT “first temple,” completed at the end of the Fourth Dynasty in mudbrick by Shepseskaf upon the platform of huge limestone blocks laid down by Menkaure’s builders. Labels indicate elements probably added or renewed in the Fifth Dynasty. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 235 Figure 6.2 Reisner’s (Mycerinus , plan VIII) multi-phase map of the MVT. Unshaded walls belong to the first (Fourth Dynasty) temple. Shaded walls belong to the “second (Sixth Dynasty) temple.” For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 236 Lehner four alabaster column bases, which Hassan found in 1932, to the limestone threshold (missing in Reisner’s plans) of the main, central MVT doorway.33 We are still investigating the possibility that the two vestibules, with their identical sets of four alabaster column bases, 1-meter in diameter, were installed at the same time.34 This would comprise the largest and costliest Fifth Dynasty addition. Occupation 2 also followed on the rebuilding of the magazines in the southeastern corner of the MVT (see Fig. 6.2, rooms 355–336, 355–357, 370–371, and 372), immediately south of Vestibule 1 (377), and the closing of the magazines in the northeastern corner, north of Vestibule 1. The rebuilt walls are thinner than the original magazine walls of the “first temple” (Shepseskaf), but thicker than the walls of Occupation 3. The rebuilt walls of the southeastern magazines match the walls of the Occupation 2 “houses” in the court. Those who rebuilt the southeastern magazines founded the new walls directly on the remains of the broader, original magazine walls of the “first temple.” They utilized the original doorways opening onto corridor 354, which gave access to and from the causeway corridor and Vestibule 1 (377).35 Reisner noted that the builders of the “second temple” constructed the southern wall of the new portal structure (Vestibule 1 = 377) directly over the rebuilt walls of magazine 372, the northernmost of the southeastern set, as he also indicates on his phase plan (see Figs. 6.1 and 6.2).36 He concluded that someone rebuilt the southeastern magazines long before the portal of the “second temple,” but also sufficient time after the “first temple” that the roofs of these magazines had collapsed. He believed that people rebuilt the southeastern magazines about the same time, or just a little earlier, than the walls of the “houses” of the middle phase occupation in the southern central court. As for the magazines north of Vestibule 1, which originally comprised a near-match to those on the south, Reisner stated: “The doorway into the northern magazine corridor [380] and the doorways of the northern magazines 33 34 35 36 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 55–57, fig. 1; Lehner, Kamel and Tavares, “The Khentkawes Town (KKT),” 26–27. AERA, “A Hundred and One Years Later,” 12 and “The Silo Building Complex,” 8–9. Reisner found it difficult it to assign the rebuilding of the southeastern magazines to one of his phases or periods, but this rebuilding was probably contemporary with, or followed shortly after, people built the bonded Occupation 2 complex in the southern court. “These rooms had undoubtedly been [re]built at a time when the walls of the first temple were still practically intact, although the roofs had fallen and the magazines become partially filled with debris. But the doors opened into the corridor (354), and this corridor must have been accessible, although not necessarily from both ends,” Reisner, Mycerinus, 53. Reisner, Mycerinus, 53 and plan 8. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 237 had been blocked with crude brick.”37 He implies that people installed the corridor blocking and the blockings of the individual magazine entrances at the same time, though this might not have been the case. Reisner’s statement also implies that the inhabitants rendered the northeastern set of four magazines dysfunctional at the very time that their rebuilding kept the southeastern magazines in use: But the end doorways of the southern magazine corridor and the doorways of the southern magazines had not been blocked. Thus a passage was left open from the exterior [causeway] corridor [space 21] into the southern magazine corridor [space 354], from there into the anteroom [Vestibule 1 = 377], and thence into the open court. This passage appears to have formed the only entrance to the temple after the [eastern] entrance doorway was closed with brickwork.38 I doubt that the blocking of the main, eastern MVT entrance into Vestibule 1 (377; see Fig. 6.1) happened so early in the sequence. All indications are that the floor level in Vestibule 1 (377) remained the same through all three periods of occupation, rather than rising on layers of debris, as did the ground level in the central court (see below, section 3.4). If the eastern entrance had been blocked before or during the disuse and blocking of the northeastern magazines, from that point on there would have been no need in the late period of the “second temple” for a new “portal structure.” Reisner found the massive frame wall of the second temple “portal structure” on the south, and traces on the east (Fig. 6.2).39 A new portal structure makes sense only if this main entrance was still open. When the new portal structure was built, its southern wall completely blocked corridor 354 (Fig. 6.1) from the causeway corridor, as Reisner’s plan VIII (Fig. 6.2) and several of his photographs show.40 The main blocking of the central eastern entrance, and perhaps that of the northern corridor, must have been among the final structures added to the MVT. This might have followed after the superposed walls of the “second temple” had been built. If the second temple builders did not clear out the southern causeway corridor from 37 38 39 40 Reisner, Mycerinus, 40. Reisner, Mycerinus, 40. Reisner, Mycerinus, 48. For example, Reisner, Mycerinus, pl. 35a, or, better, Photograph A367P_NS taken by Bishari Mahfud on March 25, 1910, a view to the north showing corridor 354 running north passed the rebuilt southern magazines (right) from an opening in the southern causeway corridor to Vestibule 1 (room 377). The late-phase southern wall of the Vestibule 1 completely blocked the corridor. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 238 Lehner sand and collapsed architectural debris41—and the location of Occupation 3 structures over the western end of this corridor (space 21) suggests they did not—the blocking of the main eastern entrance would have left no formal access into the MVT proper.42 If the northern access into the Annex remained open, the Annex would only then have become a separate entity onto itself, its southern part a cul-de-sac. I suspect that the fact that inhabitants blocked the northern magazines, rendering them dysfunctional, while rebuilding the southeastern magazines, relates to the layout of and access to the middle-period Occupation 2, and possibly Occupation 3 in its earlier phase (see section 3.3). On the vertical, stratified sequence of domestic occupation structures, Reisner also wrote: “the complete reconstruction of any one period was simply unattainable” due to the way that settlements aggrade gradually.43 Reisner could not find the full footprint of the first settlement period. With that caveat, the most substantial and organized settlement appears to have been that of the middle period, Occupation 2. As to the date of Occupation 2, in the debris layer under one of the rooms (302) of the southern court, Reisner found 35 complete pottery vessels. He felt that “the group, as a whole, corresponds rather to Dynasty V than to any other.”44 Another datum for the date of this bonded complex came in the fact that “the northern room [338; see Figs. 6.2–6.3] was built against the screen wall of the portico and was later than that wall (Dynasty V).”45 Thus, we can reckon that enough time passed between Shepseskaf’s initial endowments of the Menkaure pyramid complex, followed by the first occupation on the floor of the court, for 70 to 20 cm of debris to accumulate, debris that included fragments of Menkaure statues, indicating to Reisner some plundering of the temple magazines. We take into consideration that Occupation 2 followed after someone, probably on royal order, installed the new screen wall across the portico, and built the threshold, ramp, and probably the limestone path leading up to the doorway to the portico. We also know that the bonded complex of Occupation 2 dates some good amount of time before Reisner’s “second temple,” that is the rebuilding in the Sixth Dynasty. As a datum for this, Reisner noted that the rebuilt, thick southern 41 42 43 44 45 Reisner, Mycerinus, 45 Reisner, Mycerinus, 47 wrote that of the time of the second temple: “The exterior corridor and the causeway corridor were certainly not in a condition to be used.” Reisner, Mycerinus, 50. Reisner, Mycerinus, 51, pl. 72b. Reisner, Mycerinus, 51. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 239 frame wall of Vestibule 1 (room 377), which belongs to the “second temple” phase (Fig. 6.2), passes directly over room 324, as well as over the rebuilt magazine 372 (the northern most of the magazines in the southeast corner of the temple). These magazines probably belong to the bonded Occupation 2 complex (see below).46 The evidence suggests that at some point in the mid-Fifth Dynasty, the royal house carried out a program of major embellishment, renewal, and reorganization of Menkaure’s memorial foundation. 3.3 The Organization of Occupation 2 (Fifth Dynasty) On the horizontal distribution of settlement structures within the temple, Reisner wrote: . . . with the exception of the two rooms of the sanctuary and the very middle of the court, the whole of the Mycerinus valley temple within the walls of the later crude-brick temple was filled with small structures, rooms, and granaries of mudbrick.47 However, we take the impression from his published record that the main concentration was in the court of the main temple. His Plan VIII (Fig. 6.2), to which he refers, shows a concentration mainly in the main temple court possibly due, in part, to the fact that the structures of the latest, uppermost horizon were not fully preserved, as Reisner suggested.48 While I have termed this Occupation 2, and while Reisner designated it as his b horizon, phase II.3, it appears that this layout remained the same for a long time, from the period of Occupation 2 through that of Occupation 3. Reisner wrote that in the southern half of the court, “there were only two series of rooms,” meaning successive horizons of stratified settlement structures,49 so that the more prominent and final phase here would be the layout we see as most regular and most apparent on Reisner’s, multi-phase plan VIII (Fig. 6.2), whereas “in the northwest quarter of the court, there are three distinct series of walls visible,”50 to wit, those he adduced as settlement horizons a, b, and c (see above). 46 47 48 49 50 Reisner, Mycerinus, 53. Reisner, Mycerinus, 49. Reisner, Mycerinus, 50. Reisner, Mycerinus, 38 (entry for February 24–26, 1910). Reisner, Mycerinus, 50. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 240 Lehner Figure 6.3 Extract from Reisner’s multi-phase plan of the MVT southern court, showing Occupation 2 structures of his phase b. Reisner found a cache of Fifth Dynasty pottery under the floor of space 302. Occupation 2 shows a certain degree of order,51 which Reisner already recognized.52 A bonded complex of rooms on the southern side of the court formed five separate apartments, each opening onto the court, while circular granary silos and single rooms or pairs of rooms, probably bins, took up the northern side of the court (Figs. 6.2–6.3).53 Reisner suggested that at least some of these “rooms” served as bins for storage; he found pottery in situ in the rooms he numbered 57a–b, 58.54 51 52 53 54 As Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 26–27, and Lacovara, “Settlement Revisited,” have pointed out. I would like to thank Peter Lacovara for sharing his draft with me. Reisner, Mycerinus, 51. Reisner, Mycerinus, 52. Reisner, Mycerinus, 52, pls. 32b. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 241 The five apartments could relate to the five phyles that served in royal memorial temples as of the Fifth Dynasty.55 We might see rooms 310, 323 and 331 as a sixth apartment, but Reisner had reason to believe that these chambers were a later addition onto the eastern unit (rooms 306, 307, 324). If so, we might imagine the proprietor of this apartment taking on a greater importance than those of the other units. Someone built one of these units—or some equivalent, on the floor or the court in the time of Occupation 1. Reisner suggested that a building of his phase a under rooms 302 and 303 may have been an extra magazine.56 Based upon the floor, this structure would have been founded soon after Shepseskaf’s completion of the main temple in mudbrick. Rather than an extra magazine, this structure might have already been for an administrator or guard for the temple court, or for shareholders in the pẖr offerings endowed by Shepseskaf.57 The northern wall of chamber 302 followed the alignment of one of the walls of this earlier Occupation 1 structure. Peter Lacovara noted that the Occupation 2 structures leave open the space in the center of the court. He suggested the inhabitants could have used this for grain processing, while Richard Bussmann noted that the apartments form a “U” around the basin and court center.58 Perhaps the occupants used the open area for monitoring and accounting for items and material taken out of bins and silos, similar to how people used open areas outside later Middle Kingdom granaries as represented in wooden models. 3.4 The Organization of Occupation 3 (Sixth Dynasty) The structures of Occupation 3 (Reisner’s phase c) suggest a later renewal and reorganization of Menkaure’s foundation, probably in the mid- to late Sixth Dynasty, following a period of ruination and abandonment. We can imagine that this phase, if all its structures are nearly contemporary, came with an affirmation or renewal of Menkaure’s memorial foundation in the Sixth Dynasty, commensurate with the decrees of Merenre or Pepi II, the latter posted in the Valley Temple itself (see above, section 1). While stating that Occupation 3 once comprised “a very extensive series of walls,”59 Reisner noted that rainwater washed away much the southern part 55 56 57 58 59 Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 77–85. Reisner, Mycerinus, 51. Or, perhaps here was the “house of the ḥm-nṯr” such as we find attested in the Raneferef papyri (see section 4.2). Lacovara, “Settlement Revisited”; Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 26. Reisner, Mycerinus, 52. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 242 Lehner of this highest, latest horizon.60 Yet he shows structures of this phase south of the court and in the southwestern corner of the temple, built over the main walls of the “first temple” of Shepseskaf (Fig. 6.2). To reiterate, Reisner also indicated only two periods of occupation structures in the southern court, suggesting that the bonded complex of rooms dates from the time of Occupation 2 into the period of Occupation 3.61 What is left of Occupation 3 consists of thin-walled, rectangular chambers, which look more like bins and magazines than houses in his Plan VIII (Fig. 6.3). Notably, Reisner’s team mapped such structures, which he calls inter-bonded complexes, in the northeast, northwest, and southwest corners of the temple. These corners mark the locations of magazines in the original temple layout (Reisner’s plan IX, Fig. 6.1 here).62 However, the thin layer of Occupation 3 structures do not follow the walls of the original magazines or main walls of the “first temple,” but are situated directly above and across the main temple walls. Nevertheless, the Occupation 3 structures are strictly rectilinear. In fact, the chambers of this phase over the northwest and southern court are far more orthogonal and orderly than the underlying bins and silos of the earlier phases. They are oriented to the cardinal directions, like the overall temple enclosure walls. New chambers (101–104), perhaps magazines, were also built over the old southern wall of the court. These were probably an expansion of the Occupation 2 apartments in the southern court, with which they align. This would attest to the longevity of use of those apartments. Recall that Reisner mentions finding “only two series of rooms” in the southern court, the series on the floor and these apartments, built on a layer of debris.63 3.5 Stepping Up (to) Town Did anyone actually live in these small apartments fitted one against another in the confines of the VT court? If so, how did they access the apartments after passing through the Annex, and from Vestibule 1 (377) in the MVT proper? If, as the decrees suggest, these containers took in portions of pẖr offerings, how did the recipients and/or occupants of the apartments fill and remove material from the bins and silos? 60 61 62 63 Reisner, Mycerinus, 50. And so noted by Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 26–27. Reisner, Mycerinus, 52–53 for a description, plan VIII. Reisner, Mycerinus, 38. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 243 Recall that Occupation 2 (Reisner’s b horizon) walls were founded in the court on a “layer of débris of decay” that varied from 40 to 70 cm in thickness at the northern and southern ends sloping down to about 20 cm above the original floor toward the center of the court.64 In the north, Occupation 3 walls were superposed on Occupation 2 walls, and on “about one meter of mud debris” which buried the limestone pathway across the court. Reisner wrote: “And those who crossed from the portal [room 377, Vestibule 1] must have walked upon the surface of decay formed by the debris in the court.”65 Reisner’s profile drawing C–D in his plan X shows the limestone “pathway, first temple” at the same level as the floor of Vestibule 1 (room 377). It leads west to the limestone ramp that ascends to the portico (room 1). He shows in this profile that the “floor of court, second temple,” had risen about one meter higher. The later floor actually slopes down from the east to the portico, rebuilt as the “offering hall.” The floor begins on the east at the “Dyn. VI” wall built against the western side of the eastern court wall and based about 24 cm above the original floor level.66 During the time of the “second temple” the floor level of Vestibule 1 (room 377), remained the same as it was in the “first temple,” nearly flush with the bottom of the relief-carved circles in the alabaster column bases. Apparently Reisner found no superposed, higher Vestibule 1 floor during the time of the “second temple” and Occupation 3 (his c horizon). If Vestibule 1 was still used in the latest architectural phase and Occupation 3, how did people ascend the one-meter step-up from Vestibule 1 to the raised floor of the court? I suggest that they turned north (right) into corridor 380 and ascended via the mud stairway built against the western side of corridor 380.67 Reisner does not include the stairs in his plan of the “first temple” but does in his multiphase plan (see Figs. 6.1 and 6.2). Reisner suggested the stairs led to the roof, but in the photograph of his plate 34e the stairs show no indication of ascending that high. Again, Reisner wrote that corridor 380, north of Vestibule 1, had 64 65 66 67 Reisner, Mycerinus, 51. Reisner, Mycerinus, 47. Reisner wrote in his diary on February 20, 1910 that the walls of the settlement structures in the southern court were built on a surface about 75 cm higher than the floor of the court. This may have been so for the house walls in the far south end, but near the center of the court the house walls that he later designated as “on floor debris of court,” as well as the “second temple” (probably Sixth Dynasty) southern wall of room 377 (see Fig. 6.2, above) were founded on a surface only 24 cm higher than the floor of the court, as we saw when we re-cleared the northern end of this wall where it stops at the limestone path in the court. Reisner Mycerinus, 40, Plan VIII, pl. 34e. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 244 Lehner been blocked in the late phase of the temple, while the southern corridor 354 remained open and “formed the only entrance to the temple after the [eastern] entrance doorway had been blocked.”68 And to reiterate, the southern walls of Vestibule 1 added in the “second temple” blocked access into Vestibule 1 from corridor 354 during that phase. During Occupation 2 (mid-Fifth Dynasty), after the northern and southern magazines flanking Vestibule 1 had fallen into ruin, and after the inhabitants rebuilt the southeastern set, they used the stairs for ascending the northeastern part of the eastern court wall in order to access from above the granaries and bins in the northern half of the court. These structures crowd close to the walls of the court, as Lacovara noted.69 Even considering that Reisner’s plan VIII (Fig. 6.2) shows all phases at once, the crowding of the small structures leaves only the narrowest of paths for accessing the bins and silos from ground level.70 As the court wall itself degraded, and the northern floor of the court rose with the successive rebuilding of the bins and silos, people might have filled these storage units from above.71 We have no information, yet, on how they removed grain, for which we might expect openings in the silos close to floor level. The AERA team re-cleared the small stairway during our 2012 season. Although it had degraded since the time of Reisner’s exposure, we found the lower part of a thin mudbrick wall that connected the fourth step to the eastern wall of corridor 380, just at the northern edge of the entrance into magazine 381 (Figs. 6.2–6.3). This wall would have blocked off the northern part of corridor 380 that gave access to magazines 383, and 384.72 This blocking wall is not shown on Reisner’s plan VIII (Fig. 6.3), but it can be seen in his published photograph of the stairs.73 The debris core, over which the steps were constructed, appears to have extended further north, filling the corridor. To the immediate right of the stairs, we found in situ a limestone threshold slab with a shallow pivot socket installed in the original doorway to magazine 381. The 68 69 70 71 72 73 Reisner, Mycerinus, 40. Lacovara, “Settlement Revisited.” See Reisner, Mycerinus, pl. 34d. For late Old Kingdom depictions of granary silos with stairs, see Jéquier, Tombeaux de particuliers, 40, fig. 44, 47, fig. 51. Several of these depictions show a canopy over the silos. Is it possible that a canopy covered those silos crowded against the walls of the MVT court? We did record the superposition of the Occupation 3 wall, partitioning rooms 410 and 411, upon the older magazine wall between magazines 383 and 384. Reisner, Mycerinus, pl. 34c. