Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

SAQQARA

EGYPT

obtain a smaller, rectangular block. The
bottom edge of the fragment is broken off,
whether intentionally or not it is impossible
to say.
In its present state the block is 37 cm
high, 25 cm wide and 11 cm thick. It is
carved in fine white limestone and decorated
rather carelessly with an inscription in relief.
The hieroglyphic signs are left without
modelling or internal details; the
background around them is slightly
depressed and it probably formed a kind of
rectangular panel.1
On the right side, the lower part of
Netjerykhet s serekh (which should have been
situated approximately in the middle of the
stela originally) is visible, while the names
and titles of Hetephernebty and Inetkaes are
placed between the serekh and the left edge of
the block. There are no grounds to assume
that the composition of this object differed
from other stelae of Netjerykhet; thus the
Jmj-wt fetish can be reconstructed between
the royal name and the right edge of the stela,
and a horizontal line of text mentioning
Anubis above these.
The inscription panel is to be recon-
structed as follows:
a. [Jnpw hntj β-dsr]
[Anubis, Foremost of the Sacred Land]2

b. [Hr Ntrj-ht]
[Horus Netjerykhet]3
c. [mit-Hr zit njswt] Htp-hr-Nbtj
[She who sees Horus, king’s daughter]
Hetephernebty4
d. zit [njswt] Jnjt-ki.s
[King’s] daughter Inetkaes5
The stela belongs to the flat, round-
topped type (Lauer 1936: 189-190, Kahl et
alii 1995: 80-89, 112-113), numerous
examples of which were found in the
Netjerykhet’s complex (in the serdab court, by
the wall of the north temple, in the temple
itself and in the central pit under the pyramid,
Lauer 1936: 189-190; cf. Mohamed Aly
1998: 224-226), but also outside it.6 The
exact number of this type stelae discovered to
date is difficult to ascertain but evidently it
was significant, for according to J.-Ph. Lauer,
there was “pres dime soixantaine” of them
found in the complex itself. The fact that
more than one stela was discovered in the
relatively near vicinity of the western and
southern wall of the complex may indicate
that their re-use was not restricted to the areas
north and east of the pyramid; this, in turn,
may suggest that also originally they were
distributed in and around the temenos. If so,
it would corroborate Firth’s original
conjecture that the stelae were boundary

1 Unlike, for example, a fragment of a similar stela found in the pyramid complex of Sekhemket (Goneim 1957: 10, Fig. 26),
where only the outline of signs is carved.
2 Leitz 2002: 874.
3 Preserved is only the lower part of the serekh with the palace facade panelling. Originally, the royal name was situated
approximately on the vertical axis of the stela; cf. Firth, Quibell 1935: 119, PI. 86.
4 Hetephernebty was probably a daughter of Khasekhemwy and a wife of Netjerykhet: Baud 1999: 477-478; cf. also Troy
1986: 110-111, 152-153 (no. 3.2). On the title mit-Hr, cf. e.g. Kaplony 1963: 423; Troy 1986: 189 (no. B3/1).
5 Inetkaes is identified as a daughter of Netjerykhet, cf. Baud 2002: 83-85; Troy 1986: 153 (no. 3.3).
6 Stelae of the same type have been found in the pyramid complex of Sekhemkhet (cf. Goneim 1957: 10, Fig. 26), in the
tomb of Mereri near the pyramid of Teti (Lloyd, Spencer, El-Khouli 1990: PL 28.2), another one in the late Old Kingdom
necropolis excavated by the Polish Mission (Mysliwiec 2002: 132-133; Kuraszkiewicz 2008), and even as far as Dahshur
(Oppenheim 2007). Recently, a well preserved stela was found in the New Kingdom necropolis south of the Netjerykhet
complex: El-Aguizy 2007: 1-4.

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Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007