Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (16.2004(2005))

WEST SAQQARA

EGYPT

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES

The aim of work done in squares 1903, 1904,
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2102, 2103, 2104
during this campaign was to complete the
documentation of the Old Kingdom struc-
tures found between the tombs of Meref-
nebef and Ny-ankh-Nefertem, and the
pyramid's enclosure wall [Fig. i},3 in pre-
paration for forthcoming volumes of our
publication.4 It was necessary to clear some
previously excavated funerary shafts in order
to collate their plans and cross-sections, and
to take some additional photographs. While
clearing the superstructures of some masta-
bas, several new shafts were discovered and
subjected to regular excavations. Together
with some poor remains of cult chapels,
they proved to constitute a dense conglome-
ration of mud brick-built mastabas, often
partly overlapping, built and used in the
second half of the Sixth Dynasty, possibly
also in the First Intermediate Period.
Part of this necropolis was covered by
a mud-brick platform built in later times
and extending westwards from the pyra-
mid enclosure wall [Fig. 2]. The western end
of the preserved part of the platform has
now been dismantled (section c. 2.60 m
wide at the northwestern end) in order to
enable the exploration of Old Kingdom
Shaft 38, the western part of which became
visible in our earlier excavations. New fune-
rary structures comprising shafts (nos. 62
and 68) and walls built of part stone and
part mud brick were discovered below the
platform, beside Shaft 38 [Fig. 3]- The

walls are oriented E-W, and they extend
further eastwards under the remaining part
of the platform.
Similar structures were unearthed north
of the platform, where they lie on leveled
bedrock, 2.10 m below platform level.
These are two walls oriented N-S, made of
irregular stone blocks, continuing south-
wards under the platform. These two walls
divide the area between Shaft 51 and the
north wall of the platform into three sec-
tions. The eastern section, adjoining the
foundations of the step pyramid's enclosure
wall, consists of a filling of desert pebbles
and fine reddish gravel, doubtless as bed-
ding for the foundations of the enclosure
wall.
The section between the two longitudi-
nal walls contains the lower layer of an ag-
glomeration of dark gray mud brick (of same
texture and size as that from the remaining
part of the east and north walls of the mas-
taba, to which Shaft 51 belonged). This sec-
tion should be interpreted as the southern
extension, and foundation, of a tomb reused
several times during the Old Kingdom,
whose latest occupation (late Sixth Dynasty)
was marked by an anonymous autobiogra-
phy carved on a limestone jamb fragment.5
Of particular interest is the third, west-
ern section, which is 2.15 m wide (E-W)
[Fig. 4]- Its eastern part contains a con-
tinuation of the mud-brick layer belonging
to the mastaba and directly overlying the
rock, but its western extremity is a kind of

3 The following shafts were cleared for documentation: 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 26, 34, 36; K. Mysliwiec,
K. Kuraszkiewicz, D. Czerwik, T.I. Rzeuska, M. Kaczmarek, A. Kowalska, M. Radomska, Z. Godziejewski, The Tomb
of Merefnebef, Saqqara I (Warsaw 2004) (= Merefnebef), 43-44, Pis. II, III, XXVa,c, LXXXVa-h.
4 Volumes in preparation: II. Late Old Kingdom Pottery; III. The Upper Necropolis; IV. Old Kingdom Necropolis
between the tomb of Merefnebef and the Step Pyramid enclosure.
5 K. Kuraszkiewicz, "An Old Kingdom Autobiography from Saqqara", PAM XIII. Reports 2001 (2002), 147-150; id.,
"Saqqara 2002: Inscriptions (Jamb S/01/20 with autobiographical inscription)", PAM XIV, Reports 2002 (2003), 133-
137.

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