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 245 slab, 14 cm thick, is founded 30 cm high on debris of mud brick fragments and pottery sherds. The top of the threshold slab, about 44 cm above the original floor level, is also not shown on Reisner’s plan VIII. The point of giving these details is that they indicate that during some of the time when the northern end of corridor 380 was blocked, rendering magazines 383 and 384 dysfunctional, people could still use magazines 379 and 381/382, and this is likely in phase with Occupation 2 (Fifth Dynasty) and probably continuing into Occupation 3 (Sixth Dynasty). While these two northern magazines, and the southern set, remained in use, Vestibule 1, corridor 380, and the stairs provided the way to bring grain or other goods—and we infer the MVT occupants were shareholders—to fill from above the bins and silos crowded against the walls of the northern court. 4 Wedjebten: A Late Old Kingdom Parallel? Were the southern MVT court structures really functioning apartments in the sense of where people lived—cooked, ate, and slept—day-to-day? Are these the remains of actual houses, or might they have functioned to a certain extent as token houses, equivalents of cenotaphs for tombs? And did Reisner find any associations with nearby tombs? I look for answers in comparable mudbrick structures that came to occupy the court of the Raneferef pyramid temple during the late Fifth Dynasty, and the enclosure around the Wedjebten pyramid in the late Sixth Dynasty. These parallels provide additional information in the way of texts on papyri (Raneferef) and small limestone monuments (Wedjebten). I begin first with the later example. The pyramid of Wedjebten, a queen of Pepi II, was situated beside the southeast corner of the larger Pepi II pyramid enclosure. A vestibule and plain court led to a small offering chapel against the pyramid’s center east side where Gustave Jéquier found an intact large alabaster offering table, with a hetep sign, bread loafs and vases carved in relief. It was inscribed with a line of text: “Invocation offerings for The Pyramid ‘Nefer-ka-Re (Pepi II) is Established and Living,’ the royal wife, whom he loves and whom all the gods praise, Wedjebten.” The walls of the chapel were decorated with lightly incised and painted relief.74 Jéquier found a fragment of a stone decree that Pepi II issued on the 33rd occasion, only a little later in his reign than the decree on the 31st occasion issued for Menkaure. Most probably this was to endow the memorial service 74 Jéquier, Oudjebten, 11–21. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 246 Lehner Figure 6.4 Ground plan of the Sixth Dynasty pyramid of Queen Wedjebten, from Jéquier, La pyramide d’Oudjebten, pl. I. of Queen Wedjebten, as the earlier decree did for Menkaure. In the small fragment of the decree, the name of only one person, Iqeri, remains.75 This same name reappears in the texts associated with the occupation structures in the outer enclosure. Because of the glimpse it offers into the economics of a royal memorial endowment, the most remarkable feature of Wedjebten’s pyramid is its secondary enclosure. A mudbrick wall, 1 m thick and still standing to a height of 2 m when Jéquier excavated, defined a court around the east, west, and south sides of Wedjebten’s pyramid (Fig. 6.4). The enclosure is widest on the east, up to 14 m. A series of rectilinear chambers and compartments occupied this enclosure. Those on the east had been razed and rebuilt at least once, resulting in a confused and incomplete plan where one unit was built up against another. Parts of the eastern court, devoid of mudbrick walls, contained small, shallow 75 Jéquier, Oudjebten, 18, fig. 17; KD, 154–55, fig. 13. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 247 burial shafts, located without order, and ending in small vaulted mudbrick chambers, several of which contained skeletons, but no burial goods. On the basis of their poverty, Jéquier thought they must date to the First Intermediate Period, but not long after the Sixth Dynasty.76 More regular walls on the south, where the court was 9.90 m wide, appear to comprise a true house. From here to the west the court narrows to a simple corridor. Other chambers near the southwest corner resemble bins and magazines. Jéquier found the architectural remains much disturbed in the western part of the court. Both the court of the pyramid, defined by its stonewall, and this secondary court were accessed through an oblong vestibule that was entered by a doorway opening north toward the king’s pyramid (Fig. 6.4). Another doorway through the opposite stonewall gave access to the primary enclosure and the queen’s chapel. A third doorway at the eastern end of the southern vestibule wall, which was still preserved for a height of 4 m, gave access to the secondary enclosure. Jéquier found the frame of this doorway intact (Fig. 6.5). People inscribed its limestone frame77 to testify to their successive shares, that is, equity participation, in the funerary estates of Pepi II and Wedjebten (marked of course by their pyramid tombs). They documented these shares, in return for the parts they played in the memorial service of these sovereigns, as their estate (ḏt). The lintel was inscribed with the name and titles of Wedjebten following the name of Pepi II’s pyramid: “The Pyramid ‘Nefer-ka-Re’s (Pepi II) Life is Enduring,’ Princess, Royal Wife, Beloved of Him, Great of Charm,78 Wedjebten.” The figure of the seated queen serves as the determinative for her name. The vertical text on the doorjamb just below her figure begins: ḏt.s, “her estate,” a term derived from the word “perpetuity.” Then follow the name and titles of a priest named Hemankh, with the nickname Hemi. He was “Inspector of Priests (śḥḏ ḥm(w)-nṯr), Overseer of Divine Things (ḥry ḫt nṯr), Servant of the Seal (ḥm (ɩ̓)śt ḫtm)79 and Revered with his Mistress (ɩ̓mꜢḫw ḫr ḥnwt.f ).”80 Hemi’s own standing figure ends this column of text. He is followed by a smaller male figure labeled: “His son, Inspector of Priests whom he loves, Iqeri.” Below the feet of Hemi and Iqeri a horizontal inscription labels the whole doorframe: “Gate of his Estate (rwt nt ḏt.f).” 76 77 78 79 80 Jéquier, Oudjebten, 25. The jambs, each formed of two blocks of unequal length, and their lintel, were taken to the Cairo Museum, no. 49681. Total height of the frame: 1.81 m, width 1.05 m. Jones, Index I, 401, no. 1476. Jones, Index I, 590, no. 2160 for ḥm ḫtm. I thank John Nolan for this reading and reference. Jones, Index I, 34, no. 167, “revered with her/his spouse.” For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 248 Lehner Figure 6.5 Limestone doorway into the outer enclosure around the 6th pyramid of Queen Wedjebten, from Jéquier, La pyramide d’Oudjebten, 22, fig. 28. Probably later, Iqeri inscribed his name and titles, including “Scribe of the Phyle” and “Revered with Ptah” on the inside face of the opposite jamb.81 The southern, interior face of the opposite jamb is inscribed with the titles and name, “Inspector of Priests, Courtier (śmr), Overseer of the House (ɩ̓my-r pr), Ikhi” and his grandson (sꜢ sꜢ.f) Seankhenptah who, like Hemi, is also an “Inspector of Priests, Servant of the Seal, and Scribe of the Phyle.” Seankhenptah’s vertical text ends at his figure, followed by a smaller person labeled “His brother, 81 Jones, Index I, 23, no. 112. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 249 Inspector of the Priests, Hemi.” Like the opposite jamb, the bottom of this jamb is also labeled “Gate of his Estate.” Here we have a family line of priests, from Ikhi, to his grandson Seankhenptah and to Seankhenptah’s (probably junior) brother Hemi, to Hemi’s son, Iqeri— all serving the cult of Wedjebten. This intact doorframe was not the only such doorframe to have stood within the Wedjebten enclosure. Jéquier found fragments of at least three more gates that once bore similar inscriptions “en plusieurs points de enciente et jusque dans le temple du roi.”82 The largest fragment is part of a right jamb, recut on the side to serve as a threshold; it bears the titles “Overseer of the Per Shena (ɩ̓my-rꜢ pr-šnꜤ),83 Revered by His Mistress, Ameni,” whose figure was carved at the bottom of the column, followed by a son named Khenu. The upper left corner piece of a lintel appears to have been part of this doorframe. It bears the end of the name of the queen and the beginning of the vertical text of a left jamb, again ḏt.s, “her estate.”84 Another piece, which formed the lower part of a left jamb, is inscribed with the name Roud and ending with, “his son.”85 Below the main column is the image of a man followed by two shorter women, probably his daughters, whose names, Kesit and Nedem, are inscribed before their faces. Above the women appears the title, repeated twice, “Priestess of Hathor.” A column of text in front of the man reads: “his eldest, whom he loves (śmśw mrjj.f ), Iqeri,” perhaps a different person of the same name as found on the in situ doorframe. The text columns ends, like the texts on the jambs of the in situ doorframe, “Gate of his Estate.” The standing, intact doorframe may have replaced earlier frames after the partial destruction and rebuilding when dependencies were reoccupied.86 As Jéquier recognized, the gates appear to have been legal documents etched in the stone at the very doorway of the family estate in question, testifying to rights, held by families, to partitions of goods dedicated to the funerary cult of Wedjebten, part of the queen’s own equity participation in the funerary estate of Pepi II. Their inscriptions documented these shares as parts of their “estates” (ḏt) in return for their service in the cults of the sovereigns. Jéquier understood the ḏt of the queen as this secondary enclosure, subdivided into multiple miniature “estates” of the priests—the bins and storage structures. 82 83 84 85 86 Jequier, Oudjebten, 23 Labor establishment, storehouse, or department of stores, so Jones, Index I, 125–26, no. 501. Jequier, Oudjebten, 24, fig. 29. Jequier, Oudjebten, 24, fig. 30. Jequier, Oudjebten 23, and n. 1. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 250 Lehner The economic background, no doubt, involved allocations of produce from fields, or shares from fields, as we know from the genre of royal decrees.87 This picture of shareholders is confirmed by the cache of other small limestone pieces that Jéquier found in the debris just outside the door of the secondary enclosure, “jeté pêle-mêle,” mostly small limestone offering tables with the hieroglyph (Gardiner sign-list R4), ḥtp, “offering,” and small basins carved in relief, sometimes with two or three sets of ḥtp signs and basins per single slab.88 Many of these were so worn the names could not be read. One triple offering slab was inscribed with the names and titles of Hemi and Iqeri— the priests whose names are listed on the intact doorframe.89 The third name, which was effaced, was likely Seankhenptah. As described in section 1, the names of the three persons foremost on the Pepi II decree for the pyramid town of Menkaure are followed by “his altar,” written with the offering slab, . The limestone offering slabs that Jéquier found outside the Wedjebten enclosure are physical examples, the physical correlate of that term, nearly contemporary with the Pepi II decree for the Menkaure pyramid town. Although beginning with three other officials as beneficiaries, that decree makes Ishefi, a Scribe of the Phyle, responsible for implementing and maintaining the edict. In the texts from the Wedjebten compound, both Seankenptah and Iqeri hold the title “Scribe of the Phyle.” In addition to the offering slabs, Jéquier found in the cache a unique kind of monument that he called a “house stela.” One example is shown in Figure 6.6. Each featured a rectangular base with vertical ends and sloping lateral walls that ended in a rounded top. Jéquier recognized these objects as miniature models of vaulted houses and/or contemporary tombs with vaulted tops such as he found in the cemetery around the Pepi II pyramid. Each model house had a false door carved in its facade, an image of the deceased at a table of offerings, and his/her name and titles. When dubbing these objects “house stelae” (stèles maisons), Jéquier understood them as images of the houses of the deceased, or of the tomb itself. Jéquier noted that the nearby necropolis contains many tombs with superstructures of similar shape.90 " " 87 88 89 90 KD. Jequier, Oudjebten, 25–31. I am more optimistic than Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 21 inferring a connection between the prosopographic material and the mudbrick structures by way of the gate and its inscriptions. For an example of such a tomb, Mastaba MIX, Jéquier, Tombeaux de particuliers, Pl. VIbis, and 113–14 for house stelae outside from outside the Wedjebten enclosure. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 251 Figure 6.6 House stela of Khubau from the cache near the entrance to the Wedjebten secondary enclosure. From Jéquier, Oudjebten, fig. 34. Jéquier could connect one of the house stela91 with the owner of a specific tomb, Mastaba Mv, belonging to a person named Khubau, who held the titles “Count (ḥꜢty-Ꜥ), Treasurer, (literally, “sealer”) of Lower Egypt (sḏꜢwt(y) bɩ̓t(y)), and Sole Companion (śmr wꜤty).” Gaston Maspero first excavated this tomb close to the southern side of the Wedjebten enclosure.92 Jéquier also found Khubau’s name on two small funerary obelisks: he found one near the house stelae, the other in the debris of a mastaba in proximity to that of Khubau and to the dependencies of Wedjebten (Mastaba Mv).93 This association suggests the stakeholders in the Wedjebten/Pepi II funerary “estates” were buried in nearby tombs. 91 92 93 Jequier, Oudjebten, 27, fig. 34; Cairo Museum no. 49805, .53 x .28 x.46. Maspero, Trois années de fouilles, 194 and 199, pl. I–IV; Jéquier, Tombeaux de particuliers, frontispiece (map), 30–32. Jequier, Oudjebten, 28, fig. 35. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 252 Lehner Having been jettisoned out its front door, these small objects help us understand the village-like occupation of Wedjebten’s secondary enclosure. By being honored (ɩ̓mꜢḫw) before the queen, those who held office in her memorial foundation were allowed to share the endowment for her funerary estate, just as the queen’s estate had a share in that of the pyramid of Pepi II. Arrayed around the queen’s pyramid, each beneficiary received a chamber or a small courtyard, each framed, Jéquier thought, by an inscribed stone door, in which they set up their offering slabs, small obelisks, and house stelae, proxy symbols of their real households and tombs. It is possible that each small assemblage or miniature complex was a proxy, a token for the actual goods received, or as Jéquier thought, a kind of cenotaph. Or, is it possible that the goods themselves, at least some of the dividends of shares, came, as a ritualized meeting of economic need, into temporary storage in bins and silos occupying the secondary enclosure of the pyramid temple compound? 5 Raneferef: Mid-Fifth Dynasty Parallels If it was in the mid-Fifth Dynasty that people built and used the apartments of Occupation 2 in the southern MVT court, that occupation occurred about 125 years before people built and used the structures in the secondary enclosure of Queen Wedjebten. The Wedjebten enclosure was nearly contemporary with Occupation 3 in the MVT, of which little remains. Nonetheless, comparison with Wedjebten’s secondary enclosure raises some questions about the village-like occupation of Menkaure’s Valley Temple court, even during Occupation 2. One of the questions is: Are the secondary occupation structures in the MVT court the remains of actual houses, or might they have functioned as token houses, equivalents of cenotaphs for tombs? 5.1 Token Houses or Houses with Tokens? In 2012 we cleared the eastern MVT to the eastern wall of the southern half of the court, exposing the doorway between rooms 307 and 324 in the easternmost apartment in the southern MVT court (Fig. 6.3, apartment no. 5). Still intact with its small limestone lintel (Fig. 6.7), the doorway is only .47 m wide at the top just under the lintel, .52 m wide at mid height, and we estimate a mere 1.14 to 1.18 high. The average person could move through this doorway, but not without turning the shoulders. We question whether such a narrow doorway saw repeated, For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 253 Figure 6.7 Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Rahman stands on the floor at the bottom of a probe through Resiner’s backfill in front of the doorway between rooms 307 and 324 of the easternmost apartment in the southern court of the MVT. View to the southeast. Author’s photo. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 254 Lehner daily use.94 Since Reisner did not sample and analyze material culture, other than artifacts and pottery, the way we do today, a proper assessment of daily life in these structures must await a full clearing and restudy of the MVT court. It may have been only guards, like modern bowabs (doormen), who stayed in these apartments, possibly in rotation. At the same time, these small apartments carried symbolic value, marking a claim to shares like the small mudbrick structures and house models of the Wedjebten compound. We can weigh these ideas against the domestic structures in the Neferirkare and Raneferef pyramid temples, which are closer to Occupation 2 structures in the MVT in terms of both layout and date than those of the Wedjebten pyramid secondary enclosure. However, these Fifth Dynasty Abusir occupations are found in the upper temples next to the pyramids, for the reason that these pyramids each lacked a valley temple, and so the mudbrick structures for temple service personnel moved up to the upper pyramid temple.95 The orthogonal mudbrick complex flanking the southern and eastern sides of Neferirkare’s temple court and entrance hall appear to have been large, planned, functioning houses. Noting many fireplaces, pottery, and places for sleeping, Ludwig Borchardt concluded that these were real houses and not cult chambers.96 Borchardt saw three or four true “houses” and suggested that here lived the more permanent staff, numbering around ten.97 Kemp assigned 10 units to the outer mudbrick structures, designating as many as four south of the entrance hall.98 Over time, people constructed brick walls between the wooden columns and the walls forming the court colonnade, creating chambers, possibly magazines. In the pyramid temple of Raneferef, people also converted the colonnade into mudbrick complexes, similar to the intrusive structures of the Neferirkare court (Fig. 6.8). This transformation happened, at the latest, in the reign of Djedkare. The structures remained in use into the reign of Pepi I.99 The 94 95 96 97 98 99 We have found doorways or access openings through walls as narrow as 52 cm (a royal cubit), but many of the doorways in the Khentkawes Town are close to 70 cm wide, see Lehner, “KKT-N,” 378, Table 6.1. One of the doorways between mudbrick rooms N and O in the Raneferef court measured only 1 m high and 50 cm wide with a vaulted top, Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 73. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 77–78; Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Neferír-keꜢ-reꜤ, 11, 36–37; Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 21–22. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Nefer-ír-keꜢ-reꜤ, 11. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Nefer-ír-keꜢ-reꜤ, 36–37. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 203–05, fig. 72. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 76–77; a clay sealing of Pepi I came from the floor deposit of room W. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 255 Figure 6.8 The Court of the pyramid temple of Raneferef. From Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 29, fig. 1.2.1, 528, foldout. North is to the right. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 256 Lehner colonnade initially consisted of 22 columns, presumably of wood, supporting an architrave and roofing slabs, possibly also of wood. No traces of the columns remain, except a couple of the limestone bases within the chambers F and Z of the mudbrick complexes on the north and south, respectively. It appears that, except for unit F in the northeast corner, people removed the columns and replaced them with two bonded complexes of mudbrick walls in which Miroslav Verner identified seven apartments, three on the south and four on the north. Each apartment included a doorway that opened onto the court.100 A pathway of beaten clay and flat limestone pieces ran east-west through the center of the court between the two complexes, similar to the slightly more formal limestone pathway through the MVT court. The apartments contained benches; chambers probably for sleeping; fireplaces (with several in a single unit); kitchens; bins;101 small basins; and wall sockets for fixing pegs, possibly for weaving or hanging pots.102 So these apartments were clearly “of a living character.”103 As with the MVT Occupations 2 and 3, the excavators found at least one broken royal statue within this complex.104 In contrast to the numbers of offering slabs and house stelae that Jéquier found in the Wedjebten compound, Verner reports only one roughly made limestone offering table from a layer of decayed mudbrick masonry near the entrance of apartment P-S-T in the northwest corner of the court.105 He sees this object as out of place within the occupation structures of the court. However, considering the example of the offering slabs and house stelae associated with the occupation of the Wedjebten secondary enclosure, perhaps an offering table here is not so out of place after all. Note that the papyri from this temple suggest unit P-S-T was the house of the ḥm-nṯr (see below). Tokens found in the Raneferef apartments could relate to some aspect of accounting—the tokens standing for actual allocations. The excavators found objects that could be taken as tokens in almost all of the apartments in the Raneferef court, generally in an ashy layer over the floor, or upon the floor. These include clay cones, ball-shaped clay cores (in apartments F and A-B-Z), 100 101 102 103 104 105 Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 70–78. Rooms V and H in the southern complex included small walls, 35 cm high, partitioning “minor chambers”; cf. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Nefer-ír-keꜢ-reꜤ, 11, for sunken bins bordered by very low walls in two chambers south of the court (f, 4, 5) and Lehner, “Enigma of the Pedestal Building.” Room Y, Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 76. Verner, Raneferef: the Archaeology, 71. In a pit in the floor of room Z; Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 77; Benešovská, “Statues,” 393–94, fig. 2.7.27A. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 75, fig. 1.3.11. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 257 tiny limestone balls (F), conical and cylindrical “gaming pieces” (J-K-M and H-I-V), model bowls (J-K-M and N-O-Q-R) and clay models of cattle (P-S-T).106 Verner suggests some of these objects were “toys” and that the tiny clay cones served as cores for incense coating, which suggests ritual.107 I do not know how unusual these objects might be for domestic contexts. Hana Benešovská reported: Around twenty small clay objects have survived in the Raneferef pyramid complex . . . They include many different geometric shaped objects, tiny stylized human heads, and stylized statuettes of animals, above all the cows . . . The meaning of these small objects remains unclear. Rather than “toys” they may represent symbolic offerings or votive objects.108 What is the meaning of these tokens for understanding the occupation structures in pyramid temples? The AERA team has found objects similar to some of these at the Fourth Dynasty Heit el-Ghurab (HeG) site, the so-called “Workers’ Town” at Giza. We interpreted the limestone balls as gaming pieces, but held out the possibility that the inhabitants might have used them as tokens, counters, or calculi,109 a function we suggested for flat ceramic disks fashioned from pottery sherds. We have suggested that the occurrence of such objects on the HeG site relates to its special function as a barracks and infrastructure for pyramid building during the mid- to late Fourth Dynasty.110 Small clay objects such as cones, we generally or preliminarily understand as tokens connected to sealing material, so implicitly having to do with accounting and administration. The question is, then, the extent to which the use of tokens continued into the historical periods.111 106 107 108 109 110 111 Benešovská, “Statues,” 425–30, figs. 2.7.68–70, and for distribution of clay figurines, 436, fig. 2.7.76. However, we see in this distribution plan no entry for the clay models of cattle Verner mentions for apartment P-S-T, only a dot in room R for 217/I/82, a stylized animal body drawn on 427, fig. 2.7.69, no.2. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 71–76, fig. 1.3.5. Benešovská, “Statues,” 437, and n. 65 for references. Wagensonner, “Non-textuality in the Ancient Near East,” 36–37; Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia, 154: “Tokens are small objects, generally hand-modeled out of clay . . . often categorized as amulets, gaming pieces, or simply unknowns. Tokens come in a variety of shapes, most frequently geometric, but also in the form of animals, tools, or other goods.” See for Egypt: Meza, Ancient Egypt Before Writing, 27 ff. Lehner and Tavares, “Walls, Ways and Stratigraphy,” 212–13. A series of wooden objects in the shape of bread loaves, likely of the Twelfth Dynasty, found at the Fort of Uronarti, Dunham, Uronarti, Shalfak, Mirgissa, 34–5, pls. 27–8 might For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 258 Lehner The southern central apartment H-I-V yielded unfinished cylindrical seals, and a pierced and an un-inscribed clay tablet.112 We would not hesitate to associate these last two objects with administration and accounting, which might reinforce an interpretation of the clay cones, so-called “gaming pieces,” limestone balls, and possibly even the miniature bowls as related to accounting. Unfinished seals and an un-inscribed tablet suggest we are at the source of bureaucracy at a local level in the hierarchy. They also segue to the activities and service personnel in the temple and its court occupation. 5.2 Phyles and Families: Patron to Pater The evidence is that people actually lived in in the secondary mudbrick structures occupying the Neferirkare and Raneferef pyramid temples. That is to say, they ate and slept there. But their stay may have been part-time and in rotation according to the Old Kingdom system of five named phyles (zꜢw). The Abusir Papyri, administrative documents of the Neferirkare and Raneferef temples, suggest that the distribution of goods was by phyle. Is this in contrast to what is indicated in the Wedjebten complex, shares by family estate? If people rotated in and out of service, and so in and out of residence in the temple apartments, texts showing the numbers of personnel on duty shed some light on the temple occupation. Verner estimated that if three persons stayed in each of the seven apartments in the Raneferef court the whole complex accommodated about twenty people, the number in a half phyle or section as documented in the papyri from the Neferirkare pyramid temple.113 112 113 have functioned like tags, tokens, or calculi for soldiers’ rations; Kemp Anatomy of a Civilization, 176–79, fig. 62. According to Simpson “Two lexical notes,” 222: “They are plastered wood in long-tapering or short conical, lozenge, diamond, and disk shapes pierced with a single, and/or three smaller holes, presumable for hanging or attaching them. They bear inscriptions that label the objects sḫꜢ, “record,” or “memorandum” and mention a specific number of trsst (or tr-zzt). From the texts it is clear that they refer to baked units of bread, perhaps in the shape of the objects themselves, and that these units or loaves were made from fixed quantities of barley and wheat assigned to or provided by the work force.” For trsst as rations, see Simpson, Papyrus Reisner I, 35; and for trsst as bread units supplying Hekanakht’s journey and to sojourn in Thebes, see Allen, Hekanakht Papyri, 148. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 76. I do not find these objects described in the Finds section. The seals catalogue consists of line drawings of the designs, and not the objects themselves. The pierced, uninscribed clay tablet may be in a class with those small clay tablets, “sample sealings,” or “tokens” on which letters were incised and seals impressed. See Pantalacci, “La documentation épistolaire” and “Organisation et contrôle,” 143. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 77 citing Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 573. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 259 Subsequent study of the Raneferef papyri showed that the number of people serving in, or on behalf of, a phyle division was not constant, and could be half the numbers attested in service in the Neferirkare divisions.114 We are not certain if the numbers are those of the entire division, or only those selected for a particular duty.115 The difference is not due to different dates, as both sets of documents are thought to belong to the period of Djedkare.116 It is possible that the numbers do not reflect total membership in a phyle as a fixed group per temple. The phyles were broadly shared associations, from which authorities recruited personnel for a particular service, with the five phyles represented no matter how much smaller the overall numbers of people on duty at a given time in a royal memorial temple. Despite the uncertainties, we can be reasonably confident about the following: First, the temple staff, at least some of whom must have occupied the court apartments, regularly checked the court, perhaps the access into it, and staff members sealed at least one room (P) of the apartment (P-S-T). Second, people rotated in and out of service in the temple on a monthly basis.117 This makes for an occupation very different from what we would imagine for a conventional village or settlement. Distributions of goods (grain, cloth, and meat), if by phyle in rotation,118 may have differed from distributions by family or estate (ḏt), as suggested in the Wedjebten secondary enclosure and its associated texts. On the first point, regarding sealing of the access to the court settlement, or parts of it, the Raneferef papyri show that when personnel transferred temple service to another group affiliated with a different phyle, they checked carefully the court, which at the time of these documents included the seven apartments, and the apartment (P-S-T), identified as the place of the ḥm nṯr priest, in the northwestern corner of the court. This checking was part of making certain that clay sealings remained secure on other parts of the temple. 114 115 116 117 118 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 368. Vymazalová, “Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes,” 184–85, n. 34. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 350. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, where rotation is indicated in a number of the fragments, for example, 66–67, fragment 21H, 238, indicates a monthly rotation; 40–41, Pl. 8, 216–18 where the authors suggest the sealing had to do with two of the temple storerooms in the set of ten in the northwest corner of the temple, so that the rotation might not have involved checking or resealing the same space. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 387–88. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 260 Lehner Papyrus fragments 45–46 document the ɩ̓my-wrt phyle finishing its turn of duty and transferring duty to the śṯ phyle.119 The transfer involves reckoning or checking the sealings of temple parts that had been “in the hand of” the two divisions of the ɩ̓my-wrt phyle, including (intact?) sealings on temple parts left by officials who represented the divisions of other three phyles (wꜢḏt, ɩ̓my-nḏś, and ɩ̓my-nfrt). A following part (46A), with vertical text columns, lists seven places followed by an official’s title, in five cases followed in turn by the sign for “a sealing” (sɩ̓n) and a stroke. Five of the places are the sort we would expect to be sealed and checked: the great treasury, the storeroom (pr) of fat, the storeroom of cloth, the abode (pr) of the statue, and the entrance of the storerooms. The hieroglyph for “sealing” plus stroke follows the entries for the treasury, storerooms of fat and cloth, and the statue chamber, but not the entrance to the storerooms. However, the latter entry is followed by “copper rings 3,” which probably refers to the rings on a wooden door leaf through which a wooden bolt was slid to close and lock the door.120 So the check may have been on the closure mechanism without a clay door sealing. The turn-over of responsibility involved checking two spaces that we might not expect to be sealed, the court—for this is where we find the invasive living quarters—and the room of the ḥm nṯr priest, which can be identified with one of the chambers (P) of the apartment (P-S-T) in the northwestern corner, thanks to the entry in a different fragment, 4A, respecting “the door which is under the staircase of the ḥm-nṯr-priest’s room” (ŚbꜢ ẖry-n rdw (nyw) Ꜥt (nt) ḥm-nṯr).121 Verner points out that in the entire temple, this doorway could only have been in apartment P-S-T, where room P featured a staircase that must have once given access to the temple roof.122 Taken strictly, the text does not indicate sealing one of the apartments, as such, rather it seals a door under the staircase. Verner states that a vault supported the stairs, and a niche, 110 cm long, 90 cm deep, and 70–105 cm high, was fashioned “under the staircase.” At some 119 120 121 122 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 116–17, pls. 45–46, 262–64. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 340. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 32–33, pl. 4, 210, 339–40, 371. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 74–75. Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 72 does mention another staircase, perhaps a later addition, in the court and outside the entrance to room K in the northeastern corner. Perhaps no door could have existed under this staircase. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 261 point the niche contained a hearth, so the door in question must be either that between rooms P and T, or more likely the doorway from the court into room T at the bottom of the stairs. In this case it is the door into the apartment as such that was sealed and checked, according to 46A. We have to wonder about life in a “house” that people sealed on some regular basis. This apartment may have been special, perhaps because here resided the person serving in rotation as ḥm nṯr, “the highest official in the temple at that time.”123 By sealing the entry to it, the staff could check on access to the roof, whence it might have been possible to access or break into the rear magazines and other parts without going through the ground plan. We can compare the staircase in room P with the staircase in the MVT, which probably ascended to the top of the northern court wall, giving access to the bins and silos (see above, section 2.4). Fragment 4A specifies, in vertical columns, people on duty for guarding “the door which is under the staircase of the ḥm-nṯr-priest’s room” and other places listed in the horizontal heading. Under the “door . . . of the ḥm-nṯrpriest’s room,” we have five names with ranking titles: three ḥm-nṯr priests, one śm-priest and Sole Companion (śmr wꜤty—Rawer), and one Inspector of the Great House (śḥḏ pr-ꜤꜢ). Below each name-plus-title are listed: “his ḏt-servants” (dt.f, that is, servants of his estate),124 or “his assistant” (ẖry-Ꜥ.f, for Rawer only), and, in a lower and smaller horizontal register, a “temple functionary” (ḥrynśt).125 Throughout the publication, the authors of Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive (Paule Posener-Kriéger, Miroslav Verner, and Hana Vymazalová) note that the lesser-ranked people acted as substitutes in temple service for those of high rank and title.126 In fragment 4A a total of 10 people of lesser rank substituted for the five high-ranking names responsible for the “door, which is under the staircase of the ḥm-nṯr-priest’s room.” What we learn about the sealing of doors, or the checking of spaces and the access to them, from an archive that was probably nearly contemporary 123 124 125 126 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 350. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 32–33, pl. 4, 210–11; Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 586–87. For this title, see Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 584–85. These individuals are thought to have been young men who carried out heavy work; Vymazalová, “Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes,” 193. Based on 5A2 that lists half a dozen people in service at the exterior entrance, all with ḏt servants, the authors suggest the high ranking persons, while partaking of phyle membership, “ensured income linked with the function”—and perhaps ensured as well the connection with divinity—but “when the real menial work is to be done, they allow themselves to be represented by their deputies, the ḏt servants”; Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 370. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 262 Lehner with the occupation on the MVT, is critical to understanding the nature of the occupation in the MVT court. To return to fragment 46A, no sealing is specified for the court (wsḫt), although here again we find for this entry “copper ring (bɩ̓Ꜣ ḏbꜤꜢ): 3.”127 An entry for “wooden columns, 4,” with no sealing sign, forms the last column of text following the other entries. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová note that by the time of these texts, nearly contemporary with the seven apartments in the court, the columns of the cloister would have been removed, so the four columns in question could only be the pair in the expanded main temple entrance and the pair in the entrance to the early temple. In this case we have a check on sealings or on controlled access (peg and ring locks) at the principal parts of the temple (Fig. 6.9): the expanded temple entrance;128 the court; the house of the ḥm-nṯr that contained the stairway to the roof at the exit from the court into the inner (early) temple; the house of the statue, which the authors locate south in the old hypostyle hall; and the cloth and fat storerooms, which would be in the old magazines in the northwest part of the inner temple.129 However, the listing in the document does not follow this or any other apparent order. Of fragment 45–46A the authors note: “Interestingly, in the time from which this document dates, there were in the whole mortuary temple of Raneferef only eight rooms and four columns which were worth checking.”130 Is it worth noting the near equivalence in number of the eight places checked in 46A, seven if we discount the “four columns” as a place, with the seven apartments or “houses” in the court? Fragment 46Ad-e, where the ɩ̓my-wrt phyle turns over duty to “the hand” of the śṯ 2 phyle, lists seven ɩ̓my-wrt men, starting with an “Under Supervisor of the ḥm-nṯr-priests,” Sekhemra, followed by a wꜤb-priest Iha, two ḫntyw-š ‘Imaisi and Rudjisi, and Nydeb and Mermin without titles. Then, six men are listed for the phyle śṯ: an “attendant of the Great House,” Iri; Ihy and Abdu without title, two ḫntɩ̓w-š named Nyankhisi and Isimeru, and Ankhu without a title. A lacuna follows the last name, Ankhu, so the list might have also totaled seven.131 127 128 129 130 131 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 263. Though, if the reference is to the entrance we might have expected Ꜥrrt or Ꜥrt ḥꜤt, see Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 338–39 for the complexity of the entrance area. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 359 for a plan of the temple with locations of places mentioned in the archive. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 264. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 263. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 263 Figure 6.9 Plan of the Raneferef Pyramid temple with labels of parts mentioned in the Papyrus archive. From Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 29, fig. 1.2.1, 528, foldout; and Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 359, plan. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová note “according to 45–46a a phyle ɩ̓my-wr 2 was formed by seven persons and so was śṯ 2, too.”132 Did these men, some of whom performed duty on behalf of higher-ranking phyle representatives, stay in the seven court apartments? In other instances the total of phyle representatives numbered 10, or 13, which could still be easily accommodated in the seven court “houses.” We find these same low numbers in fragment 14Ac, which Vymazalová cites for the distributions of products, cloth in this case.133 The fragment names seven men of relatively high rank, two with the titles “Judge and Administrator” (sꜢb Ꜥḏ-mr), two “Inspectors (śḥḏ) of ḥm-nṯr-priests,” and three 132 133 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 368. Vymazalová, “Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes,” 187. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 264 Lehner “(Royal) Companions” (śmr). Three of the names, plus titles, are followed by ḏt (-servant) plus a name, the other four are followed by one or two names without ḏt or other title, but which we might presume to have been underlings. If so, the total of people of lesser rank is eight, one more than the number of houses in the court.134 Such distribution of goods by phyles in the Fifth Dynasty might have differed from the receipts of goods as part of a personal, heritable “estate” within a larger estate, as attested by the texts associated with the bins and houses in the secondary enclosure of the Wedjebten pyramid. Phyles, like the natural or artificial Greek “tribes”135 whence our translation of the Egyptian, zꜢ, derives, may have cut across family and lineage, or even across regional or tribal boundaries, as special purpose, non-kin associations that served to mobilize labor and military or expeditionary forces as needed,136 in which case the phyle was the larger association (along the lines of a fraternity), from which work gangs were recruited.137 The nature of phyle membership is still not entirely understood.138 Perhaps a change in sharing reversionary offerings and goods from property endowed to royal memorial complexes is hinted at by the different uses of the root, ḏt, “servant” or “estate.” When designating persons employed in the Neferirkare temple papyri, Posener-Kriéger thought the term denoted a strong link between servant and patron.139 The idea, even more widely supported by the Raneferef papyri, is that title-holders of some rank furnished—for temple service in given phyles—servants (ḏt) of their estates or households, pr ḏt, literally the “maison appartenant au corps de quelqu’un.”140 The same or similar word ḏt can stand for the physical body of a person, for an estate or property domain, for a serf,141 for kind of servant, “he or she of the body,”142 as well as for 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 The hypothesis that the underlings of phyle leaders lived in the houses of the court while carrying out the actual work and duty of the given phyle, might be strengthened by no overlap of names within the same monthly period. Trail, The Political Organization of Attica. Harris and Johnson, Cultural Anthropology, 165–66. Dobrev, “Administration of the Pyramid,” 30. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 61–75 on the nature of phyle membership. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 586–87. Allam, “Une classe ouvriére les merit,” 127. Faulkner, Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 317–18. Jones, Index II, 1011–12, no. 3747. Some Old Kingdom serving statues are labeled as ḏt of the tomb owner, Roth, “The Meaning of Menial Labor,” 111–13. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 265 “eternity,”143 perhaps connected to the hope that the corpus, as in corporation, (a body of people and property) will endure.144 Posner-Kriéger found it doubtful that officials, however high ranking, would have arranged in their lifetimes phyles for their own memorial service in the chapels of their mastaba tombs, but we can be certain that they did so. She cites the evidence from the mastabas of six officials from the late to the early Sixth Dynasty.145 Ann Macy Roth tabulated evidence of phyle organization in the memorial service of more than 30 individuals raging in date from the midFifth to the early Sixth Dynasty.146 She concluded this was “a passing phenomenon that flourished during the period around the change from the Fifth to the Sixth Dynasties.”147 We know from sets of five storerooms with phyle names inscribed above the entrances to the individual chambers, like the storeroom of Meruruka in his tomb near the Teti pyramid at Saqqara, that these phyles carried the same names, and followed the fivefold canonical order of the phyles in the royal memorial service.148 In the Abusir Papyri of the late Fifth Dynasty a titled individual, of middle to very high rank,149 presumably a proprietor of an estate that encompassed people and property, furnished persons of his ḏt to serve in the phyles of a royal memorial service attached to a pyramid. Posener-Kriéger understood as “parasite phyles” those cases in the Neferirkare papyri where the phyle sign, zꜢ, plus a counting stroke follows the names or titles of seven officials in a list, apparently referring to phyles from the memorial services of those officials. She termed these “parasite” because they entered into, and partook of the temple endowment goods in return for service in addition to the “regular” phyles. The names of four of the seven individuals remain: Kairisu, Ty, Rawer, and Khnumhotep.150 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 Hannig, Großes Handwörterbuch Ägyptisch, 1065. Do we not see here the notion attached to any large estate-holder that Ernst Kantorowicz explored for mediaeval concepts of kingship in his classic work, The Kings Two Bodies? The king was incarnate in a physical body, but also in an abstract body co-extensive with the land and people of his (e)state, that is to say, the corporation of his entire realm and community, and so when “the king is dead, long live the king.” As Kantorowicz states, the king thus comprised a “body natural” and the “body politic.” Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 569, n. 3. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 91–108. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 118. At least, and possibly only, in the cemeteries of the Memphis capital zone: Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and South Saqqara; Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 112. Vymazalová, “Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes,” 185. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 429–32. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 266 Lehner Roth suggested that the Ty in this list was the owner of the beautifully decorated, well-known tomb no. 60 at Saqqara north, and that Rawer was the man of that name whose large tomb is well-known at Giza, in the Central Field East, just north of the Khentkawes Town.151 Estimates for the date of Ty’s tomb range from Niuserre to the end of the Fifth Dynasty.152 If this Ty died at the end of the reign of Niuserre,153 it would present a lag from the time of the papyrus text, if written in the reign of Djedkare, of 30 years or more. The name Rawer has been found on several tombs at Giza and Saqqara.154 The name occurs frequently in the Raneferef papyri, at the head of the śṯ phyle and with the titles śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty. For example, in fragment 4A, Rawer is at the head of those in charge of “the door which is under the staircase of the ḥm-nṯr’s room” (see above). The Rawer in the eastern Central Field East at Giza also held, among other titles, śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty.155 He lived during the reign of Neferirkare and his tomb texts were probably inscribed sometime before his death. If he died near the end of Neferirkare’s reign,156 he lived some 38 to 103 years before the reign of Djedkare, the time of the Abusir Papyri. Posener-Kriéger saw in the writing a difficulty in taking these names as one of the contemporary, living phyle leaders. In her main example of a parasite phyle from the Neferirkare papyri, the proprietor in question, the Vizier Minnefer, was probably dead at the time one or more (?) of his phyles—in one case (fragment 20–21) designated as the ɩ̓my-nfrt phyle of Min-nefer—served in Neferirkare’s pyramid temple.157 We may think then that Min-nefer’s estate 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 86. Strudwick, Administration, 158, no. 157. Baer, Rank and Title in the Old Kingdom, 152, no. 564. Half dozen at Giza: see PM III.1, index, 374. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 1–61. Baer, Rank and Title in the Old Kingdom, 98–99, no. 300 dates Rawer’s tomb to Neferirkare to the mid-Fifth Dynasty; Harper, Decoration in Egyptian Tombs, 186, places Rawer’s tomb in the early Fifth Dynasty, Userkaf to Raneferef. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 488, 568–72. Min-nefer was a Vizier under Niuserre, known from text and relief fragments from the Niuserre temple, and by his sarcophagus in the Leiden Museum (Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Ne-user-reꜤ, 73, 76), while the papyrus fragments that mention his phyle in the Neferirkare temple probably date to the reign of Djedkare Isesi. The time span in question extends from less than 30 to 60 years. Posener-Kriéger saw in the writing a difficulty in taking the name Min-nefer as one of the contemporary, living phyle leaders. In her estimation, it was the Min-nefer’s phyle itself that made a certain delivery, was held responsible for not returning an item, and was present in the temple when a section of wall fell, while the leader of this phyle (on behalf of Min-nefer’s estate) remains anonymous. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 267 ḏt, that is, his “corporation,” lived on after the founder passed away, i.e., “Minnefer is dead, long live Min-nefer.”158 Can we ask if ranking, yet defunct, court members are somehow represented by the phyles of their estates during rituals in the temple of the deceased king? To return to those seven names followed by a phyle sign and stroke, each entry is followed in turn by a note on a sealing imprinted by various unnamed officials. This series comes in an account and inspection of the sacred bark and possibly other cult objects.159 Posener-Kriéger analyzed the term tnt, which follows the entry, “the phyle of Min-nefer,” as denoting a platform or pavilion delivered for the embellishment of the temple on the occasion of a feast or celebration.160 Roth noted, for so-called “private mortuary cults,” special times when representatives of all the phyles came together, in particular for the ceremony of circumcision associated with induction into phyle membership, or for the feast of Thoth and the Wag feast.161 The Wag is a funerary feast. In tomb chapel texts the deceased asks to take part and receive offerings. Evidence from times later than the Old Kingdom indicates that the Wag feast involved glorification rituals (sꜢḫw) to make the deceased “effective.” Later texts concerning the Wag involve token or model boats and barks for the symbolic journey to Abydos. The Wag feast is mentioned several times in the Raneferef archive when large amounts of cloth 158 159 160 161 In counterpoint to New Kingdom and later examples, such as the Nineteenth Dynasty Legal Text of Mose concerning the long-lasting entailment of the Neshi lands (Gardiner, The Inscription of Mes; Gaballa, The Memphite Tomb of Mose; Allam, “Some remarks on the Trial of Mose”), scholars have commented that in Egypt’s earlier periods estates do not seem to have been long-lived. This may seem surprising in view of how characteristic large estates were for the way Egypt operated. Land, people, animals and other estate property, while sometimes held in trust, were eventually disbursed after the death of the householder, not only among family members, but also to ka-priests who enjoyed usufruct rights on the property and who could pass on these rights to their own heirs. In the early periods large household estates seem to have lasted no more than three or four generations, in counterpoint to, and perhaps prompting, the very notion, pr ḏt; Eyre, “Work and the organization of work,” 34; Baer, “An Eleventh Dynasty Farmer’s Letters to His Family,” 10. A basic pattern seems to be a local ruler and his wife as the center of a kin group linking one or two generations of ascendants and one generation of descendants, a “continuously repetitive cycle” of three or four generations (Lustig, “Kinship, Gender, and Age,” 62). Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 429–39. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 390. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 115, citing the chapel of Nj-ḫft-kꜢɩ̓ where the sḥḏw ḥmw-kꜢ from four of the five phyles are shown in procession; and for circumcision, the chapel of Ꜥnḫ-m-Ꜥ-ḥr, Badawy, Nyhetep-Ptah and ꜤAnkhmꜤahor, pl. 47. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 268 Lehner were distributed to the phyles, some of it to adorn cult statues. The archive establishes that the Wag was celebrated twice during the year, falling on dates in two different calendars, possibly civil and lunar.162 In the Raneferef papyri, fragments 11A–B, 12A, and 13, the phyles all come together with their divisions for the festivals of Wag and Thoth (Ḏḥwtt), insofar as they are tabulated in an account of textiles distributed for these festivals.163 Fragment 11 is especially important for obtaining the complete list of phyle divisions.164 In a horizontal register, the name of each phyle division is followed by the names of the Wag and Thoth festivals, which share a common determinative, a form of Gardiner sign-list Q6, the coffin sign, perhaps to indicate the funerary, memorial character of the celebration of these festivals in the temple. The name of each phyle representative comes next, followed by the amount of cloth reckoned. If the phyles were associations that cut across lineage, family, and large estates, rather than the so-called “private” phyles being “parasite” or a mimicking of royal practice by individual estate proprietors of middle to high rank and status, is it possible that these were the phyles serving in both “private” and “royal” rotations? Service by phyle would then involve contributions of goods and service in both directions—king’s temple and endowment to official’s chapel and endowment—in a rotational system that interlaced the mortuary and memorial services of court and king, past and present. The rotation through the royal temples of phyle representatives and their servants of the so-called “private” endowments would distribute the royal cult mystique and spirituality more than separate sets of individuals for each “private” tomb chapel and other sets of phyles for the royal temple. Perhaps a cross-cutting of phyle associations (like fraternities through separate universities) through households and estates, each of which contributed to the phyles rotating through the royal temples, is why we see no obvious overall director of all the phyles in the temple service, and why we yet see a range of trades identifying people in service, from cooks and potters to a physician of the Great House: “The papyri seem to indicate that they were the everyday occupations of men who happened to be enrolled in temple phyles and their occupations were no indication of what service they performed in the temple.”165 162 163 164 165 Posener-Kriéger, “Wag-Fest.” Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 46–47, pl. 11, 220–25; Posener-Kriéger, “Remarques préliminaires,” 35–43. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 366. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 370. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 269 Seeing the phyles as associations that crosscut household and family makes congruent phyles in temple, tomb and pyramid building. For making inferences about building the early, truly gigantic pyramids, which must have involved people in the thousands, Vassil Dobrev pointed to the limitations of the Abusir Papyri which account for 200–250 people at most serving the memorial service of a king.166 But we know that authorities did organize by phyle the workforce for building the large pyramids of the early Old Kingdom.167 In traditional societies it is a feature of broad sodalities crosscutting household, tribe and lineage that leaders draw upon these associations to form special purpose groups to make war, form expeditions, and carry out so-called “public works.”168 In the Wedjebten case, an individual who received shares of the queen’s estate appears to have passed those rights down a family line. In this regard we might note an opposing desideratum, expressed in tomb chapel documents, that priests attached to the “private” memorial chapels be protected from the deceased’s family members “who might interfere with their rights to the fruits of the mortuary endowment.”169 Or does this really amount to a material difference? We should note that phyles must have been operative in some way in the cult of Wedjebten, since the person, or two persons, named Iqeri held the title “Scribes of the Phyle” (zš n zꜢ) as did Seankhenptah,170 and this title is frequent in mastaba chapels since the Fifth Dynasty.171 If a transition occurred from service in chapels and temples in return for shares in endowments arranged by phyle, to an arrangement more by household or office, perhaps it is reflected in the transition away from the large Ꜥprw-crews attested in builders’ graffiti to work crews named after persons and officials who dispatched labor to build both royal and noblepersons tombs, a trend that began already in the Fifth Dynasty, with the latter system predominating by the time of Pepi I.172 However, builders’ graffiti with socalled “private” names and titles did not totally replace the Ꜥpr gangs named 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 Dobrev, “Administration of the Pyramid,” 31. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 119–43. Harris and Johnson, Cultural Anthropology, 165–66. An issue to be explored further concerns the unnamed phyles of the provinces, against the attestation of the five named phyles (wr, sṯ, wꜢḏt, nḏs, and ɩ̓myt-nfr) found only in the Memphite cemeteries, Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 210–11. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 116, n. 102 for references to tombs in Goedicke, Die privaten Rechtinschriften. Jéquier, Oudjebten, 24, fig. 22, 24, fig. 30. Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 99–101, 104–06, 113. Andrassy, “Builders’ Graffiti and Administrative Aspects.” For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 270 Lehner after kings, through which workers rotated according to their phyle, as such gang and phyle names have also been found in builders’ graffiti from the Pepi I Pyramid.173 In fact we see here in building, as in temple service, two facets of the same system: “a whole range of dignitaries of different social levels” contribute labor of their people to phyle formations subordinated to their authority as holders of certain rank and office.174 6 MVT, KKT and Owners of Tombs in the Central Field East The Neferirkare Papyri include the names of owners of the large mastabas at Abusir and Saqqara. In the Raneferef Papyri we find the name, Rawer, with the titles śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty. We have evidence that links two owners of tombs in the nearby Central Field East cemetery to the MVT occupation, and one of these is a Rawer, with the same titles. We suspect a link between Central Field tomb owners and the MVT occupation, similar to the links between the Wedjebten compound and owners of tombs around the Pepi II complex. The Khentkawes Town (KKT) lies between the Central Field East and the MVT. The link to the second official, Irereu, draws our attention to the KKT, and to the possibility that they functioned together as one pyramid town. The link to the tomb of Rawer, śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty, in the Central Field East, while tenuous, involves the two matching sets of four alabaster column bases found in Vestibule 1 (room 377) inside the main entrance of the MVT and in Vestibule 2 (room 202) in the eastern Annex. 6.1 Alabaster175 Altars of Rawer Round column bases are more a feature of the Fifth Dynasty temples at Abusir than Fourth Dynasty temples at Giza.176 Builders installed round limestone 173 174 175 176 Vymazalová, “Administration of Royal Funerary Complexes,” 182, n. 21 citing personal communication with V. Dobrev. Andrassy, “Builders’ Graffiti and Administrative Aspects”; Verner, “Abusir Pyramid Builders’ Crews,” 450. Here, until further analysis, I use the crude term “alabaster” and forgo the discussion of calcite, calcite alabaster, travertine, or gypsum; see Willems, et al., “An Industrial Site,” 295, n. 9. Saleh, “Excavations Around the Mycerinus Pyramid Complex,” 138 characterized the stone in the industrial settlement southeast of the Menkaure Pyramid as “yellow-red calcite (or crystalline calcium) stones which resemble alabaster.” The monolithic square pillars in the Khafre Valley Temple are the best preserved kind of pillar installed, or planned, for the upper pyramid temples of Khufu, Khafre, and the portico of Menkaure’s upper temple. Egyptian builders certainly knew round pillars and For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 271 column bases, smaller than those in the MVT and Annex, in the porticos of the chapels of subsidiary pyramids GIII-a and GIII-c.177 The “second temple” phase of the MVT featured two round limestone column bases flanking the rebuilt entrance to the offering hall and four more in the offering hall (Fig. 6.2).178 However, being of alabaster, the large column bases in Vestibules 1 and 2 in the MVT find their closest parallels in the Fifth Dynasty tomb of Rawer in the eastern Central Field at Giza. In his autobiographical text found in his tomb, Rawer relates an incident in which he accidentally touched or tripped upon King Neferirkare’s staff, whereby the king exonerated the śm-priest and commanded that the incident be inscribed in this tomb.179 Hassan found it in serdab no. 12, one of 25 serdabs, which, with 20 niches, contained some of the more than 100 statues of Rawer. The text confirms that this Rawer lived in the reign of Neferirkare.180 Rawer’s workers set one of two round alabaster bases—both apparently used as altars, in a box-like frame of crude limestone slabs in the open court of his tomb.181 Like the alabaster bases in the MVT and Annex, the circle was fashioned in relief 8.5 cm high with beveled sides on a massive block. Located at the side of the court, against a wall, and encased with slabs, the base does appear to have been used as some kind of altar. Although a crude limestone- 177 178 179 180 181 bases before. See Phillips, The Columns of Egypt, 36, fig. 64 for “the earliest round stone column base” found in Egypt, in the Khasekhemwy enclosure at Hierakonpolis, with a circle of raised relief on a massive irregular square block meant to be set below floor level, similar to the form of the alabaster column bases in the MVT; Badawy, Architecture in Ancient Egypt and the Near East, 69–70. The engaged three-quarter, round columns of the Djoser Step Pyramid complex, representing ribbed or fluted columns in reed or wood, stood upon three-quarter round stone bases, for example, in the funerary temple and entrance hall, Lauer, Histoire monumentale, 101, fig. 30; 112, fig. 34, pls. 18–19. Firth and Quibell, The Step Pyramid, 13 suggest the round bases may have copied beds of clay in which the lower ends of reed prototypes may have been set. Reisner, Mycerinus, 57, plan IV; 67, plan V. Reisner, Mycerinus, 47. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 18, fig. 13; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 305–06, no. 227. The date of the construction of the tomb is controversial. Cherpion, Mastabas et hypogées, 227 dated it to the reign of Shepseskaf, noting that the story of the encounter with the Neferirkare’s staff was inscribed on a stela that could have been inserted into the serdab later. The tomb, strung out on a long, downward slope from north to south, with tentacle-like lateral extensions along the way, must have been built incrementally, and not at one discrete period. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 21, fig. 15 for position in plan, pl. 25.2. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 272 Lehner block column was built upon it in recent times, I was able to measure the top diameter as 90 cm, on a base 130 × 150 × 44 cm. Hassan found Rawer’s other alabaster altar in a chamber at the southern end of the tomb, immediately north of another serdab (no. 23).182 The altar may relate to the statue in the serdab. This altar also took the form of a column base, but with the front of the base carved into a vertical relief panel that shows Rawer wearing the panther skin of a śm-priest and holding a staff and a stave, framed by text, giving, from top to bottom and down either side, his titles in double.183 I note Rawer’s use of alabaster because the name Rawer from the MVT was inscribed on fragments of an alabaster stela or other monument, and in light of the fact that his two column-base-shaped altars are alabaster, like the column bases in the MVT and Annex. Rawer favored alabaster for special purposes, though most of his statues are limestone. In addition to an alabaster statue, perhaps one of a series that stood in 5 niches in the offering hall at the northern part of the tomb,184 art historians admire Rawer’s alabaster stela, showing Rawer’s face in fine sunken relief, some of his principle titles in hieroglyphs above his head, his body rendered in lines lightly etched.185 Hassan found the stela in situ, set into a special niche (no. 14), accessed via a double-leaf door and steps.186 6.2 Rawer in the MVT Reisner found the name and title, Rawer, śm-priest, on fragments of an alabaster monument in the apartments occupying the southern half of the MVT court settlement (see Fig. 6.3). In the middle of the court, a copper hes-vase, 34 cm. high; in room (I-320) a mass of fragments of an alabaster statue (no. 24b); in room (I-323) fragment of an alabaster stela (“the sm-priest, Rawer”) and many fragments of statues, stone vessels, and pottery, including the arm of statue No. 18, found in the portico.187 182 183 184 185 186 187 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 31, fig. 24 for position in plan. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, fig. 25, pl. 32. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 10, pl. 10. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, pls. 27–28; Labbé-Toutée and Ziegler, “Stela of Rawer.” Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 24–26, fig. 18 for position in plan. Reisner, Mycerinus, 38. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 273 Among the alabaster statue fragments in, or associated with, room 323 was an arm of one of the four life-size royal statues in alabaster placed in the offering hall, just west of the four column bases, flanking the door to the sanctuary (see Fig. 6.2).188 The lack of detailed stratigraphic control of the finds within the deposits associated with the structures leaves us ignorant of more precise provenance—whether from the debris of collapse of the structure, in the postoccupation fill, on or under the floor. This is unfortunate because we would like to test the idea of a connection between the Central Field East tomb owners and the apartments in the MVT, the kind of connection we see between the Wedjebten pyramid and between the Abusir pyramid temples and owners of tombs in the nearby cemeteries at those sites. Other than the aforementioned Rawer of the elaborate tomb in the Central Field East (Fig. 6.10), we know of at least four other tomb owners at Giza named Rawer.189 This Rawer in the Central Field East starts his title strings with śm-priest or śmr-wꜤtj in lists with the beginnings preserved.190 As far as I am able to ascertain, none of the other individuals named Rawer in tombs at Giza include the titles śm-priest or śmr-wꜤtj. The Rawer in the Raneferef papyri was also śm-priest and śmr-wꜤtj. Let us focus more closely on the relief-carved alabaster stela fragment (11.716) with the name Rawer that Reisner found “in the upper part of the debris of decay” in one of the rooms (323) of Occupation 2.191 The Rawer fragment belonged to a scene of pairs of male figures who held staves in one hand and batons in the other.192 To the left, the name and title Rawer, śm-priest, are incised into the one baton head that shows. Between the two staves the text wrw ḥb is part of the title, wꜤ (m) wr(w) ḥb, “Unique One of the Greatest of the 188 189 190 191 192 Reisner, Mycerinus, 110, no. 18d, plan VIII. PM III.1, 374 for index to references; Rawer I and II in the Western Cemetery, Junker, Giza III, 217–35; Rawer III in the Central Field West, west of the Khentkawes monument (=LG 94), Hassan, Excavations at Gîza V, 293–97; the small tomb of Rawer, Instructor of Singers in the Central Field East, Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 66–68. Also, there is the name Rawer, son of Nj-wḏꜢ-Ptḥ, inscribed on an offering stand, Abu Bakr, Excavations at Giza, 116, fig. 95, pl. lviii. For example, at the beginning of the biographical inscription, or on the sculpted panel of the alabaster altar, Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 18, fig. 13, 32, fig. 25. This would be rooms of Occupation 2, since in the southern part of the court Reisner found only two periods of secondary mudbrick structures, Reisner, Mycerinus, 38, entry for February 24–26, 1910. Reisner, Mycerinus, 281, pl. 46g; MFA 11.716, photo. No. B588_NS; AAW1721. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 274 Lehner Festival,”193 which Hassan found four times in the tomb of the śm-priest Rawer of the Central Field East. This title is included in the text on the front panel of the circular altar in the offering room of serdab no. 23.194 Reisner’s team found yet another fragment of an alabaster inscription (11.716c), part of an altar or stela, in the sand filling a “thieves hole” in the northern wall of the court.195 On this piece, text reading Mn-nḫt to the right of Rawer’s name has been taken as another name, Min-nakht, perhaps another śm-priest, since the ś of śm is preserved just below.196 However, this is, in fact, another of Rawer’s titles, ḫt-Mnw, Khet-priest/Attendant of Min.197 In sum, there is a good chance that the Rawer, śm-prɩ̓est, whose name is inscribed on alabaster fragments from, or associated with, or in proximity to, the MVT occupation was the owner of the large tomb to the north, in the Central Field East (Fig. 6.10). This is just what Bertha Porter, Rosalind Moss, and Jaromir Málek concluded.198 It is probable that this is the Rawer, śmr-wꜤtj, listed, and probably once depicted, in the pyramid temple of Sahure at Abusir, as attested by fragments.199 So did one of the MVT court apartments belong to Rawer? If the find spot of one of the stela fragments bearing Rawer’s name indicates this room belonged to him, he might have been the proprietor of apartments 5 and 6 (see Fig. 6.3). If, as Reisner thought, rooms 323, 331, 310, and corridor 325 were an enlargement of apartment 5 on the far east side of the court, the largest apartment (no. 5) would have belonged to Rawer. Certainly inscribed objects can move about over time, as the dispersal of Menkaure’s statue fragments within the temple attest. However, we might consider the possibility that a stela, altar, or possibly a statue too, of Rawer was installed in the chambers of the southern court similar to the way such items were framed in mudbrick in niches and serdabs inside his sprawling tomb. The finds in the Wedjebten enclosure suggest we should at least consider that stelae or statues of so-called “private” persons of rank came to be included within 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 Jones, Index I, 366, no. 1353. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 6, 32, fig. 25, 34, no. 11, 35, no. 21. Reisner, Mycerinus, 281, pl. A, no. 7, MFA 11.716c, photo no. AAW1720, SC78842 for both fragments together. Reisner, Mycerinus, 281; and The Giza Archives, http://www.gizapyramids.org/view/ people/asitem/Objects@25797/0?t:state:flow=ca9c9cb6-9d94-412d-b582-a613ef485349 (Oct. 25, 2013). Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 2; Jones, Index II, 756, no. 2753. PM III.1, 269. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sáḥu-reꜤ, Bl. 49. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders Figure 6.10 275 Selim Hassan’s map of the Central Field East, with the tomb complexes of Rawer and Ireru outlined, and the Khentkawes monument and town, the Menkaure Valley Temple (MVT) and its eastern Annex. From Hassan, Excavations at Giza IX, foldout plan. North is to the right. the temple. Perhaps these were the living or dead leaders of phyles as documented in the Abusir papyri, while those who spent time, in shifts, in such diminutive apartments as those in the MVT court were ḏt-servants and phyle members of their estates. 6.3 Ireru in Temple, Tomb and Town Another name on an individual’s inscribed monument found in the MVT suggests another link, tenuous but worth considering, with the Central Field East, as well as with the adjacent Khentkawes Town (KKT). On March 29, 1910, Reisner wrote in his diary that he found in the western doorway of Vestibule 1 (room 377) a lintel “from the top piece of a door or false door with the common offering formula [he adds a sketch]. This comes from the tomb of a man named Iar(u) (or Ir-r(w)) or Ir-l(w), which appears to me For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 276 Lehner to be late in date. . . .”200 Reisner connected the lintel with a square burial pit cut through the southern wall of the vestibule.201 Like many offering formulae, the text invokes funerary offerings for the New Year, Thoth, and Wag festivals.202 Like the tomb of Rawer, the tomb of Ireru203 in the Central Field East was unknown when Reisner excavated the MVT. The tomb is dated to the end of the Fifth Dynasty or the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty.204 This Ireru bore the titles rḫ-nzwt or ɩ̓ry ḫt nzwt (One Known to the King),205 wꜤb nzwt (Royal Purification Priest),206 and ɩ̓my-rꜢ pr-šnꜤ ɩ̓Ꜥb-r nswt (Overseer of the Storehouse of the King’s Repast).207 The lintel Reisner found in the MVT is carved in raised relief, while most of the scenes and texts in Ireru’s tomb, such as the false doors, are carved in sunken relief, but the offering scene in the tomb is raised relief. While we 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 Reisner Diary, 37, Tuesday, March 29, 1910; http://www.gizapyramids.org/view/ diaries/asitem/search@/1/objectNumber-asc?t:state:flow=05919453-e8cb-45b4-80aeee2d01c58893, February 19, 2014. Reisner, Mycerinus, 281, stated that the two pieces of the lintel were in the same debris as the decree of Pepi II but lower down, about 30 cm above the floor (about the floor level of Occupation 2 in the court). On p. 38 he mistakenly states (the publication came 21 years after the excavation) that the decree of Pepi II was found on March 26 in the doorway between room 377 and the court. His photograph of the decree, pl. 34d, (Photograph CS2538_NS, taken March 24, 1910) shows the limestone slab lying in front of a projection or pilaster. The caption states the view is, “looking east,” which must make this one of the pilasters flanking the main MT entrance on the west side of the MVT eastern wall, or the east wall of room 377. Photograph C2539_NS, taken March 24, 1910 is a view to the south from what must be the southeastern interior corner of Vestibule 1 (room 377). The Pepi II stela (white, square object, lower left corner) lies in front of what must be the southern interior pilaster flanking the MVT main entrance. See Lehner, “Excavation Review: The Eastern Menkaure Valley Temple.” If I am correct in my correction, the Pepi II decree and the lintel turned up in the eastern and western doorways respectively of room 377. The note that the lintel lay at a lower level, possibly an underlying stratum, is stratigraphically significant in relating the lintel to Occupation 2, which was founded on a layer of debris 20 cm thick near the center of the court. Reisner, Mycerinus, 281, pls. A and pl. 64d-e where the photograph is mistakenly captioned “decree of Pepi II.” See The Giza Archives, http://www.gizapyramids.org/view/ photos, C2868_NS, C2869_NS. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza III, 57–71. PM III.1, 280; 70; Bolshakov, “Osiris in the Fourth Dynasty, Again?,” 71. Jones, Index I, 327, no. 1206, 493 no. 1841. Jones, Index I, 373, no. 1382. .” Fischer, Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy, 53; Meulenaere, “Le signe de hiéroglyphe For ɩ̓my-rꜢ pr-šnꜤ, Jones, Index I, 125–26, no. 501. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 277 have on the lintel only the title rḫ-nzwt, in PM III.1, the match of name is taken as sufficient to identify the owner of the lintel with the Ireru of the tomb in the Central Field East.208 Making an inference of longer reach, Hassan suggested that Ireru probably lived in the house (Building E)209 in the Khentkawes Town (KKT) directly in front of his mastaba (Figs. 6.10–6.12), for the reason that Hassan found in the northern reception area of this house the bases of four circular silos. He related the silos to Ireru’s title, ɩ̓my-rꜢ pr-šnꜤ ɩ̓Ꜥb-r nswt, which Hassan took as “Overseer of the Granary.”210 Hassan mentions five silos, and there is certainly room for a fifth in the northwest corner of the L-shaped chamber (room 75+79 on Hassan’s plan), which would make it a match with the five-silo chamber that the AERA team found in 2011–2012 east of the Khentkawes basin,211 in the Silo Building Complex (see below), albeit with the L-shaped chamber flipped so the short end is east. Once again we could think of the five phyles, on analogy with five storage magazines labeled with the five phyle names, as in the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Meruruka at Saqqara. The AERA team re-cleared this house, which we designated Building E, and found that the silos did not exist in the original layout and construction. They were installed during an intermediate phase, before a period of abandonment and a reoccupation commensurate with the “second temple” phase of the MVT, probably in the Sixth Dynasty.212 The installation of the Building E silos at some point between the late Fourth Dynasty founding of the KKT and the Sixth Dynasty reoccupation would fit temporally with the dating of Ireru’s tomb to the mid- to late Fifth Dynasty, roughly contemporary with the Abusir Papyri, that is, the reigns Djedkare or Unas. Note that during the phase when people built the silos, they also blocked access to this room (numbered 75+79) from Building E, so that they could only access the silos from adjacent Building F. By blocking certain doorways, the houses “intermingled” or were conjoined. If Ireru were the proprietor of these silos, probably granaries, he 208 209 210 211 212 PM III.1, 280. As designated in AERA’s mapping of the KKT, Lehner, Kamal and Tavares, “Excavations: The Khentkawes Town,” 8, fig. 2; see also figure 6.12, below. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 38, fig. 1, foldout map. Aeragram, “KKT-E+: The Buried Basin and the Town Beyond” and “Conundrums and Surprises”; AERA, “The Silo Building Complex.” Lehner, “KKT-N: Building E 2009 Introduction,” and Yeomans and Mahmoud, “KKT-N: Building E”; Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaus Town,” 158; Tavares and Yeomans, “A House Through Time.” For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 278 Lehner Figure 6.11 Lisa Yeomans, Hanan Mahmoud, and crew work in Building E in 2009. The mastaba of Ireru, partially reconstructed, rises immediately north of House E. (The northern enclosure wall and corridor would have separated the house from the mastaba at the time both were functioning). View to the northeast. would have commanded in his time the expanse of two of the modular houses north of the causeway.213 We are following a chain of hypotheses, unfortunately based on facts all too few, but of heuristic value. Underlings who rotated in service, when they would occupy the small apartments in the MVT court, represented (“substituted” for) higher-ranking officials responsible for services, offerings, and redistributions in the MVT during Occupation 2. Perhaps the officials marked their claims with monuments installed within the court and its invasive structures, like those found in the enclosure of Wedjebten. These officials lived, at least during periods of service, in the significantly larger houses of the KKT. Some of them built inscribed tombs at Giza, some in the Central Field East, directly north of the KKT. This line of thought brings up two separate but closely related issues: the relationship between the MVT and KKT, and the relationship of both to the largely Fifth Dynasty cemetery in the Central Field East. 213 Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaus Town,” 158. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 279 6.4 Combined Pyramid Town of Menkaure? In his seminal article and subsequent publications about pyramid towns, Rainer Stadelmann saw the occupation within the MVT court, the houses of the KKT, and the extramural houses off the northeastern corner of the MVT as a coherent ensemble, part of the pyramid town, “Menkaure is Divine” (after the name of the third pyramid), indeed the only excavated example of a pyramid town, with the valley temple as the administrative and cultural center.214 The Pepi II decree is directed to the pyramid town of Menkaure (see section 1).215 Therefore, some settlement in proximity to the Menkaure pyramid complex qualified as a member of that emic category, “pyramid town,” in the Egyptian lexicon of the late Old Kingdom. In a recent review of “pyramid town” as an entry in Egyptologists’ lexicon, Bussmann treats the MVT occupation and the KKT separately. He states “Das Wissen um die Pyramidenstädte des Alten Reiches gründet sich im wesentlichen auf das Dahshurdekret von Pepi I. aus dem Taltempel der Roten Pyramide.”216 Bussmann sees the 13-ha217 Middle Kingdom pyramid town of Senwosret II at Kahun as representative of what we might expect of a pyramid town of the Old Kingdom. He surveys the close parallels between Kahun and KKT,218 and concludes that the provisioning structure and the ratio between house-sizes of a pyramid town should be based on the KKT (see below), but he rejects the KKT itself as a pyramid town on the basis of the much smaller size of the KKT compared to Kahun.219 In sorting settlement structures associated with pyramids into his own strict 214 215 216 217 218 219 Stadelmann, “La ville de pyramide,” 71–72, “Pyramidenstadt,” 9, and Die ägyptischen Pyramiden, 215. In the latter publication, Stadelmann takes the empty space between the MVT and KKT as part of the town yet to be excavated. The huge, compact mound of quarry debris that occupies this space could cover more settlement, but it is my impression that is a massive dump of quarry waste such as the KKT and MVT builders used to landscape and terrace the rest of the combined settlements, Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaus Town,” 146–47, fig. 3. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 205–11 treats the MVT and KKT occupations as one combined settlement. KD, 153 and 16–21 for the decree of Shepseskaf, which might imply the existence of the pyramid town, if it does not specify the town, as opposed to the pyramid per se. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 34. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 211. Both exhibit town planning, thick enclosure walls, standardized units, and a position adjacent to the memorial tomb of a ruler, Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 36–37. Bussmann “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 20, n. 18, 37, citing Alexanian and Seidlmayer “Die Residenznekropole von Dahschur, Erster Grabungsbericht,” also argues for larger sizes for pyramid towns on the basis of the extent (6 ha) of settlement indicated in boreholes around the location of the valley temple of the northern Dahshur pyramid. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 280 Lehner typological scheme (workers’ settlements, work places, priests’ settlements, and true pyramid towns), Bussmann judges the KKT and the MVT occupation as only priests’ settlements. Yet, if the Pepi II decree for the Menkaure Pyramid town, like the Pepi I decree for the Sneferu pyramid town, means we need a settlement of considerable size, 3 to 13 ha, as the referent for the pyramid town of Menkaure, where could it be? Until recently, those who comment on the question assume that settlement invaded the Annex and MVT court from the east, or that in this direction lay the real extent of the Menkaure Pyramid town.220 It is possible that the “foot” end of the L-shaped KKT turns again to extend farther east, as indicated by a turn eastward on Hassan’s map to the KKT east enclosure wall. Part of the town may extend east, peninsular-like, between the Khentkawes basin and a basin fronting the MVT Annex.221 Hassan’s test trenches in the modern cemetery immediately east of Building M suggested the settlement continued just here.222 But since we established that the Annex terrace, only 12 to 18.5 m wide, drops two meters on the east in a steep glacis, probably into a basin like that east of the KKT,223 it is doubtful that settlement extended immediately east of the MVT plus its Annex. It is also unlikely that the settlement extends south of the MVT, given the way the causeway corridor of the “first temple” or southern wall of the “second temple” close off this side.224 Stadelmann thought more of the town lay to the north-northwest of the MVT in the empty space between the MVT and the northern “leg” of the KKT along the Khentkawes causeway. This is likely a huge pile of quarry waste over bedrock.225 So, can we see the MVT and KKT as an urban and administrative unity (Fig. 6.12)? The short time-span between the reigns of Menkaure and Userkaf, 220 221 222 223 224 225 So thought Reisner, Mycerinus, 49. He stated that his team traced the southern wall of the “second temple” for 70 m east of the MVT. East of the MVT, the southern enclosure wall of the corridor of the first temple likely bounds the southern side of a deep depression or basin like that east of the KKT (see text). By the time of the southern wall of the second temple, built above the earlier wall, the basin might have been filled with sand like the basin east of the KKT, see Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 172–75, 178–79. Maragioglio and Rinaldi, l’Architettura VI, 76 also thought the Menkaure pyramid town could extend east of the Annex, and this is where Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 34 implies the town could be. See Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 189–91, fig. 25. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 41. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 188–89, fig. 25. See Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 183, n. 143, Reisner, Mycerinus, 36. See Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 146–47, fig. 3. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 281 the transition from the Fourth to the Fifth Dynasty, requires that Shepseskaf had to finish his mudbrick works for Menkaure and that the Khentkawes Town had to be built in its L-shaped final form within seven years, and possibly in as little as two years.226 Practically, the two parts were built within the same timeframe. The mudbricks of Shepseskaf’s works on Menkaure’s causeway, temples, and queens’ chapels are similar or the same as those of the KKT in its first phase.227 Also, we might note again the paucity of silos that could have served as granaries, eight or nine total, over the expanse of the KKT with some dozen or more houses and more than 160 domestic rooms (though some of the chambers in the southern foot of the town probably served as magazines).228 While the domestic rooms in the MVT—best known from Occupation 2 in the southern court and southern Annex, are quite small in number, from Reisner’s multiphase map (see Fig. 6.2) we can count 25 bins and silos from Occupation 1, 11 bins and silos of Occupation 2 (excluding the rooms of the apartments), and 37 small chambers, bins, and silos during Occupation 3 (counting all chambers). If the MVT and KKT functioned together, the MVT appears to have been the grain reserve.229 On the other hand, Bussmann takes the gridded, cell-like rooms (nos. 13–17 in Hassan’s plan) of the building immediately east of the Khentkawes monument, that is, at the far western end of the KKT and the causeway, as a granary,230 along the lines of Kemp’s analysis of the Middle Kingdom gridded-chamber granaries in the Meketre models, in the town of Kahun, and in the Nubian cataract forts.231 Using Kemp’s values for the caloric value of grain to determine the number of people that could be fed from a given capacity, Bussmann suggests that this grid of rooms served as central storage for enough grain to feed the entire KKT settlement. This is a worthwhile hypothesis, but hard to test. It would help to see other examples of such grid-granaries in the Old Kingdom. I know of no others before the Middle Kingdom. Rather, the central storage we have found in the “Royal Administrative Building” at the HeG (so-called 226 227 228 229 230 231 Verner, “Archaeological Remarks on the 4th and 5th Dynasty Chronology,” 383. The strong impression is that these vast mudbrick works took place after major quarrying and building in monolithic limestone and granite had stopped, though stonework continued on “private” tombs in the cemeteries; Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 180, 185–88. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, fig. 1, rooms 165–66, 169–73, 176–79. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 184. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 27–29. Kemp, “Large Middle Kingdom Granary Buildings” and Anatomy of a Civilization, 211–17, figs. 76–77, 240–41. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 282 Figure 6.12 Lehner Above (a). The Khentkawes Town and Menkaure Valley Temple adapted from Selim Hassan's plan. Below (b). Close-up of the MVT Annex, modified from Selim Hassan and Resiner's plans. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 283 “Workers’ Town”) site used large, round silos.232 The alternative hypothesis is that the gridded room structure on the western end of the KKT served for the funerary services of the queen, being located exactly beside her chapel, basin, and courtyard along the eastern base of her monument. If the MVT and KKT combined were the referent for the pyramid town of Menkaure, how might they have functioned together? Stadelmann and Felix Arnold suspected that ḥm-nṯr priests resided in the causeway houses of the KKT.233 The Abusir Papyri hint that these priests enjoyed higher status than the ḫntjw-š or the wꜤb (purification) priests: In many respects, ḥm nṯr-priests and land tenants [ḫntjw-š] fulfilled the same tasks, yet the former seem to have been more privileged: ḥm nṯrpriests had, for instance, direct access to the offering hall and the offerings which were presented there on the altar, whereas the land tenants and the wꜤb-priests took their shares in offerings presented beyond the intimate parts of the temple.234 It is not easy to map rank and status of titles onto houses, even if clear-cut strata were obvious from texts and titles. Hassan distinguished three house size classes:235 the “mansions” in the southern “foot” end of the L-shaped town (K-L-M), the medium size (A–F) houses north of the causeway to the west (not counting the last building on the west, which takes a different layout, and appears to consist of magazines; see above), and the smaller houses (G-H-I-J), lacking the northern reception area due to the southward jog in the northern enclosure wall (Fig. 6.12). We can distinguish ten units north of the causeway. The six medium-size houses (A–F) show the greatest correspondence of plan or modularity. If Buildings E and F already functioned as one unit in the time the silos were installed,236 this would leave five units west of the jog, and we might again think 232 233 234 235 236 Lehner, “The Pyramid Age Settlement,” 62–64, fig. 17. Stadelmann, Die ägyptischen Pyramiden, 214–15; Arnold, “Priesterhäuser der Chenkaues.” Arnold suggested that the eastern houses of the town may have been for the ḫntjw-š, because they lacked the constricted zig-zag entrances onto the causeway like those houses to the west, which he assumes housed ḥmw-nṯr-priests. Arnold must have meant the smaller houses north of the causeway on the east (see fig. 23 here), and not the larger houses south of the causeway, see Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 27, n. 69. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 365. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 36 ff. Yeomans and Mahmoud, “KKT-N, Building E,” 48–49; Tavares and Yeomans, “A House Through Time,” 11. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 284 Lehner of the five phyles. On the other hand, six units plus Building G, which corresponds to the others to the west, but lacks the northern reception space, brings the number to seven, equal to the number of apartments in the Raneferef temple court. In Hassan’s plan,237 buildings H, I and J show considerable variation from the units to the west. Buildings I and J show no access to the causeway corridor through their southern walls. Unfortunately, we can no longer check these variations, because most of the walls of these units had eroded away down to bedrock before our investigations began in 2005. However, enough remained for Lisa Yeomans to determine that I and J existed in some form before the causeway was laid out. This early layout may have been associated with MVT and the administration of Menkaure’s building works.238 The six or seven more modular units of medium-size range correspond in number to the seven units in the Raneferef court temple (see Fig. 6.8), or the five to six apartments of Occupation 2 in the MVT court (see Fig. 6.3). We do not know whether this substantiates some standard number of units,239 or a correspondence to phyles or phyle sections. But we must note the correspondence. Taking Building E as representative, the area covered by each of the modular units west of the jog in the enclosure wall measure 189 m2. Of the units south of the causeway, Building K covers 213 m2 and Building M, measured off Hassan’s map, covers 319 m2.240 These units are midrange between two houses 237 238 239 240 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, fig. 1. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 147–52. Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 204–05, fig. 72, distinguishes on Borchardt’s plan 10 units in the mudbrick additions to the southern and eastern sides of the Neferirkare temple, including one extra-large unit north of the entrance hall. From Borchardt’s plan, in Nefer-ír-keꜢ-ReꜤ the room structure south of the entrance hall might also be taken as another exceptionally large unit. Borchardt, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Nefer-ír-keꜢReꜤ, 36, stated that the walls here were so fragmentary that he could not determine the overall structure or function. His plan shows a rectangular feature enclosing a smaller rectangle in the southeastern corner of this complex. Of this space he wrote the following: “Ebenso weiß ich mit einer in der Südostecke (f,8) des Ganzen liegenden Erhöhung, bei der auch goldete Holzreste gefunden werden, nichts zu machen. Ob dort irgend ein Thron oder Baldachin gestanden hat?” And: “Auch on der merkwürdigen Stufe in der SO-Ecke (f,8), die dort eine quadratische Vertiefung umschließt, kann ich nicht Erklärung geben”; Borchardt, Das Grabdenkiral des Königs Nefer-ír- keꜢ-ReꜤ, 12 and 36. Borchardt recognized five units of four size classes, but concluded that unrecognized units south of the entrance hall might have brought the total to 10, along the lines that Kemp designated. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 27 gives 320 m2 for the large southern eastern houses, and 160 m2 for the 10 houses north of the causeway. Differences depend on whether one includes walls or which walls, when contiguous units share walls. For Building E, I have included the width of one wall on one side and one end, since the units share walls. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 285 in the HeG site south of the Wall of the Crow, the Eastern Town House at 100 m2, and House Unit 1 at 400 m2, which is the largest the AERA team has so far excavated at Giza.241 Comparing the areas of these KKT houses to the apartments in the MVT (Fig. 6.3), the largest, unit 1, is 49.62 m2, whereas the smallest, unit 3, is 16.80 m2; and mid-range, unit 4, is 38.44 m2. If we combine unit 5 (37.12 m2) with unit 6 (39.69 m2), as Reisner suggested, it would be the largest at 76.81 m2.242 The areas of these units are comparable to the apartments in the Raneferef court (Fig. 6.9); for example, F on the northern side is 16.76 m2; H-I on the southern side is 26.75 m2; and apartment P-S-T, the “house of the ḥm nṯrpriest,” is 27.93 m2.243 As we have pointed out elsewhere,244 Ian Shaw’s house groups 9 and 10 of “important administrators” at Amarna range 400 to 500 m2.245 A proper account of areal size and status should take into account the number of people per roofed floor space, which was most probably not constant,246 and in the case of temple towns, we might also consider possible rotation of residents. Perhaps we should expect smaller sizes for accommodations that were only temporary for persons (but maybe not household staff) in rotation. Of course, the idea of residency in rotation defeats individual proprietorship like that Hassan suggested for Ireru and Building E (see above).247 Also, the small apartments of the MVT and Raneferef temple courts and the houses of KKT fall into a range between small and large housing units at Avaris. Manfred Bietak discusses increasing differentiation in the areal size of house plans at the end of the Twelfth Dynasty and through the Thirteenth Dynasty at Avaris, a time when house sizes tended to increase overall.248 He notes that during phase E-3 “ordinary” tripartite houses in area F/I, “which seems to be an upper class quarter,” range between 68 and 280 m2. Except for Building M, the 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 The small differences, such as those with Bussmann’s values, do not affect the general comparisons. Lehner, “KKT-N,” 36. Measured off Reisner, Mycerinus, plan VIII. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 26 gives 15 to 40 m2 for these units. Measured off the foldout map in Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology. Lehner and Tavares, “Walls, Ways and Stratigraphy,” 211. Shaw, “Ideal Homes in Ancient Egypt.” Kemp, Anatomy of a Civilization, 218–21, fig. 79. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 27 cites hearths and grinding stones as evidence of residence, but suggests household proprietorship and families would characterize a true pyramid town and distinguish it from a priests’ settlement, which he judges KKT to be. Bietak, “Houses, Palaces and Development of Social Structure,” 17–19. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 286 Lehner KKT houses correspond to the high end of this range. The size range of the MVT apartments overlaps with the size range 50–82 m2 of smaller two-chamber houses of the same part and period of Avaris, while the Raneferef apartments fall below this range. Bietak suggests these smaller houses “could have been owned by the serfs of the residents of the bigger houses.”249 The point of comparison with Bietak’s analysis of Avaris housing is that the KKT houses correspond in area to the houses at the larger end of the scale, while the apartments in the Raneferef and MVT courts correspond to the smaller end of the scale. For the sake of heuristics, we try to relate these house size classes to status and title. In spite of three house size classes noted by Hassan, Bussmann saw two groups.250 We might imagine that it was not individuals of high rank who stayed in the MVT court apartments, but rather their ḏt servants or other subordinates.251 So, for example, in Raneferef fragment 46A (see above), we might expect it was such officials, including a Judge (zꜢb), an Inspector of Scribes (śḥḏ sšw), and a Lector Priest (ḥry-ḥb), who appear after the recorded check on sealings, who stayed in the larger KKT houses. On the other hand, we might see the phyle members of lower rank, such as the two wꜤb-priests and two ḫntjw-š252 who stayed, during their month of duty, in the very diminutive “houses” or apartments in the MVT court, which in Occupation 2 numbered five or six, compared to the seven apartments in the Raneferef court. Still, at least one of the apartments in the Raneferef temple court belonged apparently to the ḥm nṯr-priest, and served as a kind of administrative center 249 250 251 252 The smaller houses at Kahun range around 56.25 m2, Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 36. In the late Hyksos Period, with “an internal compression of the [Avaris] settlement,” Bietak cites small houses of 25, 33.5, 50, 100 and 127 m2. The houses of the MVT and Raneferef courts fit the lower end of this range. Over time, people built ever-larger houses at Avaris. “Some houses expanded more than 300 m2 and display such strong walls that an upper story is conceivable, although no staircase has been found”; Bietak, “Houses, Palaces and Development of Social Structure,” 18–19, figs. 15–18. We might consider the possibility of a second story for Building M with its extra thick walls (fig. 6.12). Bietak graphs house sizes against those of Amarna, which shows a normal fit in the range from 12.5 m2 to about 320 m2. Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 36–37, looking at titles from Kahun, suggested that workers, “Sealers” (ḫtmw), an “Overseer of a Phyle” (mtj-n-zꜢ.w), a “gewöhnlicher” Lector Priest (ẖrj-ḥb-ꜤšꜢ), and a Guard of the Temple Door (zꜢw-ꜤꜢ ḥwt-nṯr) lived in the smaller Kahun houses and correspond in rank to the residents of an Old Kingdom pyramid town. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 370. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 116–17, pl. 46, 263. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 287 during the time of the papyri (Djedkare to Unas). One room of this apartment was checked and sealed as one of eight places so monitored in the temple.253 Then again, consider Raneferef fragment 6C, where a ḥm nṯr-priest was rostered to be on-duty on the roof terrace of the temple—perhaps accessed through the stairs in the room of the ḥm nṯr-priest—but instead of performing this duty himself, he sent a ḏt-servant to meet his obligation.254 Or consider fragment 4A, which specifies in vertical columns people on duty for guarding the ḥm-nṯr-priest’s room and other places listed in the horizontal headings (see section 4.2). Such individuals with high ranking titles—three ḥm-nṯr priests, one śm-priest and Sole Companion (śmr wꜤty—Rawer), and one Inspector of the Great House (śḥḏ pr-ꜤꜢ)—most likely did not stay in the small houses of the MVT court. Rather, here stayed persons like those whose names and titles are listed below: a ḏt-servant,255 an assistant (ẖry-Ꜥ.f ), and a temple functionary (ḥry-nśt).256 We might expect persons of high rank, or their representatives who supervised the phyles, or the Overseer of the Pyramid town, or some official with overall charge,257 to have stayed in one of the three larger houses (K, L, M) in the foot of L-shaped KKT, south of the Khentkawes causeway. PosenerKriéger suggested on the basis of the Neferirkare papyri a śḥḏ and an ɩ̓my-ḫt nṯr oversaw each phyle section.258 She cited the possibility that a ḫrp ɩ̓mjw-zꜢ (Director of Members of a Phyle)259 could have overseen all the phyles in service together, but the title, known otherwise only from Giza, is attested only once in the Neferirkare Papyri.260 She touched on the subject again in relation to the titles sš Ꜥprw (Scribe of the Crews) and ɩ̓my-rꜢ sšw Ꜥprw (Overseer of 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 340. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 372, while yet another fragment has the ḥm nṯr-priests as porters, though perhaps of the divine offerings. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 586–87. For this title, see Posener-Kriéger, Les archives II, 584–85. These individuals are thought to have been young men who carried out heavy work; Vymazalová, “Administration of the Royal Funerary Complexes,” 193. Though there are some indications that the priests of a pyramid were administratively independent of the authorities of a pyramid town, Bussmann, “Siedlungen im Kontext,” 35, n. 98, citing Helck, “Bemerkungen zu den Pyramidenstädten,” 95 and Roth, Egyptian Phyles. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives, II, 573. Jones, Index II, 697, no. 2546. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives, II, 574. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 288 Lehner Scribes of the Crews),261 but neither the Neferirkare nor the Raneferef archives resolve the question.262 The building we have designated M in particular, is the largest of all in the KKT. This building features extra-thick walls, some with painted decoration.263 Here we might imagine an official in charge of the whole urban complex. In this regard, we should note definite stratigraphic evidence that the northsouth complex of buildings (I, J, K, L, and M), which came to comprise the eastern part of the KKT plus the “foot” of the town, existed before builders laid out the Khentkawes causeway. We can only guess that this early layout, coming within 30 m of the MVT, may have functioned as some kind of administrative residence during building activities under Menkaure.264 Against the idea that the MVT and KKT functioned together as one unified settlement, we have found no obvious, formal access between the walled KKT and the MVT. Ḥm nṯr-priests enjoyed direct access to the offering hall and the offerings that were presented there on the altar. The proprietors of buildings A–H had direct access to the Khentkawes causeway—in the earlier phase of the occupation265—but we see in Hassan’s plan (Fig. 6.12) no such direct access from any of the KKT houses onto the broad ramp leading up to the northern doorway of Vestibule 2, the Annex, and thence into MVT. Hassan could not retrieve the far southeastern corner of the “foot” end of the KKT, and the AERA team could only re-excavate the southern KKT enclosure wall from its corner here for another 1.5 m east. An immense embankment for the modern road around the modern cemetery prevents us from clearing further east. So some access could have existed through this southern wall of the KKT, possibly at the end of the corridor running north-south along the west of building M. (It would have been a step down onto the lower-lying broad ramp leading to the northern Annex door). That corridor turns east-west at the northwest corner of Building M, and communicates with the “Southern Lateral Ramp” (SLR), which we found ascending to the Khentkawes causeway threshold, so here may have been the connector. The different orientations of the MVT and 261 262 263 264 265 Jones, Index II, 843, no. 3076. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 369. Hassan, Excavation at Giza IV, 41. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 146–53; Jones, “Lower Buried Building,” 21. But not after some of the doorways that gave access into the houses from the causeway were blocked, see Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 154–60. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 289 KKT, the former to the cardinal directions and the latter about 6° west of north, are brought together in the broad ramp and Annex.266 The causeway corridors provide one point of similarity between the MVT and KKT. Both corridors measure about 1.60 m wide. Just as the Menkaure causeway corridor of the “first temple” turned south, and then extended east along the southern side of the MVT and beyond the temple to the east, so the KKT corridor once turned north via the “Northern Lateral Ramp” (NLR), and ran due east beyond the KKT.267 Unlike the SLR, which provided a loop back into the KKT via the corridor running along the north and west of Building M, the northern corridor of the Khentkawes valley complex extended 45 m to the east. In 2011–2012 the AERA team found the termination of this corridor at a corner shared with another large enclosure and settlement complex, the Silo Building Complex (SBC; see below). Khentkawes Town East, Central Field East 7 It is expected from titles in tombs proximal to pyramid causeways and valley complexes that at least some of the proprietors of these tombs served in the pyramid temples.268 The material from the MVT discussed in section 5, as well as the extension eastward of the KKT northern corridor, flanking a terraced basin, reinforces the hypothesis that a connection existed between the MVT and KKT, and between the early occupation of the KKT with the development of the Central Field East cemetery immediately to the north through the Fifth Dynasty. In order to set the overall context for these connections between settlement clusters, I describe briefly in sections 7.1 and 7.2 our most recent finds east of the KKT. 266 267 268 Dash, “North by Northwest”; Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 189–90, fig. 25, with a correction to that text: It is the southern wall of the broad ramp that was built to the same orientation as the southern enclosure wall of the KKT. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 160–61, figs. 14–15, 169–70, fig. 18 where the authors suggest the NLR was added late in the use of the lower Khentkawes basin and approach structures. See also Jones, “Lower Buried Building,” 22–23. We are not certain of the temporal relationships of the NLR and northern corridor that extends further east along the Khentkawes basin. Stadelmann, “Pyramidenstadt,” 10 and “La ville de pyramide,” 69. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 290 Lehner Enclosures Back-to-Back: The KKT Valley Complex and the Silo Building Complex (SBC) Between 2007 and 2009 the AERA team found a previously unknown lower eastern approach up into the Khentkawes settlement. This approach consists of ramps, stairs, and corridors along the northwest corner of a deep basin.269 In 2011 we discovered the northeast corner of this basin, which may have functioned, perhaps seasonally, as a small ceremonial harbor connected to the Nile via a canal or waterway that yet eludes us. Beyond the basin and the enclosure wall bounding it, we uncovered traces of grain silos and courtyards.270 When it first came to light in 2011, it seemed likely that this “Silo Building Complex,” SBC as we dubbed it, stored offerings for Queen Khentkawes. Personnel of her estate could have delivered these offerings to the queen’s monument via the 45-m long corridor along the north side of the basin, then up into the KKT via the NLR, and finally through the KKT via the causeway to the chapel on the southeastern corner of the Khentkawes monument, or into the storage magazines in the southern “foot” of the settlement. A niche at the eastern termination of the east-running corridor appeared to be a doorway into the SBC, blocked at some period. However, in 2012 excavation supervisors Hussein El-Rikaby and Rabee Eissa found that the SBC builders set this complex into the northwestern corner of a very thick enclosure wall of an older building period (Fig. 6.13). The builders of the Khentkawes basin enclosure founded the thick northern and eastern walls flanking the basin upon limestone debris that they banked up against the older enclosure to the east. So we had, back-to-back, the northeast corner of the Khentkawes basin enclosure and the northwest corner of the SBC enclosure. It was unexpected that the older enclosure, which must date earlier in the Fourth Dynasty, should lie to the east of the Khentkawes basin, which the builders must have dredged out between the old enclosure and the western bedrock edge of a deep quarry. The eastern enclosure wall of the KKT runs exactly along this edge. Also unexpected, we established by structural relations, pottery, and sealings that the SBC itself was built later than both enclosures, in the Fifth Dynasty, with a core domestic room structure similar to that of the ten houses (A–J) 7.1 269 270 Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 160–75; Lehner, “KKT-E: A Valley Complex for Khentkawes I,” “KKT-E: SLR: Elevation View,” and “KKT-E: Notes and Reconstructions”; Jones, “Lower Buried Building.” Aeragram, “KKT-E+: The Buried Basin and the Town Beyond”; AERA, “The Khentkawes Basin.” For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders Figure 6.13 291 The Silo Building complex, discovered in 2011–2012, east of the Khentkawes basin, discovered between 2007–2009. View to the northwest. north of the KKT causeway, albeit here flanked by long bakeries on the north and east.271 The SBC must have replaced an older installation within the older enclosure. As of this writing our excavation down to floor level in the SBC has been limited to a few small trenches. In a trench that half-sectioned the fill of one of the silos, Ahmed Orabi found a clay sealing impressed with the title “Overseer of the Pyramid, Great is Khafre” (ɩ̓my-rꜢ Wr-ḪꜤ.f-RꜤ)272 between serekhs of the Fifth Dynasty king, Niuserre (Ir Śt-ɩ̓b-tꜢ.wy) and the title “Custodian of the King’s Property Who Makes the Right Judgment” (ɩ̓ry-ḫt-ny-św.t śmꜢꜤ [wdꜤ-mdw]).273 It is possible that the vertical column between the serekhs with the title ɩ̓my-rꜢ Wr-ḪꜤ.f-RꜤ continued, after the break, with the niwt sign for town or city, in which case the title would have been that of “Overseer of the Pyramid Town of Khafre.” 271 272 273 Aeragram, “Conundrums and Surprises”; AERA “The Silo Building Complex.” Jones, Index I, 103–04, no. 419. Nolan, “Fifth Dynasty Renaissance,” 4. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 292 Lehner Is it possible that the second enclosure, older than both the SBC and the Khentkawes basin enclosure, belonged to the pyramid town of Khafre? Our clearing east, which exposed the SBC, comes to within 75 m of the southwest corner of the Khafre Valley Temple (KVT). And yet, the newly found corner containing the SBC opens to the southeast, not to the northeast, the direction of the KVT. Perhaps the Khafre pyramid town took a turn, like the L-shaped footprint of the Khentkawes Town, so that if we push on east, the thick northern enclosure wall and town will turn north, opening toward the KVT. Prior to 2012 I guessed that it was Niuserre who was responsible for those significant additions to the MVT and the Annex, including the two sets of four beautiful alabaster column bases in Vestibules 1 and 2. At that time, 2011, we knew from Reisner’s work only eight clay seals with royal names from Menkaure’s pyramid complex.274 All eight sealings came from the upper temple. They bear the names of kings Menkaure, Niuserre, Isesi, Teti and Pepi I. To these we might add the royal names Merenre and Pepi II found on stelae fragments in the upper and valley temples respectively. We were missing names of the early Fifth Dynasty kings—Userkaf, Sahure, Neferirkare, Shepseskare, Raneferef. We are also missing Menkauhor and Unas at the end of the Fifth Dynasty. Now, in their review of 144 impressed and incised sealings retrieved in 2012 from the newly found area east of the KKT (which we designate KKT-E+), including 56 formal sealings of office (Amtssiegel), John Nolan and Ali Witsel have identified sealings of Userkaf (4), Sahure (1), and Raneferef (5) in addition to those of Niuserre (20), which, from our limited 2012 excavations are in the majority.275 I had also suspected Niuserre may have ordered the screen wall across the portico and the expanded inner part of Menkaure’s upper pyramid temple.276 One entered the new inner part of the upper pyramid temple by way of a small square antechamber (Reisner’s room 26) with a single pillar, a feature that we otherwise find for the first time as part of the route to the inner offering halls of pyramid temples in the Fifth Dynasty temple of Niuserre’s pyramid at Abusir. This element, the small square antechamber, was incorporated into all subsequent pyramid temples. 274 275 276 Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 176, n. 92, 178, n. 117, 180. Nolan, “Report on the 2013 Sealings Season.” Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 175–76. AERA, “A Hundred and One Years Later,” 12–13. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 293 At Abusir in the mid-Fifth Dynasty, Niuserre (with a reign perhaps exceeding 30 years) acted like Shepseskaf at the end of the Fourth Dynasty. Whereas during his short reign of several years Shepseskaf finished in mudbrick the five memorial temples of Menkaure and his three queens, plus Menkaure’s causeway and very possibly the enclosure wall, town, and lower approach of the Khentkawes complex, Niuserre evidently completed in mudbrick the pyramid temples of his father, Neferirkare, his mother Khentkawes II, and his older brother, Raneferef, who may have reigned less than two years.277 That Niuserre’s builders carried out the embellishment of the Annex and the MVT proper might bring Occupation 2 of the MVT (see section 2) contemporary with the occupation (Djedkare to Unas) of the Raneferef temple court. 7.2 Doorways to the North: Town and Tombs Five doorways that open through the northern enclosure wall of the extended Khentkawes complex, including the newly found valley approach, gave access from the KKT directly to the Fifth Dynasty cemetery developing in the Fourth Dynasty quarry of the Central Field East. This access may provide an additional link between the cemetery, the KKT, and the occupation of the MVT court. With the lower approach and basin complex that we found between 2007 and 2009 east of the KKT, plus the older enclosure farther east containing the younger SBC, we have added nearly 65 meters to the 150 m extension of the L-shaped upper town that Hassan cleared in 1932 (Fig. 6.14). This entire length is bounded on the north by a thick enclosure wall, 2.57 m wide located north of the Khentkawes upper town, 2.4 m wide along the corridor running east along the northern side of the basin in our area KKT-E+, widening to 2.8 m near a large limestone threshold of a doorway near its eastern end, and 3.10 m wide at the corner where it turns to run south and abuts the corner of the older SBC enclosure. The northern wall of the SBC enclosure continues even farther east, bounding the SBC on the north, at a width of 2.05 m. Five points of access opened through this combined northern enclosure wall (Fig. 6.14). Starting on the west, the first opening through the enclosure wall led to a ramp cut in bedrock leading down into a large rock-cut tank. This opening led from a square open court between the western end of the KKT and the Khentkawes chapel. The western jamb was formed by a protrusion of the bedrock forming the core of the enclosure wall along the eastern side of the Khentkawes monument.278 The eastern jamb was simply the beginning 277 278 Verner, Raneferef: The Archaeology, 101, 105–06. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 32. The fact that the builders made this part of the enclosure wall in bedrock shows that the eastern base of the bedrock pedestal was formed, For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 294 Lehner Figure 6.14 Major access points or doorways open from the north into the Khentkawes Town and its extension to the east as the lower approach, basin and the Silo Building Complex. To the immediate north lies the Central Field East cemetery largely created for Fifth Dynasty officials in a Fourth Dynasty quarry. Adapted from Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IX, using AERA GIS, by Rebekah Miracle. of the enclosure wall built in mudbrick. It is not likely that a door closed this access. A large limestone threshold marked the second opening to the east, Doorway 1.279 This opening gave access into the north-south street that town 279 at least in part, with the enclosure wall in mind. This stands in contrast to the evidence that the major part of the pedestal must have been formed over long-term quarry work, perhaps over three generations. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IV, 39. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 295 builders probably made in the earliest phase of the KKT eastern layout, before the Khentkawes causeway was laid out, after which masons cut a stepped tunnel into the bedrock to pass underneath. Hassan mentions two pivot sockets that would testify to double-leaved wooden door that closed this access. By the time AERA first cleared this spot in 2007, the enclosure wall had completely weathered down to bare bedrock, leaving the threshold standing alone. We recorded only one pivot socket on the east and the moulding for a jamb on the west.280 The threshold is set into a shallow channel-like cut into the bedrock marking the width of the street. In 2007 Lisa Yeomans found silty soil filling the cut for at least 1.30 m north. The rock-cut and masonry built tombs of the Central Field East cemetery pick up only several meters farther north (Fig. 6.14). This north-south street and its doorway align with what had been an open path through the quarry and Central Field East cemetery. The tomb of Rawer, discussed in sections 5.1–5.2, filled this broad path. The KKT street and Doorway 1 align roughly with the bedrock ridge running west of the Sphinx ditch, and, much farther north, with the street between the first and second rows from the west of the large mastaba tombs in the Eastern Cemetery of the Khufu Pyramid. Perhaps, early in the Fourth Dynasty quarrying and building, one continuous road existed along this axis.281 The first construction to close this roadway across the necropolis was the Khafre causeway, the masonry walls of which would have prevented any crossing from the western Sphinx-bridge to the area of the KKT. In the Fifth Dynasty, Rawer the śm-priest built his tomb, probably incrementally, to fill this broad pathway, marked on the west by his own bedrock and masonry mastaba tumulus, and, immediately to the south, a large, anonymous rock-cut mastaba and tomb.282 The southernmost wall of Rawer’s complex, still standing 7 courses high, actually closed off this broad way at the northeast corner of the large, anonymous mastaba, but Rawer’s builders left a window or funnel-shaped channel from his Serdab 23,283 one of Rawer’s many serdabs, flaring out to the south through this wall, as though to permit Rawer to pass south virtually into the priests’ settlement. Later, the broad way along the eastern front of the large anonymous mastaba was made into a court, the eastern side of which was decorated with a niched and paneled mudbrick casing.284 This casing also 280 281 282 283 284 Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 151–52, fig. 8. Lehner, Kamal and Tavares, “Excavations: The Khentkawes Town,” 11. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 89–91; PM III.1, pl. XXIII, D–E/8–9. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 31, fig. 24. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, frontispiece, 90, fig. 152. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 296 Lehner closed off the southern end of the court, another obstruction to the old crossnecropolis avenue. Immediately south of the large anonymous mastaba, and only 8 m north of the KKT Doorway 1 marked by the limestone threshold, the surface drops more than 3 meters into a large, quarried pit. The tombs of Wep-em-nefert and Ni-maat-re were both partly rock-cut and partly masonry-built into the west and east sides of this deeper quarry.285 We might expect that this pit, in such proximity to the KKT, would have been cut much later than the northsouth street opening at the limestone threshold into the KKT. PM III.1 dates the tombs of Wep-em-nefert and Ni-maat-re to the mid- to late Fifth Dynasty.286 Such minor quarrying and stone cutting for tomb-building probably accounts for the blocking up and encumbrance with limestone debris of Doorway 2, which we found in 2009 through the northern enclosure wall in its extension east of the KKT proper. Doorway 2 was a monumental access, 3.15 m wide, with some kind of ramp or stairs descending 1.07 m from a floor north of, and outside, the enclosure wall down to the terrace lining the Khentkawes basin. Stratigraphy shows that builders created this opening before they had built the corridor running east from the NLR, which sloped down from the Khentkawes causeway threshold.287 When builders did make that corridor, they completely blocked Doorway 2 with mudbrick fill, and closed off the southern side of the opening with an accretion onto the southern face of the enclosure wall. Originally, this access opened onto the area of the Central Field East cemetery that contains scattered small tomb shafts, and the mastabas of Impy, Weser, and Fifi along the southern side of the rock-cut “Street of the Priests,” as Hassan called it, after he excavated this channel between 1929 and 1931. A massive fill of limestone chips and debris banked up high against the enclosure wall and blocking of Doorway 2, completely burying the northern face. This debris was no doubt the cast-off from the nearby minor quarrying and stone cutting for making tombs. The tomb of Duare, a ḥm-nṯr of Menkaure, lies several meters to the northeast, just outside this Doorway 2.288 285 286 287 288 Hassan Excavations at Gîza II, Wep-em-nefet: 179–201, fig. 212 for façade; Ni-maat-re, 202–25, fig. 223 for façade. PM III.1, 281–84. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 159, fig. 13, 161, fig. 15, 168; Lehner, “KKT-E: Notes and Reconstructions,” foldout 3, no. 5 for 2009 when we had not yet determined the eastern side and full width of the doorway, and “KKT-E+: Khentkawes Town East,” 10, no. 3; Olchowska, “KKT-E (North)” for 2011 data structure report. PM III.1, 287–88; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza IX, 59–62. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 297 We found Doorway 3, 2.24 m wide, during our 2012 season, marked by a broad threshhold formed of five limestone slabs, 2.5 m west of the eastern end of the northern enclosure wall (Fig. 6.14). The slabs retain moulding for the bottom of jambs, probably of wood or mudbrick. A semi-circular feature in the silty floor at the southwest corner of the threshold may mark a pivot socket. These features suggest a wooden door closed this access. This doorway formed a cross-shaped intersection with the corridor coming east from NLR, a niche at the far eastern end of the corridor, and a probable passage leading from Doorway 3 down into the basin. Doorway 3 aligns roughly with the head of the Sphinx to the far north, and, closer, the eastern end of Hassan’s “Street of the Priests” leading west into the cemetery and ending at the court in front of the anonymous mastaba. AERA team members found Doorway 4 in 2012 marked by another limestone threshold that opens through the northern enclosure wall of the SBC. The width of both the western and eastern wall segments on either side expands from 2.05 to 2.30 m because of jambs projecting inward (to the south). A pair of jambs also projects into the opening, narrowing the doorway from 1.05 to .66 m. This doorway aligns roughly with the eastern limit of the tombs that Selim Hassan excavated in the Central Field East, and roughly with the opening of the bedrock cut channel leading northwest, then west to the rock-cut and masonry-built mastaba of Kaw-niswt.289 Doorway 4 gave access into the SBC via a corridor running south to an opening in the eastern wall. At some date, people blocked this entrance. However, Doorway 4 may have still served to let people into spaces to the east, beyond our excavations. Over time these doors opening north, or the corridors that led from them, were either blocked or rendered dysfunctional, possibly because of the expansion of the cemetery and the quarry and stone cutting waste from preparing tombs, which built up the surface and threatened to expand into the extended settlement. Less than 5 m north of the SBC we exposed a fieldstone retaining wall. We have cleared only 1.5 m north of this wall, which retains very compact silty sand with embedded pottery, like settlement debris. The fieldstone wall, and the possible raised surface, must end at some point to the west, before the 3.15-meter wide Doorway 2. Opposite this doorway, the AERA team cleared back more than 5 m to the north, to a depth of a meter, finding only clean sand with modern inclusions—paper, plastic, wire—probably all fill of Hassan’s 1932 excavation. 289 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza II, 75–86; PM III.1, 274–75, plan XXIII, C/10. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 298 Lehner The fieldstone wall and raised surface north of the SBC blocked free movement between the settlement and cemetery. People (and possibly donkey) traffic would now have to flow laterally, east to west, before being able to enter any still-functioning doorways into the SBC, the Khentkawes basin, and the KKT upper town. But initially these doorways may have served for movement from these settlement enclosures to and from the work and services proceeding in the developing Fifth Dynasty cemetery of the Central Field East. 7.3 Occupying the Central Field East The tombs of the Central Field East cemetery occupied a Fourth Dynasty quarry, roughly triangular in plan, between the Sphinx and the Khentkawes monument. Quarrymen did not exploit this patch of bedrock as deeply as that of the Central Field West, which they took down to a depth of 10 to 30 m. Here they procured the bulk of core stone for Khufu’s Pyramid.290 The Central Field East and West take up the northern half of an even greater “circle of quarrying.” The less deeply worked triangular part between the Sphinx and Khentkawes monument is the northeast quadrant. Because the quarrymen never exploited this quadrant so deeply, they left the broad channels defining huge quarry blocks, the size of large mastabas, which they then subdivided with smaller channels to obtain a given size of smaller block, including the monolithic core blocks of the Khafre and Menkaure temples.291 Many or most of the “mastabas” of the Central Field East utilized these rectangular blocks of bedrock.292 The anonymous mastaba293 just southwest of Rawer’s tomb is a good example. The back west side shows narrow channels, just wide enough for one man, which quarrymen had begun but left unfinished to subdivide this block.294 These channels came through to the eastern façade, where masons began to fill and patch the slot closest to the tomb entrance. The plan of the Central Field East 290 291 292 293 294 Lehner, “Giza, A Contextual Approach,” 152, “Development of the Giza Necropolis,” 121– 22, and Complete Pyramids, 207. Lehner, et al., “Re-examining the Khentkaues Town,” 184–85, fig. 24 where the main text refers mistakenly to this part as the “southeastern” quadrant; Lehner, “Giza, Overviews and Ground Truths.” While not as regularly spaced as the mastabas fields east and west of the Khufu Pyramid, these are not entirely haphazard. Quarrymen isolated series of adjacent bedrock blocks in a west-east row starting northeast of the Khentkawes monument. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 89–90. See the photograph of this quarry block in Lehner, Complete Pyramids, 207. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders Figure 6.15 299 The Central Field East quarry cemetery, after PM III.1, plan XXIII. Q = queens tombs; Qm = titles associated with queen-mother; Qw = titles associated with royal wife; Ku = titles associated with Khufu; Ka = titles associated with Khafre; Mn = titles associated with Menkaure. cemetery in PM III.1 neatly takes in this northeastern quadrant of the Central Field quarries (Fig. 6.15).295 The suspension of quarry work offered, epiphenomenally, bedrock “mastabas”—or the possibility of a foundation combined with a masonry built superstructure—for tombs. Tomb builders and proprietors began reoccupying the Central Field East quarry in the late Fourth Dynasty, but mostly in the Fifth Dynasty. Peter Jánosi suggested that important people of the late Fourth Dynasty built tombs gradually in the Central Field, depending on whether quarry work continued or was stopped, and based upon the availability of useable rock exposures.296 In addition to the gigantic tomb of Khentkawes I, which projects saliently southward from the southwest corner of the tall-standing bedrock of the Central Field East, three of the six or seven tombs that Jánosi sees as oldest 295 296 PM III.1, plan XXIII. Jánosi, Giza in der 4. Dynastie, 302. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 300 Lehner in this quarry cemetery297 belonged to queens: Khamerernebti I and/ or Khamerernebti II at the eastern point,298 Rekhitre near the northwest extremity,299 and Bunefer300 at the southwest corner of the cemetery, opposite the northeast corner of the Khentkawes I monument (Fig. 6.15). The tomb of Hemetre, an “Eldest Daughter” of a king thought to be Khafre, and the tomb of Yuenre, “Eldest Son of His Body of Khafre,” are located in the far northwest part of the Central Field East quarry.301 Jánosi calls our attention to the dispersal across the Giza cemeteries of tombs of royal family members in the reign of Khafre in contrast to the dedicated zones of regular mastabas for royal family members planned and begun during Khufu’s reign, and to the fact that Khafre provided no pyramids for queens in his funerary complex.302 7.4 Contiguous and Cross Cutting Cults No exclusive, or near-exclusive relationship can be demonstrated between the KKT (or the combined KKT + MVT) and the titles of tomb owners in the Central Field East cemetery. This should come as no surprise given the wide distribution of titles connected to the Giza pyramids in the various Giza cemeteries, a topic beyond this presentation. In tomb chapels of the Central Field East cemetery, titles relating to the Fourth Dynasty Giza kings, mostly but not exclusively ḥm-nṯr titles, are nearly equally divided, about 11 each for Khafre and Menkaure. Again, keeping in mind that the corpus from the Central Field East certainly does not exhaust the distribution of such titles across the Giza cemeteries, figure 6.15 presents a cursory survey from PM III.1 and Hassan’s listings of the tombs in the Central Field East. The textual and archaeological contexts of royal names appearing on objects and as part of titles suggest a good deal of mixing it up between memorial foundations. It is well known that individuals could serve as ḥm-nṯr-priests in more than one pyramid complex. So, from the Central Field East, Irenakhti served as ɩ̓mj-ḫt ḥmw-nṯr in the Khafre Pyramid, and śḥḏ ḥmw-nṯr in the Menkaure Pyramid.303 Neferherenptah (Fefi) served as ḥm-nṯr for both Khafre 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 Jánosi, Giza in der 4. Dynastie, 302–07, Abb. 72. Janosi and Callender, “Tomb of Queen Khamerernebty II”; PM III.1, 273. PM III.1, 249; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza VI, 3–8. PM III.1, 256; Callendar, In Hathor’s Image I, 134- 35. PM III.1, 243–44; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza VI.3, 31–34, 43–65; Callender, In Hathor’s Image I, 154–58. Jánosi, Giza in der 4. Dynastie, 302–07. PM III.1, 250; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza VI.3, 9–29. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 301 and Menkaure.304 On the idea that cemeteries proximal to pyramid complexes reflect denizens of pyramid towns, the Central Field East cemetery could be taken as the late Fourth Dynasty though the Fifth Dynasty counterpart to either the pyramid towns of Menkaure or Khafre. At least four individuals held titles (ḥm-nṯr-priest or “Overseer of Scribes”) of the Khufu Pyramid (Fig. 6.15). At least five individuals buried in the Central Field East held titles connected with the Royal Mother. The fact that the tomb of Renpetnefer, who held the title ḥm-nṯr mwt nswt, opens within a few meters of the northeastern corner of the Khentkawes monument and its enclosure wall, directly onto the rock-cut tank connecting with the eastern chapel and court,305 fortifies the inference that this title reflects service specific to the Khentkawes complex, although the queen mother’s name is not specified. The tomb of Shepses-akheti, who held the tittle śḥḏ ḥmw nṯr nw mwt nswt, lies a short distance farther northeast and higher into the bedrock outcrop.306 Vivienne Callender takes it as given that these were ḥm-nṯr-priests of Khentkawes I, and from this follows the inference she was the proprieter of a ḥwt-kꜢ.307 In his tomb, which lies just outside the main access (Doorway 1) into the KKT north-south street (see Fig. 6.14), Ni-maat-re lists the title: [ɩ̓my-]rꜢ wꜤbw mwt nswt, “Overseer of the Purification Priests of the King’s Mother.” He also served as wꜤb-priest in the Pyramid of Neferirkare.308 A scene on the width of the right side of the entrance to Ni-maat-re’s chapel shows, in a register below him and his wife, the personification of an estate fronted by a cartouche with the sun disk at top and the lower part erased, and three vertical registers that refer to the bringing of reversionary offerings (wḏb-rd) by “the mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. . . .”309 On the basis of a “nouvelle copie faite après une révision minutieuse de l’orignal,” Bernhard Grdseloff restores the cartouche to that of Menkaure, and the name of the queen mother, based on a preserved r, as Khamerernebty.310 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 PM III.1, 253; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza V, 279–87. PM III.1, 257; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza V, 166–75. PM III.1, 260; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza III, 93–97. Callender, In Hathor’s Image I, 143, 149. Callender states that Khentkawes I was the first queen to have ḥm nṯr-priests attend to her memorial complex, later so did Khentkawes II. See for references to the title ḥm-nṯr mwt nswt, as referring to Khentkawes I, Jones, Index I, 517, no. 1934. PM III.1, 282; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza ii, 211; Callender, In Hathor’s Image I, 143; Ogdon, “Family of Priests.” Hassan, Excavations at Gîza II, 232, fig. 14. Grdseloff, “Deux Inscriptions Juridiques,” 52–53, fig. 6.5. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 302 Lehner The other title relating to the royal mother concerns ḥmw-kꜢ (ka-servants) rather than ḥmw-nṯr, so these titles could relate to queen mothers other than Khentkawes I. The other queen known with this title is Khamerernebty I, whose tomb (with that of Khamerernebty II)311 lies a bit closer to Ni-maat-re, on the north, than the tomb of Khentkawes I to the west. On the other hand, both ḥmw-nṯr and ḥmw-kꜢ are known for Khentkawes II.312 In the Central Field East we have ɩ̓my-rꜢ ḥmw-kꜢ held by Imby313 and Akhet-hotep, who was also “Overseer of the Scribes of the Pyramid, Akhet Khufu.”314 Note that these two tombs flank the entrance from the east-west path that Hassan called “Street of the Priests” into the niche-decorated court in front of the anonymous mastaba (which Jánosi places as one of the earliest structures in the Central Field East cemetery).315 These tombs also flank the eastern side of the early north-south quarry path, later filled by the extended complex of Rawer, the śm-priest, and the court of the anonymous mastaba (see above, section 6.2). In view of these titles from the Central Field East relating to Khafre, Menkaure, and the Queen Mother, we look back to Rawer, śm-priest, and note that nothing in his titles reflects an association between him and service in the MVT (Sections 6.2, 6.4). Yet Rawer seems to have enjoyed the fruits of estates of Khafre, Menkaure, and Shepseskaf. The names of these estates are preserved on fragments of longer lists in his tomb.316 At the same time, we should note for the idea that this Rawer, śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty, is the same as the Rawer, śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty, responsible (post-mortem?) for lower-ranking phyle members serving in the Nerferirkare and Raneferef temples, that we see no estates of those Abusir kings in his tomb, nor in the tombs of other leaders of so-called “parasite phyles” to the extent they can be identified with tomb owners.317 And while we cannot be certain that the śm-priest and śmr-wꜤty Rawer of the Central Field East and the Raneferef papyri are the same, it is the case that we find in the Raneferef archive one or more ḥmw-nṯr priests of Khafre among other officials, including a ḥm-nṯr priest of Raneferef, responsible for 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 Jánosi and Callender, “Tomb of Khamerernebty II.” Callender, In Hathor’s Image I, 176. PM III.1, 284; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 91–95; for references to the title, Jones, Index I, 177–78, no. 675, PM III.1, 284; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 91–95; Ogdon, “Family of Priests.” See Hassan’s frontispiece, Excavations at Gîza I, and final plan, Excavations at Gîza IX; Jánosi, Giza in der 4. Dynastie, 302. Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 11–12, fig. 7, pl. 6; Jacquet-Gordon, Les noms des domaines, 267–69, no. 29G5. As Roth, Egyptian Phyles, 86, points out, citing Posener-Kriéger, Les archives ii, 616. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 303 sealing parts of the Raneferef pyramid temple. Specifically, the Priest of Khafre shares responsibility for the ceremonial way around the unfinished pyramid of Raneferef.318 Pyramid complexes shared offerings as well as priests. The impression is that the exchange could go in both directions. A particular pyramid temple could act as giver and receiver, as in the relationship between Neferirkare’s and Raneferef’s pyramid temples, both of which received offerings from Ḏd-Śnfrw, Sneferu’s Meidum pyramid establishment. The amounts are sometimes strikingly small, perhaps because they are episodic, one-day donations, or only token. Altogether, the picture is one of “a busy redistribution of probably only small quantities of offerings among the pyramid complexes themselves.”319 In this network of exchange, goods moved from the Giza pyramids to the Abusir pyramids: for example, a dś-vase, a jug of beer, and one unit of bread from the RꜢ-š of Khufu went to the temple of Neferirkare, by way of the Residence.320 Attestations of other deliveries from Giza to Abusir bring us right back to the MVT and its settlement, most probably during the very time of Occupation 2. Raneferef fragment 14C lists linen cloth apparently donated by the Pyramid of Menkaure.321 Fragment 75A lists the name of Menkaure’s pyramid flanked by Raneferef’s funerary domain, Śb-[Ἰ]sɩ̓ followed by the names of three individuals and a mention of the temple roof or terrace.322 As for pyramid complexes, and probably the pyramid towns they included, Kaaper and Neferkhu attested in their shared mastaba in the Central Field East that they were both “Overseers of the Pyramid Great is Khafre,” the title we found on a sealing of Niuserre in the SBC (see above, section 6.1).323 Akhet-hotep, while serving as “Overseer of the Scribes of the Pyramid, The 318 319 320 321 322 323 Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 112–13, pl. 44A, 260–62. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 383. Posener-Kriéger, Les archives I, 302, 304–05. RꜢ-š, literally, “mouth of the basin,” most probably referred to the large flood basin and delivery area fronting the pyramid complex; Stadelmann, “Die ḪNTJW-Š,” 163–64; Lehner, Complete Pyramids, 230–31. Somewhat larger numbers and amounts of goods came in as daily offerings from the RꜢ-š of KꜢkꜢɩ̓, Neferirkare’s own complex, the Residence, the Sun Temple Śt-ɩ̓b-RꜤ, and the houses of the royal son, Ἰrɩ̓-n-RꜤ, and the Royal Mother, Khentkawes, mostly probably the Abusir Khentkawes (II); Posener-Kriéger, Les archives i, 305–10. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 52–53, pl. 14C, 229, 351. Posener-Kriéger, Verner, and Vymazalová, Raneferef: The Papyrus Archive, 174–75, pl. 75A, 229, 351. PM III.1, 248–49; Hassan, Excavations at Gîza VI.3, 155–62. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 304 Lehner Horizon of Khufu,” asks on the architrave of his chapel “that there may be offered to him every good thing of the Necropolis, of Dedu, of Abydos (and) of the Pyramid (named) Great is Khafre.”324 Hermann Junker and Wolfgang Helck believed that lists of witnesses to property transactions mentioned in certain texts reveal the more common residents of pyramid towns.325 Uvo Hölscher found one such legal text literally etched in stone directly in front of the Khafre Valley Temple during his 1909 excavations.326 The text records the sale of a house by a scribe named Tjenti to another man who paid in cloth and a wooden bed equaling ten units of copper; a stonemason and three ka-servants (ḥmw-kꜢ) are listed as witnesses.327 The find spot suggests the house in question was located near the Khafre Valley Temple, which, according to Stadelmann’s vision,328 would be the heart of the Khafre pyramid town. Those concerned may have posted the legal notice at the front of the Khafre Valley Temple. Yet the text states that the transaction “was sealed in the land registry in the presence of the court of magistrates of the Pyramid, [Horizon] of Khufu, and many witnesses of the phyle of [a man named] Kaiinpu.”329 So Helck took these people as residents of the pyramid town of Khufu. With our discovery of the eastward extension of the KKT in the (KKT-E) valley approach and basin, and of the SBC farther east, within 75 m of the southwest corner of the Khafre Valley Temple, it is quite possible that continuous settlement extended diagonally, northeast to southwest, from the southern side of the Khafre Valley Temple, to the SBC, all the way to the MVT. Overall, these adjacent foundations comprised a continuous conurbation (as in several “towns” merging) dedicated to the foundations of Khafre, Menkaure and Khentkawes. Individuals could serve more than one of these foundations, which were contiguous on the ground, but demarcated by massive enclosure 324 325 326 327 328 329 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza I, 77–78, fig. 136. PM III.1, 284, dates Akhet-hotep’s tomb from the early Fifth to the early Sixth Dynasty. Junker, Gîza VI, 22–23; Helck, “Bemerkungen zu den Pyramidstädten,” 92. In addition to the house sale, they refer to Wepemnefert assigning a tomb shaft to his son, Hassan, Excavations at Gîza II, 191. Hölscher, Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren, 111–12, Abb. 164. Junker and Helck (see note 388 below) see more witnesses, including a butcher, bricklayer, and two assistant directors of phyles, reflecting uncertainties in translation. Urk. I, 158; see Goedicke, Die privaten Rechtsinschriften, Taf. xvi, 149–73 for references up to 1970; Menu, “Ventes de maisons”; Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 205–07, no. 121. Stadelmann, “La ville de pyramide,” 71. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 206. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV Shareholders 305 walls such as those forming back-to-back corners between the Khentkawes basin and the older enclosure in which Fifth Dynasty people built the SBC, and distinguished in text by the names of the Menkaure and Khafre Pyramids and/ or their towns.330 Thus, the settlement in the MVT, plus the KKT and the complexes enclosed by those walls flanking the SBC, would find yet another parallel with Abusir, where Verner suggests the combined settlements, sprawling diagonally from northeast to southwest, from the Neferirkare temple court, the Khentkawes II settlement, and the Raneferef court (as of the reign of Djedkare) all together comprised the pyramid town, “Neferirkare-,” or “Kakai-is-the soul-ba.”331 On the other hand, we have reason to believe that at Giza, waterways or basins intervened between the southeastern settlement conurbation and settlement farther east and north, around the location of the Khufu Valley Temple, as indicated by the late 1980s AMBRIC core drillings and trenches.332 To the east and northeast, we might expect a wide, more spread-out settlement, perhaps enlarged from the pyramid town of Khufu, along the lines of what Verner suggests for a second pyramid town attested at Abusir, “Enduring are the Cult Places of Niuserre.” Massive mudbrick walls, not unlike those around the SBC and Khentkawes I basin enclosure, outline an embayment that thrusts west between the Valley Temples of Sahure and Niuserre. These walls, Verner suggested, could enclose this Niuserre pyramid town.333 330 331 332 333 Aside from the flint wand inscribed for Khufu, which could have heirloom value, Reisner found in the MVT court a silver cylinder seal of Khafre incised with a formal design including his Horus, Golden Horus, and cartouche names. The seal came from the debris of one of the small bins (54) of the “second temple” period (when walls were built over the walls of the first temple) in the far northwest corner of the court. Because it was not in a primary context, and bore Khafre’s names, Reisner concluded, “No very plausible deduction can be made from this finding of this silver seal of an official of Chephren in the Mycerinus valley temple.” Reisner, Mycerinus, 234. Verner, “Pyramid Towns of Abusir,” see fig. 1. Lehner, “Capital Zone Walkabout 2006,” 105–06; Hawass, “The Workmen’s Community at Giza”; El-Sanussi and Jones, “A Site of Maadi Culture.” Verner, “Pyramid Towns of Abusir,” see fig. 1, although the walls could delimit a harbor basin, or, like the situation east of the Khentkawes I town, a basin and further settlement flanking it—perhaps the denotative referent of ḫntjw-š, which term makes its more formal appearance in the time of Sahure. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 306 8 Lehner Conclusion: MVT Occupation as a Network Node While the starting point for this essay was the occupation in the MVT court, the larger context of settlement and cemetery at the low southeastern base of the Giza Plateau shows this cluster as a node, like that in the Raneferef court, in a complex network of affiliations of pyramid towns and temples. We have hints of a relationship between the MVT occupation and the Central Field East cemetery; between that cemetery and the adjacent Khentkawes settlement (KKT); and between the Khentkawes complex and the cults of Khafre and Menkaure. The Khentkawes complex, revealed for its true length, makes for a spatial continuity with both the Khafre Valley Temple (KVT) and the Central Field East cemetery, and a chronological and architectural intimacy with the MVT. In the Fifth Dynasty, the Giza royal memorial foundations became part of an even larger network, extending to other pyramid sites. Some 50 years after Shepseskaf completed Menkaure’s Valley Temple, a Fifth Dynasty king, most likely Niuserre, refurbished the MVT with additional structures in its eastern Annex, and rebuilt the entrance, limestone pathway, and ramp and screen wall leading up to the sanctuary. Occupation 2, the best preserved in the MVT court, came later in the Fifth Dynasty, possibly around the same time as the apartments in the Raneferef court. The small apartments of Occupation 2 in the MVT court mark claims of high ranking people, and their estates, to shares in the temple offerings in return for service in the pyramid temples. Servants or substitutes occupied these apartments, like those in the Raneferef court, probably in rotation, carrying out temple work on behalf of their patrons or their patrons’ estates. It is possible that estate representatives of higher rank, ḥmw-nṯr-priests or ḫntjw-š, as well as administrators, who occupied houses of the KKT were attached to Menkaure’s foundation and supervised those who rotated through duty in the MVT court. This inference would be more probable if we could accept that together the KKT and MVT comprised the pyramid town of Menkaure’s pyramid. However, the KKT houses connected spatially and architecturally directly to the causeway and chapel of the Khentkawes I memorial, while we so far lack a direct, formal access from the KKT to the MVT and its Annex. Patrons who supplied time and labor, either of servants or substitutes from their estates, for participation in temple service could hold responsibilities, and rights to shares in more than one pyramid temple. The MVT occupation formed one component of a conurbation in southeast Giza that took in the pyramid towns of Menkaure, Khentkawes, and probably that of Khafre. For use by the Author only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV 307 Shareholders Abbreviations All abbreviations not included in this list follow those used in the Lexikon der Ägyptologie. AERA AERAgram AfO ÄL ArOr CAJ Gardiner sign-list GOP 2 GOP 3 GOP 4 GOP 5 GOP 6 JAOS KD KKT LdÄ MVT NLR PM III.1 SLR Urk. 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