In the Shadow of Djoser’s Pyramid

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The Publication is funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the
Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of
the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
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information contained therein.

The cover Illustration courtesy for Karol Jan Myśliwiec.

ISSN 2196-9779 ∙ ISBN 978-3-631-81812-1 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-82059-9 (E-PDF) ∙ E-ISBN 978-3-631-82060-5 (EPUB)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-82061-2 (MOBI) ∙ DOI 10.3726/b16883

Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this
license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

© Karol Jan Myśliwiec, 2020

Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

About the author

The Author
Karol Jan Myśliwiec, since 1969, has been a member of archaeological missions in Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Cyprus. He was the director of Polish-Egyptian rescue excavations at Tell Atrib (ancient Athribis) (1985–1995) and the head of Polish-Egyptian excavations in Saqqara (1987–2015). He is also the author of 300 publications concerning archaeology, art and religion of Ancient Egypt.

About the book

Karol Jan Myśliwiec

In the Shadow of Djoser’s Pyramid

The book presents the discoveries made by the Polish Archaeological Mission in Saqqara, the central part of the largest ancient Egyptian royal necropolis. The area adjacent to the Pyramid of King Djoser on the monument’s west side, so far neglected by archaeologists, turned out to be an important burial place of the Egyptian nobility from two periods of pharaonic history: the Old Kingdom (the late third millennium BC) and the Ptolemaic period (the late first millennium BC). The earlier, lower cemetery yielded rock-hewn tombs with splendid wall decoration in relief and painting. The book also describes the methods of conservation applied to the discovered artefacts and episodes from the mission’s life.

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Introduction

Bibliography

Chronological table

Chapter 1. History and archaeology: Saqqara in Egyptian history

Chapter 2. From Edfu to Saqqara: Polish archaeology in the Nile Valley

Chapter 3. First steps

Chapter 4. The vizier’s revenge

Chapter 5. A testimony to stormy times

Chapter 6. In the realm of Osiris

Chapter 7. Cult of the dead

Chapter 8. The vizier’s posthumous neighbour

Chapter 9. Behind the scenes of family bliss

Chapter 10. Renaissance of the necropolis after two thousand years

Chapter 11. Primum non nocere, or the medicine of artefacts

Chapter 12. The rest is silence

Extroduction

Glossary of deities

Glossary of archaeological terms

Glossary of foreign expressions and words

List of figures

Illustrations

Photographs

Figures

Authors of the drawings

Authors of the photographs

Deities

Introduction

“How long will archaeologists continue to dig in Egypt?,” Egyptophiles tend to ask impatiently.

“Till the end of the world,” I answer. And this is no joke. Not because – according to some estimations – the land of the pharaohs is believed to have one third of all the monuments in the world, but rather because the human approach to history is subject to constant change, shifting the very questions that archaeologists ask and are asked.

Many artefacts, which not so long ago seemed to have little historical significance, today are not only an object of intense research but also – as it turns out – have enormous cognitive value. It is no longer merely the lives of rulers that interest us today. For we are willing to better understand our own role in the history of the world, which is why we seek to gain knowledge about how societies and human individuals – as the basic element of this evolution – developed. The first 150 years of the development of Egyptology, from the moment when hieroglyphs were first deciphered and systematic excavations began to be conducted, led archaeological research towards the search for texts, especially those written down on papyrus, and for artworks to enrich museum collections.

The minimal or complete lack of interest in other source materials led to huge, sometimes irreversible losses for the entirety of our knowledge about the ancient world. Modern-day archaeology needs to bridge, at least to some extent, the gaps created by centuries of negligence. One such example could be the huge ancient cemeteries, where the human skeletons were never subjected to anthropological studies, or the very rich ceramic material, from which only vessels preserved fully intact or lavishly decorated were selected for publication. The changes introduced at the turn of the twentieth-first century included such that no archaeological mission conducting excavations in a necropolis can today do research without an anthropologist and a paleozoologist present. A ceramologist has become an essential participant of any excavation, or – increasingly more frequently – a group of ceramologists with various specialisations to correspond to both the richness and diversity of the material.

