Mastaba de Chepseskaf

The mastaba el-Faraoun is the name given by the contemporary Egyptians to the tomb of Chepseskaf last sovereign of. This tomb marks a turning in the construction of the royal tombs of the Ancient Empire. Indeed, since each Pharaon will be made build a funerary complex whose principal monument was a pyramid which reaches with colossal proportions and a geometrical perfection which forces admiration since Antiquity.

Not only Chepseskaf breaks with the choice of its predecessors to build the funerary complex opposite Héliopolis while making establish to it his clean with Saqqarah, but more still the rupture seems to be complete by the construction either of a pyramid but of gigantic a Mastaba which nevertheless is included in a funerary complex. This fact is variously interpreted by the Egyptologists. Certain theories lean in favor of an unfinished complex because of the brevity of the reign what would explain why the majority of the elements of the complex are out of raw bricks. Others militate for a handing-over in question of the dogma héliopolitain, the choice of the shape of the monument, which would be connected either with a reproduction of the primitive sanctuary of Bouto or to a gigantic sarcophagus showing a will posted of the king to approach the myth osirien.

At all events this tomb with the variation of the beaten paths remains a typical work of by the provision of the royal funerary apartments, the choice of construction materials and coating of the monument or by the plan of the funerary complex as a whole.

The funerary complex

This complex adopts the traditional diagram of the complexes developped at the point for the sovereigns of with a temple of the valley and a rising roadway connecting it to a funerary temple included in the peribolus girding the royal tomb. The temple of the valley was not localized yet with precision and was the subject for the moment of no excavation. The first originality is in the double raw brick enclosure which delimits two overlapping spaces thus the first being distant second of approximately fifty meters. The roadway crosses the first enclosure to lead to the coupled pertaining to worship temple with monumental the Mastaba the unit being girds by the second raw brick enclosure. The second originality of this complex lies precisely in the layout of the roadway off-set on the south of the temple rather than in the axis of the monument. Besides this layout seems not to be rectilinear but broken with the first third of its course obliquing towards north, site probable of the temple of the valley lost.

The funerary temple or high temple is better known. Joined with the face is royal tomb, following the example others complex funerary royal of the dynasty, it was composed of before court giving on the pertaining to worship temple. This last comprised one second court, intended for the rites of purification of the offerings before their presentation in the rooms reserved for the worship of the late king to the back of the building. A system of drainage of drinking could be identified on the site and the northern wall of the temple delivered vestiges of a decoration in frontage of palate what had not occurred since the time of Djéser.

In addition, it is interesting to note that this high temple and its double enclosure comprised finally two accesses. One traditional since the roadway and thus in this case by the south, the other in the Eastern axis of the complex. This point seems to indicate a change in practice pertaining to worship because one does not find this double access in the preceding funerary temples. The unit is comparable with the plan of the temple of the valley of Mykérinos and it is precisely this resemblance which questions the final function of the building. Another point of rupture with the funerary temples of the predecessors of Chepseskaf, if it his comprises a room indeed or a court comprising a stele false-carries, it does not include/understand on the other hand any room of worship to five niches. This last change would show according to certain assumptions that this monument answered different theological obligations, not to say divergent, those adopted by the majority of the sovereigns of.

In addition if the pertaining to worship part is built out of stone the unit of the complex is completed out of believed brick, fact which could confirm that the demise of the king stopped the building site of the funerary complex which will then be supplemented by his wife Khentkaous {{Ire}} or by the successor in title which inaugurates. Vestiges of royal statues of Chepseskaf were found in this funerary complex indicating that its worship was indeed practiced and are preserved at the Musée of Cairo.

