Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (18.2006(2008))

SAQQARA

EGYPT

DOCUMENTATION WORK

Recording activities in the area excavated
in 2004-2005 necessitated additional
cleaning and clearing work, which resulted
in the discovery of some new burial pits in
the Upper Necropolis (Ptolemaic Period),
as well as shafts in the Lower (Late Old
Kingdom) Necropolis.
The late burials identified in this
campaign, nos 482-508 {Fig. 2], have been
fully documented, the mummies and
remains of skeletons studied by an anthropo-
logist, and the funerary equipment,
including cartonnages and other objects,
subjected to conservation (Saqqara III/1,



Fig. 1. Old Kingdom shafts and Ptolemaic
Period burial pits in northern part of
the area excavated in 2006. View
from the west (Photo P. Lelek)

325-370, cat. 376-394). Most of these
burials were connected with the neighboring
Old Kingdom shafts. Many have the shape
of anthropoid pits hewn among the earlier
shafts (Burials 488, 491, 492, 497, 498) and
were covered with limestone slabs [Fig. 1].
Some burials were placed inside the shafts, in
rectangular niches hewn in the upper part of
one of the shaft walls, with a series of stones
set vertically to cover the entrance to each
niche (Burials 474,477,482,483,486,487,
494, 495, 500, 501, 502, 504, 505).
A specific way of using ancient shafts as new
burial places was a combination of both: the
mummy was placed by one of the walls
inside a shaft and the head or feet, or both,
were placed in hollows hewn in the
adjoining shaft walls (Burials 477, 478, 482,
485). In most of the latter cases, the
mummies were concealed behind a row of
heavy stone blocks, some of which, obviously
reused, retained a rectangular form.
Almost all of these burials were
disturbed by ancient robbers; the head or
limbs of some of the mummies were
missing, and the upper part of most of
them was torn open. Only one of the
Ptolemaic Period burials, no. 483, found
in a niche hewn in the northern wall of
Shaft 18, was intact. In it, beside
a mummy encased in a finely painted
cartonnage, was a richly decorated wooden
canopic chest {Fig. 3} (Saqqara III/1 326,
335-343, 347; Seventy Years, 132-133,
cat. 54) and a statuette of Ptah-Osiris-
Sokar made of the same material (Saqqara
III/l 326, 344-348; Seventy Years, 134-
135, cat. 55). The chest contained remains
of organic materials wrapped in linen.
A simple bundle of linen resembling
a mummy in shape was found inside the
hollowed-out figurine, {Fig. 4Λ- Un-
fortunately, the lower part of the mummy

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