The conservation of artefacts has become a whole new chapter in this saga. This refers not only to those artefacts that make their way to various museums around the world but also those that remain at the site. For many decades, archaeological missions were least interested in the latter type of artefacts. Rather, they focused on copying texts and documenting the architecture for publication purposes. Some consequences of this were not ←7 | 8→only the disintegration of many, sometimes monumental specimens of stone architecture, but also – and above all – the decay of the polychromy on relief and statue surfaces. Sacral architecture today forms a monochromatic landscape consisting of a grey conglomerate of stone blocks but, in reality, it was the richness of colours that cast the most fascinating allure.

However, even at those archaeological sites which were the subject of many archaeological expeditions over the course of more than one hundred years, there are huge ‘blank spots’ that appeared, among other things, as a result of the false conviction about the ‘barrenness’ of certain areas. These would include a large part of the necropolis of the ancient city of Memphis, located at the head of the Delta, on the western side of the Nile. This land of royal pyramids and mastabas (or the tombs of the noblemen) is today one of the two largest concentrations of excavations in Egypt. The second is the Theban district with its centre on both sides of the Nile in Luxor, a few hundred kilometres south of Memphis. In the middle of the Memphite necropolis, one can find Saqqara, symbolised by the ‘step pyramid,’ i.e. the oldest Egyptian pyramid, erected by the legendary architect Imhotep, divinised for centuries. Even though excavations took place near this pyramid in the middle of the nineteenth century, considered to be the very beginnings ←8 | 9→of science-based archaeology, no one continued the research on the western side of the pyramid, in the spot located south of the famous Serapeum, the underground galleries containing the burials of the holy Apis bulls.

Bibliography

Full bibliography on the topic from the moment when Polish research was initiated in Saqqara until 2012 can be found in the first five volumes of the series “Saqqara. Polish-Egyptian Archaeological Mission,” which is a source publication for the discoveries made there by the Polish archaeological mission:

Saqqara I: K. Myśliwiec et al., The Tomb of Merefnebef, Parts 1–2, Warsaw 2004.

Saqqara II: T. Rzeuska, Pottery of the Late Old Kingdom. Funerary Pottery and Burial Customs, Warsaw 2006.

Saqqara III: K. Myśliwiec (ed.), The Upper Necropolis.

Part 1: M. Radomska et al., The Catalogue with Drawings, Warsaw 2008.

Part 2: M. Kaczmarek et al., Studies and Photographic Documentation, Warsaw 2008.

Saqqara IV: K. Myśliwiec, K.O. Kuraszkiewicz, The Funerary Complex of Nyankhnefertem, Warsaw 2010.

Saqqara V: K. Myśliwiec (ed.), Old Kingdom Structures between the Step Pyramid Complex and the Dry Moat.

Part 1: K. O. Kuraszkiewicz, Architecture and Development of the Necropolis, Warsaw 2013.

Part 2: F. Welc et al., Geology, Anthropology, Finds, Conservation, Warsaw 2013.

Later publications (for the period 2013–2020) include the following positions:

Godziejewski Z., Dąbrowska U., “Appendix: Conservation work in Saqqara (2012 and 2014),” Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 24/1 (2015), pp. 224–229.

Kowalska A., K.O. Kuraszkiewicz, “The End of a World Caused by Water. The Case of Old Kingdom Egypt,” in: J. Popielska-Grzybowska, J. Iwaszczuk (eds.), Studies on Disasters, Catastrophes and the Ends of the World in Sources (“Acta Archaeologica Pultuskiensia” 4), Pułtusk 2013, pp. 173–176.

Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin I., “Accessory Staff or Walking Aid? An Attempt to Unravel the Artefact’s Function by Investigating the Owner’s Skeletal Remains,” Études et Travaux, 26 (2013), pp. 381–393.

Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin I., “Patterns and Management of Fractures of Long Bones: a Study of the Ancient Population of Saqqara, Egypt,” ←11 | 12→in: A.R. David (ed.), Ancient Medical and Healing Systems: Their Legacy to Western Medicine, John Rylands University of Manchester Bulletin, 89 (2013), pp. 133–156.