Ancient Egypt
Elements of its Cultural History

  by Sjef Willockx

Backstage, 2: tomb and offering niche
 

This is the area behind the "mastaba", looking west. Here stood once a columned hall with 80 octagonal columns. All around, the darker, vertical face of the mountain seems to indicate that the builders cut some rock away to make more room for it.
In the far end, you can see the opening of a cave: once a niche in which a statue of the king stood. More to the center is the opening of the trench that leads to the tomb.

This is the trench, with the entrance to the tomb - now blocked. From here, an incredibly steep corridor of 150 meters long descends some 45 meters down. At the end of this is the burial chamber.

This is again a shot taken from the cliffs above the temples. On the left you can see part of the forecourt of "H", but most of the picture is occupied by the complex of "M".
The large trench in the center of the image is known as "Bab el Hosan". It resembles the trench that leads towards the burial chamber in more then one way. For this trench is also continued by a corridor that leads towards an underground chamber. In this room however, not the body of the king was buried, but a huge limestone statue of the king, wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and a jubilee cloak. It was wrapped in linen, as a mummy.
Perhaps this was originally the burial chamber for the king in an earlier version of the complex. It may however also have been a "subsidiary grave", like the south tomb at the Step Pyramid complex of Zoser, or the satellite pyramid of most later pyramid complexes. A striking difference with those subsidiary graves is its location: the satellite pyramids are always located to the south of the pyramid - as is the case with the South Tomb of Zoser. The Bab el Hosan however lies north of the central axis of Mentuhotep's complex.
But then again: the earlier pyramids were all located in the north of the country, whereas this mortuary complex is in the south. If the "main tomb" is in the south, it would seem fitting that the "subsidiary tomb" was to the north of it. The fact that the statue that was found there, and that might represent the Ka of the king, wore the Red Crown of the north, would agree well with this.

Here then is a close up of the cave in the rock, where once was the offering niche with a statue of the king. In front of it was an offering table, like in Old Kingdom offering chapels and mortuary temples.

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