El Kab Part 4

The person behind, who carries a long Nymphaea caerulea, is "his beloved son, Khuy, son of Mryt-[[.a]]tfs," and may be the dedicator of this stela. So we have the following genealogy:--

Srtuy (?) Usrtsn--Mryt-[[.a]]tfs Khuy

3. Limestone stela of the end of the XIIth dynasty, from the cemetery, dedicated by a certain Sabna to his father, who had the same name and was a prophet of Amon.

In the first line we have the formula of offering addressed to Osiris, the next contain this genealogy:--

Ankht[.a]t I Ankht-[.a]t II = Sabna I = Mrt-[.a]ts ?ny Sabna II

PL. V.--No. 1. A figure of blue-glazed ware from a XIIth dynasty tomb (No. 1). It represents a very flat-headed deity, with the youthful side-lock, the body in mummy form, the darker lines representing a bead network.

No. 2 is the alabaster ushabti of the XIIth dynasty.

No. 3 is the fine bronze (height 19 cm.), now at Ghizeh, representing a man adoring Nekheb; his hands are side by side before him, palms down. This is by far the finest of the 800 bronzes found together; of these 700 were worthless, the rest ordinary Osiris figures.

No. 4. A group of the peculiar pots in which the characters of a table of offerings and a model of a house seem to be combined. They are only known in the Middle Kingdom, occurred at Ballas as well as El Kab, and are common in museums. The offerings inside can be seen in good examples to be the head and legs of an ox, bread (?), and jars of water. One model shows the roof of a hut made of logs of wood, and the outside staircase.

No. 5. A group found together, consisting of a _sa_ amulet of bronze, a dark steat.i.te cylinder, and a little glazed steat.i.te draughtsman with a human head and traces of some sign inscribed below. The inscription on the cylinder is copied in PL. XX, 28, and is rather puzzling. The name in a cartouche seems to be Ka-kau-ra, which is not that of a known king. As the pottery in the tomb is of the XIIth dynasty, and the tomb is in the cemetery of that period, one might read Kha-kau-ra, Usertesen III, but his Ka name, Neter-kheperu, is known, and cannot be read in the other name on the cylinder. The cylinder is of a type known in the IVth and Vth dynasties, and Dr.

Petrie suggests that it may be Men-kau-ra, and that his Ka name was Men-maat, the _maat_ being read with the straight sign only. If this be so, we must suppose that the owner of this grave had found the cylinder in some ancient site.

No. 6 shows one of the small clay figures of Nekheb found behind the stone work of the east gate.

PL. VI.--No. 1. A group of the finest stone vases. The upright dish is of diorite; rather more than two-thirds of it was recovered, all in small pieces. It is inscribed _suten biti Sneferu_. The jar on the left is of green slate, the central bowl of porphyry, and the rest alabaster. All are probably of the IVth dynasty or earlier.

No. 2. On the left, in the back row, the commonest coa.r.s.e pot of the IVth dynasty, on the right, a less known type (XII, 29); in the centre one of the pots of Neolithic type from Ka-mena's tomb. In front is the inscribed piece of _majur_ and the model of a granary, the latter from Ka-mena.

32. PL. VII.--The upper of these two sketches by Mr. Clarke shows the two mastabas, C and D, in course of excavation, the great wall of El Kab behind. The lower view is between D and E (_cf._ PL. XXIII). It shows the two boundary walls in the centre, the steep face of sand in front, and (piled on the walls) a lot of the coa.r.s.e pottery, which was here found in great quant.i.ty. The measuring rod is the 2-metre pole used in a.s.sessing the men's work.

PL. VIII.--No. 1 is a view of another mastaba. The brickwork, which blocks up the northern (_i.e._, the nearer) niche, is of later date.

The two niches, or false doors, the pa.s.sage or chapel, the two hollows in the brickwork that were filled with earth, and the well, in this case a very large one, are indicated in this view much as in a plan.

No. 2 is a copy made by Miss Murray of the lid of a toilette-box found in a mastaba. It is made of a veneer (? on wood) of ivory, and blue and black slips of glazed ware.

Nos. 3-9 are ivory fragments of another box.

PL. IX.--Copies of water-colour sketches of a stairway tomb, both taken from below (by Miss Murray from Miss Pirie's sketches).

33. PL. X.--Stone vessels. 1-5 are of alabaster, and, with 6, come from the sunk arches, believed to be of the earlier XIIth dynasty, _i.e._, some time between the Old Kingdom and the reign of Usertesen II; 7-12 are of the later XIIth dynasty; Nos. 7, 8 and 10 are the common ones, the shape 7, when in stone, being, of course, not decorated. The vertical alabasters of the XIIth dynasty are very similar to some (as 23) of the earlier periods, but a slight swell near the mouth (seen well in 47) and a greater spreading at the foot (as in 23, 25) seem to me often to distinguish the early forms. The shapes from 15 onwards belong to the Neolithic and Old Kingdom graves, but 14 was in a XIIth dynasty grave (36); 15 is from a small stairway tomb, 26 also. All the shapes are of alabaster, unless otherwise marked. A rough example of No. 44 was found at Ballas, used anciently as a lamp with floating wick.

34. PL. XI gives the distinctly Neolithic forms of pottery. Nos. 1, 2, 4, 12, 16, 18 are of coa.r.s.e brown ware, 5-9, with 11, 13, 14, good drab. No. 10 is a red pebble-polished ware, 15 is a dark red. Nos. 17 and 18 were found in a mastaba with Old Kingdom pots, and are probably also of that period. No. 13 is the important type of hard brick-red pot which was found in Ka-mena's tomb.

PL. XII.--The upper half of the plate (20-46 and 50) gives the forms of the very coa.r.s.e pottery found in great quant.i.ties above and in the mastabas, and also near the temple of Amenhotep III on the desert.

Most were well known before, but 26 and 32 are new. The common forms are 21, 22, 23, 32, 31, 34. No. 47 is the pot from Ka-mena's tomb, much like a Neolithic form. Nos. 48, 49, 51, 55, and the three sharp-edged bowls, are of a good ware, washed with haemat.i.te. The two little pots 56 (from mastaba C, PL. XXIII) are unlike any others of this period--pink inside, yellow out, with decoration in black line.

35. PL. XIII.--Nos. 1-28 are the types found in the sunk arch tombs inside the walls, and are believed to be later than the Old Kingdom pottery of the last plate, but earlier than that of the plates which follow. Most of these pots are of a rather hard light red ware, and can be distinguished by their material alone from most of the XIIth dynasty pottery found outside the walls. But the forms 8-16 are of a soft brown ware, and are very thick and heavy. All these pots are wheel-made, but sc.r.a.ped over by hand in the lower half. The forms from 28a to 35 are XVIIIth and XIXth dynasty, from secondary burials in the Middle Kingdom cemetery.

PL. XIV.--All but No. 3 are water-jars, 5, 6, 7, and 8 being the common forms. No. 4, with the four ears, is in a fine hard drab ware, and No. 1 is painted, but the rest, which were by far the commonest forms, are of a rather coa.r.s.e, soft pottery, varying in colour from dull brown to pink; the brown ware is the softest and most liable to flaking. In the last two can be seen the marks of the string by which they were held together before being baked.

PL. XV continues the catalogue of XIIth dynasty pottery. Down the centre are two large stands and a large bowl, each drawn from one example, all of a hard, drab, polished ware. The bowls 11-14 and 16, in a light-red, rather soft material, were common forms. The hemispherical cup (18, 22) is still commoner, and was known from two XIIth dynasty sites before. The dish in a soft red ware (21) was very common, occurring in nearly every tomb. The cup and stand combined (33, 34, 35) shows that the bowls in the upper part of this plate (11, etc.) were generally placed upon the ring-stands (38-46). The compound form is made in a weak material, and is seldom found unbroken. The ring-stands are generally of red ware, more rarely (as 38) of the better drab ware.

PL. XVI.--The bottle shapes at the top are generally in red clay, but 47 and 62 are of hard drab ware.

No. 57 may be noticed as being like a Neolithic form, with a common Neolithic mark. The small forms, 63, 64, 67, and 68, are often found together. When a tomb contains one of these small varieties, it generally contains a great many. They perhaps mark some definite period.

No. 60 is an ordinary water-jar. Nos. 58, 70, 71, 72 are the rare drab jars, of which less than a dozen occurred in a hundred graves.

PL. XVII.--Common forms are 76, 77, 79, 84, 86. Some of the shapes, as 116, 131, also occur as the early XIIth dynasty pottery inside the wall.

36. PL. XVIII contains the marks made while yet soft upon coa.r.s.e pots found in stairway tombs, mastabas, etc. Marks recur (as 7 and 9, 40 and 41) in different tombs. Hieroglyphs are not common, but occur (25, 46).

The name No. 44 occurs on a _majur_, and confirms slightly the early date given for those pots. Below are inscribed fragments of limestone, 49-53 and 55, from Ka-mena's mastaba, 54 from a neighbouring one. Nos. 56-65 are the copper models of tools from Ka-mena's tomb.

PL. XIX gives the marks from XIIth dynasty pots, chiefly made after baking, and therefore presumably due to the owners and not the potters. Similar signs sometimes recur in different tombs (44 and 48, 45 and 46, 37 and 38, 29 and 30, 32 and 33). Can they be notes of the contents of the jars?

37. PL. XX.--No. 1 is a piece of a bowl of incised ware found in a stairway tomb.

Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are also fragments of an incised ware found in some irregular holes on the north side of the hill of Paheri, and not before mentioned. With them were a few very late blue glaze beads, and two pots that were probably Roman, but these three fragments are evidently much older.

No. 5 is the outline of a _majur_, the large pot used as a coffin in the Old Kingdom.

No. 6 is a fragment of Neolithic pottery from one of the small graves inside the town (_cf._ Naqada, x.x.xV, 74).

Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 are from intrusive burials in the XIIth dynasty cemetery. No. 13, perhaps Roman, has a certain importance in the question of the date of the great wall (_cf._ - 27).

No. 14 is one of the pots from the pigeon-house in the south of the town (PL. XXIV).

After the scarabs come six cylinders.

No. 28, in black stone, perhaps Men-kau-ra, but from the XIIth dynasty cemetery.

No. 29, in green steat.i.te, from a stairway tomb.

No. 30, probably copper, not bronze, found with a _majur_ burial.

Nos. 31 and 33, black stone and ivory respectively, from another Old Kingdom well.

No. 32, a well-known type of black stone cylinder, found in a mastaba with a sc.r.a.p of diorite, on which the name of Sneferu was scratched.

38. PL. XXI gives the objects from the different foundation deposits.

The first sixteen are from the small temple of Thothmes III. Nos. 1, 2 and 4 are of blue glaze. The spiral mark on the bead is noteworthy; it is common in the XIIth dynasty, and is also known in the XVIIIth at Deir-el-Bahri. Nos. 3 and 8 are sandstone corn-rubbers, with inscriptions in blue paint; 5 and 9 are alabaster models of the head of a fire-drill (?) and of a double sh.e.l.l. The inscriptions are all the same: "The good G.o.d, Menkheper-ra, beloved of Nekheb." No. 10 is a little wooden girdle-tie; 6, 7 and 11 are bronze tools. The five pots below are on a smaller scale.

Nos. 17 to 24 are the pots from the deposits of Amenhotep II, found under the great temple inside El Kab.

From No. 25 onwards all are from the later deposits (PL. I, 8 N), also under the great temple. Of green glaze are Nos. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 38, 39 and 48; of bronze are Nos. 31, 33, 34, 35, 32; of clay, 41 and 47. No. 42 is of bone, No. 37 of calcite, Nos. 36 and 39 of red gla.s.s. Nos. 43 and 44 (scale 1/6) are the typical shapes of pottery.

Nos. 45 and 46 show the coa.r.s.e sandstone mortars found in these deposits.

39. PL. XXII is a plan of the XIIth dynasty tombs found outside the east wall of the temple.

PL. XXIII gives the large group of mastabas found under the heap of sand north of the town wall.