The royal tomb

Initially and when the monument was completed, the tomb of Chepseskaf was composed of a gigantic building whose construction is in the line line of the buildings of as well by the quality of used materials as by their size. Currently the monument is appeared as large a mastaba to two degrees of five sat blocks of local limestone. These blocks are colossal and are connected in their provision with pyramidal constructions of the predecessors of Chepseskaf. The unit was covered with a fine limestone coating of Tourah, disappeared today, which rested on the first sitted ones conceived out of red granite of Assouan following the example coatings of the pyramids of Gizeh. There the comparison stops because instead of a pyramidal monument architecture chosen to build the royal tomb breaks with the tradition. Directed North-South this building measured initially more than one hundred meters length on nearly seventy-five broad for a height exceeding the twenty meters, with walls showing a fruit with the strong slope of sixty-five degrees. The roof of the monument was bent with the image of the traditional representations of the tomb in the ancient reliefs and descriptions. It seems that as of its design this monument was thought in this rectangular form which, if she points out that of a mastaba today, was formerly to take the aspect of the primitive vault of the sanctuary of Bouto or of a primitive tomb of the time thinite or more traditionally that of monumental a Sarcophage, these three examples answering equivalent architectural concepts when they are transposed to such a scale. The restitutions suggested by the Egyptologists take again the example of the colossal sarcophagus most of the time.

The underground device whose access remains traditionally on the northern face of the monument, takes again that existing at Mykérinos by simplifying it and by giving him a more coherent plan. The unit was built in masonry entirely avoided of red granite of Assouan the bottom of a pit, a seven meters depth, dug in the calcareous plate of the site. This device recalls the great excavations of Zaouiet el-Aryan or Abou Rawash on a less spectacular scale.

A first corridor is inserted on a score of meters in the solid mass of the monument and continuing in the pit, leads to a corridor sealed by three granite porticulli. The corridor takes again its course with horizontal on a score of meters to open on the anteroom of the vault conceived on an axis East-West and located at the center of the monument. This anteroom measured a little more than three meters broad on eight length and was covered by a system of monolithic flagstones laid out out of rafters. The royal funerary room of a width of four meters on nearly eight was in the west, while by the south-east of the anteroom a last corridor of ten meters length distributes six niches or stores of two meters approximately fifty of depth and which were to shelter the funerary furniture of the king. During the exploration of the vault of the remains of a fleshfly to decoration in frontage of palate and equipped with an Egyptian throat allowed to restore a work similar to the sarcophagus of Mykérinos. The vault was covered by a ceiling consisted blocks monoliths of granite also laid out out of rafters, culminating with nearly six meters height and whose Soffite had been recut in clotheshanger, giving him the aspect of a vault. This characteristic is also in the funerary apartments of Mykérinos to Gizeh.

In the official inscriptions indicating the funerary complex of Chepseskaf, determinative the sea indicating the pyramid is systematically employed. The funerary apartments of this tomb are in addition similar to those of a pyramid. The materials employed remain in the face and quality of materials similar to those used for the construction of the pyramids of Gizeh for example. The complex takes again the essential components of the pyramidal complexes with a low temple, a roadway and a temple high coupled with the face is royal cenotaph. All seems to indicate that initially Chepseskaf intended to be made build a pyramid although the choice of its site marks a real rupture with the dynastic necropolis traditional. However these facts seem to be contradicted with the results of the studies undertaken on the monument since Mariette until Hawass while passing by Gustave Jéquier which it first drew up a complete plan of it. Indeed, this work shows that there no were changes during the construction of the monument and that if it were indeed completed with haste, in particular with regard to the funerary temple and its double enclosure, its plan had been upon the departure that of the monument which we know today. Moreover notorious differences and without precedents in the plan of the funerary temple encourage to think that there was on behalf of the king an deliberate intention mark time and not join the titanic company its predecessors and probably the theology which supported it. Its death, undoubtedly premature, intervened whereas the vault and the principal monument of the complex were about to be completed and the funerary temple in the course of construction.

Chepseskaf accepted there a worship until the end of, which will be reactivated with the Moyen Empire following the period of anarchy of the {{intermediate Ire}} period.

Photographs

Random links: