Tomb Treasures of the Late Middle Kingdom: The Archaeology of Female Burials

CHAPTER 2 Other Burials of Women

ChApTer 2 other Burials of Women The most important undisturbed tombs of other women, not buried in court type style, are presented in this chapter in order to gain a better understanding of the burials of the royal and highest-status women buried in the court type style discussed in Chapter 1. While the items of jewelry found in these other burials have many points in common with those from court type burials, it is striking that the other items of burial equipment are in general different, even though all the burials date from more or less the same period and many of these nonroyal women are of high social status. Most notably, these tombs contain only a few objects produced by the funerary industry. A large amount, possibly all, of the jewelry had already been worn in daily life. The only other common burial goods were pottery and sometimes stone vessels. Further burial goods in the tombs presented in this chapter are rare. This might come as a surprise, as other grave goods of the late Middle Kingdom sporadically placed in tombs include faience figures of animals, most notably those of hippopotami, the so-called magical wands made of hippopotamus ivory and decorated with an array of deities and magical figures, the first “true” shabtis (those bearing the shabti spell), and heart scarabs. In a few tombs models of fruits made of faience were found.1 There are sometimes also canopic jars and canopic boxes. Few of these objects appear in the following tombs with rich jewelry, however. This might be an accident of preservation, but it might also show that these objects were rare in the late Middle Kingdom, while tombs with rich jewelry were much more common. Indeed, all the objects mentioned appear sporadically and are not really typical of the period, belonging rather to exceptions relating oTher BuriALS 95 to a higher social level. An average burial consisted of a coffin, some jewelry , and pottery vessels. Poor people were buried in shallow holes in the ground,2 while wealthy people had a tomb chapel with a deep shaft and a burial chamber at the bottom.3 Because so many tombs have suffered from looting, these conclusions should be made with great caution, but surely it is the jewelry that would be robbed first, so if jewelry was found, it seems highly likely that the other burial equipment is quite complete. As always in archaeology, though, a new excavation in a well-preserved cemetery might change this picture. A common problem in archaeology is the sexing of bodies found in tombs. Most of the bodies from the tombs described below were sexed in the relevant publications, which means that the excavators were trained to make a quick judgment on the sex of the skeletons found. Often, however , these excavators were not trained as physical anthropologists.4 In some cases inscriptions are useful for identification, but in many tombs of the level below that of royal and highest-status women no inscriptions are preserved, or they may not have been used on any parts of the burial equipment. For these reasons the sex of some of the people whose burials are described below must remain conjectural. The pattern of high-quality jewelry in connection with cosmetic objects in some tombs might too easily persuade the modern archaeologist to believe that these are all tombs of women. The reality may well be more complicated.5 heTepeT’s ToMB, TeTi pyraMid ceMeTery The undisturbed burial (tomb 41) of the lady Hetepet was found at Saqqara near the pyramid of the Old Kingdom king Teti.6 Around this pyramid a huge cemetery had already developed in the Sixth Dynasty, and it remained in use until the Late Period. This burial ground most likely served part of the population living in Memphis. Several of the tombs date to the late Middle Kingdom. The burials are of special importance for our knowledge of the period, not least because they are among the best recorded and published of all late Middle Kingdom tombs (Fig. 72). The tomb of Hetepet consisted of a six-meter-deep shaft with a small chamber at the bottom on the east side. The chamber was blocked by three slabs of stone. Behind the slabs was a slim mud-brick wall, just one 96 ChApTer 2 brick thick. The chamber contained just the coffin and five identical vessels...