Egyptian art and architecture Tomb architecture

In the earliest dynasties the tombs of kings and high officials were made of mud brick and of such similar size that it is difficult to distinguish between them. It is now generally thought that the tombs at Abydos were royal, whereas those at Ṣaqqārah were noble. The latter, better preserved than the former, reveal rectangular superstructures, called mastabas (see below), with sides constructed in the form of paneled niches painted white and decorated with elaborate “matting” designs.

These great superstructures contained many storage chambers stocked with food and equipment for the deceased, who lay in a rectangular burial chamber below ground. Also within the superstructure, but not always clearly evident, was a low mound of earth, possibly representing the primitive grave of earlier times. Sometimes this concealed mound was a low, stepped structure, perhaps the precursor of the first great building constructed of stone in Egypt.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser, second king of the 3rd dynasty, was built within a vast enclosure on a commanding site at Ṣaqqārah overlooking the city of Memphis. A high royal official, Imhotep, has traditionally been credited with the design and with the decision to use quarried stone. This first essay in stone is remarkable for its design of six superposed stages of diminishing size, and also for its huge enclosure (1,784 × 909 feet [544 × 277 metres]) surrounded by a paneled wall faced with fine limestone and containing a series of “mock” buildings that probably represent structures associated with the palace in Memphis. There the Egyptian stonemasons made their earliest architectural innovations, using stone to reproduce the forms of primitive wood and brick buildings. Fine reliefs of the king and elaborate wall “hangings” in glazed tiles in parts of the subterranean complexes are among the innovations found in this remarkable monument.

For the Old Kingdom the most characteristic form of tomb building was the true pyramid, the finest example of which is the Great Pyramid of King Khufu (Cheops) of the 4th dynasty at al-Jīzah (Giza). The form itself reached its maturity in the reign of Snefru, father of Khufu. Subsequently only the pyramid of Khafre (Chephren), Khufu’s successor, approached the size and perfection of the Great Pyramid. The simple measurements of the Great Pyramid indicate very adequately its scale, monumentality, and precision: its sides are 755.43 feet (230.26 metres; north), 756.08 feet (230.45 metres; south), 755.88 feet (230.39 metres; east), 755.77 feet (230.36 metres; west); its orientation on the cardinal points is almost exact; its height upon completion was 481.4 feet (146.7 metres); its area at base is just over 13 acres (5.3 hectares). Other features in its construction contribute substantially to its remarkable character: the lofty, corbeled Grand Gallery and the granite-built King’s Chamber with five relieving compartments (empty rooms for reducing pressure) above.

The pyramid formed the focal point of a group of buildings that constituted the funerary complex of a king. Two temples linked by a causeway were essential components. The valley temple, built on the edge of the desert escarpment, was the place of reception for the royal body. The most striking valley temple is that of Khafre, a structure of massive granite blocks with huge alabaster flooring slabs, starkly simple but immensely effective. The best preserved causeway serves the pyramid of King Unas of the 5th dynasty; it contains low-relief wall decorations and a ceiling adorned with stars. The pyramid temple of Unas is distinguished by the extensive use of granite for architectural elements, including doorways and splendid monolithic columns with palm capitals.

The pyramids built for the later kings of the Old Kingdom and most kings of the Middle Kingdom were comparatively poor in size, construction, and materials. The tomb of King Mentuhotep II of the 11th dynasty is, however, of exceptional interest. The tomb complex at Dayr al-Baḥrī was once thought to have contained a pyramid, but excavations between 1966 and 1971 have shown that the hypothetical reconstructions were misconceived. Its essential components were a rectangular structure, a series of pillared ambulatories, an open court, and a hypostyle hall tucked into the cliffs.

The monumentality of the pyramid made it not only a potent symbol of royal power but also an obvious target for tomb robbers. During the New Kingdom the wish to halt the robbing and desecration of royal tombs led to their being sited together in a remote valley at Thebes, dominated by a peak that itself resembled a pyramid. There, in the Valley of the Kings, tombs were carved deep into the limestone with no outward structure and marked only by a doorway carved in the rock face. They had no common plan, but most consisted of a series of corridors opening out at intervals to form rooms and ending in a large burial chamber deep in the mountain. The finest of the tombs is that of Seti I, second king of the 19th dynasty; it extends 328 feet (100 metres) into the mountain and contains a spectacular burial chamber, the barrel-shaped roof of which represents the vault of heaven.

After the abandonment of the valley at the end of the 20th dynasty, kings of the subsequent two dynasties were buried in very simple tombs within the temple enclosure of the delta city of Tanis. No later royal tombs have ever been identified.

A major distinction between royal and nonroyal tombs lies in the provision of arrangements for the funerary cult of the deceased. The evidence available from the 3rd dynasty onward makes it clear that king and commoner had quite different expectations. In nonroyal tombs a chapel was provided that included a formal tablet or stela on which the deceased was shown seated at a table of offerings. The earliest examples are simple and architecturally undemanding; later a suitable room, the tomb-chapel, was provided for the stela (now incorporated in a false door) in the tomb superstructure, or mastaba.

The term mastaba (Arabic: “bench”) was first used archaeologically in the 19th century by workmen on Auguste Mariette’s excavation at Ṣaqqārah to describe the rectangular, flat-topped stone superstructures of tombs. Subsequently, mastaba was also used for mud brick superstructures.

In the great cemeteries of the Old Kingdom, changes in size, internal arrangements, and groupings of the burials of nobles indicate the vicissitudes of nonroyal posthumous expectations. In the 3rd dynasty at Ṣaqqārah the most important private burials were at some distance from the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemkhet. Their large superstructures incorporated offering niches that were to develop into chapels (as in the tomb of Khabausokar) and corridors that could accommodate paintings of equipment for the afterlife and niches to hold carved representations of the deceased owner (as in the tomb of Hesire). During the 4th dynasty the stone mastabas of the Giza pyramid field were regularly laid out near the pyramids, and, although smaller than those at Ṣaqqārah, they show the true start of the exploitation of space within the superstructure. The niche chapel became a room for the false door and offering table, and there might also be rooms containing scenes of offering and of daily activities.

Nothing indicates more clearly the relaxation of royal authority in the later Old Kingdom than the size and decoration of the mastabas at Ṣaqqārah and Abusīr. Externally they were still rectangular structures, occasionally with a low wall establishing a precinct (as in the tomb of Mereruka). The full exploitation of internal space in the great mastabas at Abusīr (that of Ptahshepses) and Ṣaqqārah (that of Ti and the double mastaba of Akhtihotep and Ptahhotep) made ample room available for the receipt of offerings and for the representation of the milieu in which the dead owner might expect to spend his afterlife. In the mastaba of Mereruka, a vizier of Teti, first king of the 6th dynasty, there were 21 rooms for his own funerary purposes, with six for his wife and five for his son.

Contemporaneously, the provincial colleagues of the Memphite nobles developed quite different tombs in Middle and Upper Egypt. Tomb chapels were excavated into the rock of the cliffs overlooking the Nile. Rock-cut tombs subsequently were to become the most common kind of private tomb, although mastabas were built in the royal cemeteries of the 12th dynasty.

Most rock-cut tombs were fairly simple single chambers serving all the functions of the multiplicity of rooms in a mastaba. Some, however, were excavated with considerable architectural pretensions. At Aswān huge halls, often connecting to form labyrinthine complexes, were partly formal, with columns carefully cut from the rock, and partly rough-hewn. Chapels with false doors were carved out within the halls. In some cases the facades were monumental, with porticoes and inscriptions.

At Beni Hasan the local nobles during the Middle Kingdom cut large and precise tomb chambers in the limestone cliffs. Architectural features—columns, barrel roofs, and porticoes, all carved from the rock—provided fine settings for painted mural decorations. The tombs of Khnumhotep and Amenemhet are outstanding examples of fine design impeccably executed.

The most famous rock-cut private tombs are those of the New Kingdom at Thebes, their fame resting, above all, on their mural decoration. As elsewhere the excavated chambers are the tomb-chapels, mostly taking a simple T-form, in which the crossbar of the T represents the entrance hall, and the upright stroke of the T is the chapel proper. Some of the more important tombs (Rekhmire, Ramose) have open courts before their unelaborate facades and some striking internal features, but most are small in comparison with those of earlier times.

A separate tradition of private tomb design was developed for important officials at Ṣaqqārah in the New Kingdom. Open courts, constructed offering chapels, and elaborate subterranean suites of rooms characterize these Memphite tombs. The tomb for Horemheb, a military commander who became the last king of the 18th dynasty, has remarkable relief decoration. The tomb of Tia (a sister of the 19th-dynasty king Ramses II) has a small pyramid behind the chapel.