DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49512#0405
CAUSES DOWN TO THE REIGN OF CHEOPS
369
(12) Large private tombs of the end of Dyn. Ill and the reign of Sneferuw: continuation of the mastaba
forms of Dyn. Ill; the two-niche mastaba and the mastaba with interior southern chapel;
introduction of the interior cruciform chapel of palace-fagade type with painted decorations;
occasional use of facade panelling of the palace-facade type; occasional use of simplified panelling
on all four sides of mastaba; roofed exterior chapels of the corridor or the room + corridor
types; introduction of serdab either in exterior chapel or in mastaba connected with the interior
chapel; introduction of stone-carved reliefs in offering niches and chapels.
The detailed examination of the available material has proved, I think, that all the complicated
forms of superstructure and substructure used in the reign of Sneferuw developed gradually from the
plain open-pit grave with gravel mound of the Predynastic period. The growth of Egyptian civilization
is reflected in the stages of this development. One of the most important manifestations of Egyptian
culture, the architecture, is seen almost exclusively in tomb structures down to the end of the Old
Kingdom. It is the tomb which gives us our evidence for the reconstruction of the first Egyptian
architecture built of crude brickwork with white plastered walls and with roofs, columns, doors, and
windows of wood, and it is the funerary monument of King Zoser which reveals the first magnificent
translation of the c.b. architecture into fine white limestone with its smoothly dressed surfaces and its
architectural details carved in stone to imitate the wooden accessories of the older buildings. The history
of the mastery over stone by the Egyptian craftsmen, that mastery which made the stone architecture
possible, can only be fully traced in the long series of burial-places made in the district under the
jurisdiction of the High Priests of Ptah of Memphis, ‘The Great Ones of the Master Craftsmen’.
Practically all our knowledge of the progress of the arts and crafts down to the accession of Cheops is
founded on evidence provided by the series of tomb types and the contents of the burial chamber.
Every tomb type is the centre of an archaeological group. These groups reveal to us in succession the
practical use of metal, the first machines (bow-drill and crank borer), the invention of c.b. construction,
the invention of writing, and the progress of all the arts and crafts, and form an indisputable chrono-
logical series which depicts clearly the causes of human progress but not its measurement in time. The
measurement in time can be calculated from the reign of Menes onwards by the use of later inscriptional
material often imperfectly preserved. Taking all our inscriptional material the union of Upper and
Lower Egypt by Menes can be only vaguely fixed as lying between 3500 b.c. and 3900 b.c., and all our
succeeding dates down to the New Kingdom must be stated likewise with a certain limit of error.
Such vagueness in the timing of our chronological series of events is not of vital importance for the
history of Egypt. The important fact is that the whole series presents one continued development of
Egyptian culture from the early Predynastic period down to the reign of Sneferuw. The Egyptians
were from the beginning a mixed race, and this mixed population may have continued to receive fresh
tribes during the whole period under discussion. Every fresh addition was in a less advanced state than
the population of Egypt, for it was absorbed in the cultural life of the people of the valley. At no point
does the steady progress of that culture ever seem to have been broken. The racial characteristics
exhibited by the great sculptors of Dyn. IV are discernible in the stone weapons and vessels, in the line
drawings, and in the slate palettes of animal form of the Predynastic period. All archaeological groups
from the earliest Predynastic times to the reign of Sneferuw are so interwoven one with another by the
types of pottery, utensils, implements, weapons, and ornaments that they present to us the progress
and culture of one national unit from the tribal state of Neolithic man to the organized monarchy of
the Pyramid Age.
3»
369
(12) Large private tombs of the end of Dyn. Ill and the reign of Sneferuw: continuation of the mastaba
forms of Dyn. Ill; the two-niche mastaba and the mastaba with interior southern chapel;
introduction of the interior cruciform chapel of palace-fagade type with painted decorations;
occasional use of facade panelling of the palace-facade type; occasional use of simplified panelling
on all four sides of mastaba; roofed exterior chapels of the corridor or the room + corridor
types; introduction of serdab either in exterior chapel or in mastaba connected with the interior
chapel; introduction of stone-carved reliefs in offering niches and chapels.
The detailed examination of the available material has proved, I think, that all the complicated
forms of superstructure and substructure used in the reign of Sneferuw developed gradually from the
plain open-pit grave with gravel mound of the Predynastic period. The growth of Egyptian civilization
is reflected in the stages of this development. One of the most important manifestations of Egyptian
culture, the architecture, is seen almost exclusively in tomb structures down to the end of the Old
Kingdom. It is the tomb which gives us our evidence for the reconstruction of the first Egyptian
architecture built of crude brickwork with white plastered walls and with roofs, columns, doors, and
windows of wood, and it is the funerary monument of King Zoser which reveals the first magnificent
translation of the c.b. architecture into fine white limestone with its smoothly dressed surfaces and its
architectural details carved in stone to imitate the wooden accessories of the older buildings. The history
of the mastery over stone by the Egyptian craftsmen, that mastery which made the stone architecture
possible, can only be fully traced in the long series of burial-places made in the district under the
jurisdiction of the High Priests of Ptah of Memphis, ‘The Great Ones of the Master Craftsmen’.
Practically all our knowledge of the progress of the arts and crafts down to the accession of Cheops is
founded on evidence provided by the series of tomb types and the contents of the burial chamber.
Every tomb type is the centre of an archaeological group. These groups reveal to us in succession the
practical use of metal, the first machines (bow-drill and crank borer), the invention of c.b. construction,
the invention of writing, and the progress of all the arts and crafts, and form an indisputable chrono-
logical series which depicts clearly the causes of human progress but not its measurement in time. The
measurement in time can be calculated from the reign of Menes onwards by the use of later inscriptional
material often imperfectly preserved. Taking all our inscriptional material the union of Upper and
Lower Egypt by Menes can be only vaguely fixed as lying between 3500 b.c. and 3900 b.c., and all our
succeeding dates down to the New Kingdom must be stated likewise with a certain limit of error.
Such vagueness in the timing of our chronological series of events is not of vital importance for the
history of Egypt. The important fact is that the whole series presents one continued development of
Egyptian culture from the early Predynastic period down to the reign of Sneferuw. The Egyptians
were from the beginning a mixed race, and this mixed population may have continued to receive fresh
tribes during the whole period under discussion. Every fresh addition was in a less advanced state than
the population of Egypt, for it was absorbed in the cultural life of the people of the valley. At no point
does the steady progress of that culture ever seem to have been broken. The racial characteristics
exhibited by the great sculptors of Dyn. IV are discernible in the stone weapons and vessels, in the line
drawings, and in the slate palettes of animal form of the Predynastic period. All archaeological groups
from the earliest Predynastic times to the reign of Sneferuw are so interwoven one with another by the
types of pottery, utensils, implements, weapons, and ornaments that they present to us the progress
and culture of one national unit from the tribal state of Neolithic man to the organized monarchy of
the Pyramid Age.
3»