DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4194#0016
THE CHAPEL OP PTAHHETEP.
and south, have been defaced by blows from a
mattock, or similar instrument, perhaps in an
attempt to locate suspected chambers behind.
But it must also be confessed that the processes
of wet-squeezing and cast-taking, which were
in vogue in former days, have probably been
responsible for some injury to the sculptures,
and certainly for a lamentable removal of
colour. Happily now there is a universal desire
to preserve intact for the future what the past
has bequeathed, and an increasing provision by
the authorities of the necessary means to realise
this desire.
9. The east and south walls are pierced just
below the ceiling by a shallow longitudinal
opening, both wall and roof being cut away to
form the shaft, which slants down into the
chamber, presumably from the open air above.
As the openings are at present blocked up and
deeply buried, their further direction towards
the outside of the mastaba could not be in-
vestigated. They were evidently designed to
admit light or air, perhaps both. I do not
know whether such apertures frequently occur
in mastabas. Something similar exists in the
pillared hall also, and I have observed the like
in the hall of a mastaba in the necropolis of
Grizeh. The manner of this construction can
be seen in PI. ii.
10. In the hope of recovering some of the
fragments from the broken walls I caused the
chamber to be cleared down to the original
iioor level, where I found the greater part of a
stone pavement remaining. In front of the
inscribed false door a simple table of offerings
was found, and its position, as well as the Avay
in which it lay embedded in a thin layer of
mud, seemed to prove conclusively that it was
the original and in situ,. It is of a somewhat
rough and yellowish stone, and bears no signs
of having been inscribed. For its position and
its form consult Pis. i. and ii. The only other
object found was the lid of a sarcophagus, hewn
out of white limestone, which lay a few inches
from the east wall near its centre. A chamfer
has been roughly cut along the upper edge of the
two sides: the under side is flat, and the stone
bears no inscription. It evidently is a relic of
one of the many later burials for which the
tomb has been put to use. The drawing on
PI. ii. was made afterwards from measurements,
and is much too regular in outline.
Though disappointed here, I nevertheless
had the pleasure of repairing in a small
degree the injuries which the sculptures have
sustained. A fragment which the workmen
brought from the excavations outside the south
wall of the mastaba, just behind this chamber,
proved to belong to the scenes of the east wall.
Accordingly I instituted a careful search, and
was rewarded by the discovery of several other
fragments, which I was able to fit into their
places, and which, as luck would have it, made
good the greater part of a tantalizing lacuna in
the titles of Ptahhetep on the south wall (see
PI. iii.). Another fragment belonged to a
missing nome-sign on the same wall (see
PL xvi.). It seems likely, therefore, that at
the time of Mariette's discovery all the chips
from the broken surfaces lay on the floor of
the chamber, and might have been preserved.
Further sifting of the debris outside the south
Avail would probably recover many more of them.
The above-mentioned fragments I fixed in their
places with cement: a few others I buried in a
tin in the south-east corner of the chamber.
11, The scenes, and still more the hiero-
glyphs, of the chamber differ considerably in
the quality of their execution. Those on the
east Avail are in veiy bold relief and carefully
executed, though it must not be taken for
granted that the finish and attention to detail
is uniform even in closely proximate parts.
The scenes on the upper portions of the north
and south Avails are much Avorn, and those in
the thickness of the doorway seem to have been
of poor execution from the first. This variable-
ness in the Avork frequently coincides Avith a
and south, have been defaced by blows from a
mattock, or similar instrument, perhaps in an
attempt to locate suspected chambers behind.
But it must also be confessed that the processes
of wet-squeezing and cast-taking, which were
in vogue in former days, have probably been
responsible for some injury to the sculptures,
and certainly for a lamentable removal of
colour. Happily now there is a universal desire
to preserve intact for the future what the past
has bequeathed, and an increasing provision by
the authorities of the necessary means to realise
this desire.
9. The east and south walls are pierced just
below the ceiling by a shallow longitudinal
opening, both wall and roof being cut away to
form the shaft, which slants down into the
chamber, presumably from the open air above.
As the openings are at present blocked up and
deeply buried, their further direction towards
the outside of the mastaba could not be in-
vestigated. They were evidently designed to
admit light or air, perhaps both. I do not
know whether such apertures frequently occur
in mastabas. Something similar exists in the
pillared hall also, and I have observed the like
in the hall of a mastaba in the necropolis of
Grizeh. The manner of this construction can
be seen in PI. ii.
10. In the hope of recovering some of the
fragments from the broken walls I caused the
chamber to be cleared down to the original
iioor level, where I found the greater part of a
stone pavement remaining. In front of the
inscribed false door a simple table of offerings
was found, and its position, as well as the Avay
in which it lay embedded in a thin layer of
mud, seemed to prove conclusively that it was
the original and in situ,. It is of a somewhat
rough and yellowish stone, and bears no signs
of having been inscribed. For its position and
its form consult Pis. i. and ii. The only other
object found was the lid of a sarcophagus, hewn
out of white limestone, which lay a few inches
from the east wall near its centre. A chamfer
has been roughly cut along the upper edge of the
two sides: the under side is flat, and the stone
bears no inscription. It evidently is a relic of
one of the many later burials for which the
tomb has been put to use. The drawing on
PI. ii. was made afterwards from measurements,
and is much too regular in outline.
Though disappointed here, I nevertheless
had the pleasure of repairing in a small
degree the injuries which the sculptures have
sustained. A fragment which the workmen
brought from the excavations outside the south
wall of the mastaba, just behind this chamber,
proved to belong to the scenes of the east wall.
Accordingly I instituted a careful search, and
was rewarded by the discovery of several other
fragments, which I was able to fit into their
places, and which, as luck would have it, made
good the greater part of a tantalizing lacuna in
the titles of Ptahhetep on the south wall (see
PI. iii.). Another fragment belonged to a
missing nome-sign on the same wall (see
PL xvi.). It seems likely, therefore, that at
the time of Mariette's discovery all the chips
from the broken surfaces lay on the floor of
the chamber, and might have been preserved.
Further sifting of the debris outside the south
Avail would probably recover many more of them.
The above-mentioned fragments I fixed in their
places with cement: a few others I buried in a
tin in the south-east corner of the chamber.
11, The scenes, and still more the hiero-
glyphs, of the chamber differ considerably in
the quality of their execution. Those on the
east Avail are in veiy bold relief and carefully
executed, though it must not be taken for
granted that the finish and attention to detail
is uniform even in closely proximate parts.
The scenes on the upper portions of the north
and south Avails are much Avorn, and those in
the thickness of the doorway seem to have been
of poor execution from the first. This variable-
ness in the Avork frequently coincides Avith a