Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (10.1998(1999))

_WEST SAQQARA_

EGYPT

opened on the west into a burial chamber
containing an unfinished white limestone
sarcophagus in the center. One corner of
the heavy lid was lifted to reveal an empty
interior. Although offering jars set beside
the sarcophagus at various levels of the
rubble filling testified to repeated visits in
the chamber, it seems that the undecorated
room was never used for burial purposes.
Our present work made it clear, how-
ever, that the mudbrick wall surrounding
the court of the shaft's superstructure was
later incorporated into the tomb of the
vizier Meref-nebef (Fzg. 2). A cult chapel


Fig. 2. Old Kingdom mudbrick structures
and pottery deposit north of the wall
surrounding Shaft 1 (Photo Z. Kos'c)

was added to the east side of the eastern
wall of the court, i.e., facing the pyramid
(Figs. 2, 3 and 4).
A rectangular niche was found cut into
the thickness of the recessed mudbrick
wall, with but a single brick width of the
original structure left in the back of it.
The niche, 0.90 m wide and 1.66 m long,
is bordered with a thin mudbrick wall on
its eastern side. At the point where this
addition met the original wall, traces of
the original whitewash have been pre-
served on the surface of both structures.
The whitewash of the big wall with recess-
es is partly covered with bricks of the thin
wall, proving that the latter had been
added on to the earlier architecture. Thus,
the big Shaft 1 with its superstructure
appears to be earlier than the tomb of the
vizier.
Three decorated stone blocks belong-
ing to this cult chapel were found in front
of it: the fragmentary false-door discov-
ered last year (see the report for 1997),7>
a large trapezoidal offering table (Fig. 3),

Fig. 3- Remains of cult chapel of Meref-nebef
on the east side of the wall surround-
ing Shaft 1 (Photo Z. Kos'c)


7) PAM IX, op. cit., p. 92, fig. 2; see the contribution by K. Kuraszkiewicz in this volume.

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