MIDDLE KINGDOM CEMETERY.
19. Inside the town walls, never outside, were found a few examples of
a distinct type of tomb, with underground brick arches, pottery akin
to that of the usual XIIth dynasty, but not identical with it, and
stone vases of distinctive shapes. The types of pottery are shown in
PL. X, 1-28, the alabaster vases in X, 1-6.
In PL. XXIV some walls in broken line are seen which cut through the
walls of three mastabas, which last are shown in dead black. The tombs
in question lay parallel with these walls, some within the square
chambers, some also outside; and the walls are, roughly, parallel with
the great walls of the town. The method of construction seems to have
been as follows: An oblong excavation, about 6 m. long by 2 wide and 3
m. deep, was made in the gravel. About half the length of this was
needed for the tomb; the other half formed a rough sloping staircase
for the workmen. The sides of the grave were built of brick walls, and
these were covered by an arch of brick about 1.50 m. high. In this the
body was laid at full length, on the left side, the head to the north;
in front of the body was a great mass of pottery. The interest of this
set of tombs lies in the bearing they may have on the question of the
date of the wall, for if it be granted that these are probably of the
early XIIth dynasty (as the pottery suggests), then we have early
XIIth dynasty tombs inside, and tombs of the reign of Amenemhat III
outside the walls. (There were, however, two tombs inside the walls in
which the remains of the pottery were much like those in the tombs
outside.) Now there is a stela from El Kab, to which Dr. Spiegelberg
calls my attention (published in Stobart, Egypt. Antiq., PL. I), which
states that Amenemhat III restored the walls at El Kab which Usertesen
II had built. What walls these were the stela does not state, but the
evidence from the pottery would support the idea that they were the
great town walls. And if this be so, the common pottery of the Middle
Kingdom can now be split into two sections, between which the reign of
Usertesen II will form the dividing line.
20. _The tombs in detail._
In No. 203 there were only two pots and a marble vase. Traces of the
roofing arch were found. The skeleton as it lay measured 1.80 m. long.
No. 205 contained pottery of shapes XIII, 2, 12, 27, 24, 20.
No. 216 contained four examples of XIII, 5, one each of 2, 19, 4, and
about fifty of the small saucer, 12a.
No. 242 contained 26, 2, 3.
No. 255 contained a great mass of pottery of nearly all the shapes (2,
5, 4, 12, 9, 17), much of which lay at a higher level than the two
bodies; of these, one lay upon its back, the other in the regular
position. Before the face of the northern body was an alabaster vase
(X, 4), a small shell and a fragment of bronze rod. Another alabaster
jar (X, 3) stood by the hips of the southern skeleton.
No. 264 was in better condition than most, and contained a great
number of pots, including more than fifty of the shape XIII, 22, and
many of XIII, 20. Nearly all were, however, broken, for, as in all
these tombs, the arch had fallen in. This tomb contained also a string
of beads, barrel beads of lapis lazuli, carnelian and gold foil, and
small discs of gold.
In No. 265 were found more than two hundred pots scattered in all
directions; a few were nested in a recess halfway down the side of the
tomb. All the shapes XIII, 1-28, except 16 and 22, were found in this
tomb. There was no skeleton. A hole had been pierced in the base of
every pot after baking.
One group of tombs of this period (_v._ PL. XXIV) had apparently been
made at one time. In three of them the skeletons remained with two or
three coarse pots laid before the face. Outside the enclosure wall of
another of these groups of tombs was a heap of saucers (like XIII,
12), painted inside with a rough cross of white paint. These are, by
the fabric, probably of the same period as the tombs.
21. In the great XIIth dynasty cemetery outside the town the graves
were of different construction, consisting of a long and narrow shaft
from which, at both the north and the south ends, opened a chamber.
But two, or perhaps three, tombs of this form were found inside the
walls. This cemetery was well known to the Arabs, and a few years ago
a party of the Qurneh dealers, armed with a bogus Museum permit,
dug there for several weeks. The tombs they had rifled could be
distinguished from tombs that were intact or had been plundered in
early times by the sharper edges of the depressions left. Time has
rounded over the traces of the earlier robberies, so that anciently
robbed tombs look much like those which are intact, but in which the
roof has fallen in causing a dip in the ground not unlike the top of
a tomb-shaft. The cemetery lies in a shoal in the dry stream-bed, at
whose mouth El Kab was placed. This shoal is a great bank of gravel
and a fine clay-like detritus, the beds of which lie alternately, the
thickness of each varying in different parts. The practice in the
XIIth dynasty was to sink the tomb-shaft until a layer of gravel was
reached sufficiently strong for a chamber to be safely cut out of it.
The chambers were about 2 m. square and probably rather less than 1.50
m. high, but they were made flat-roofed, and in most cases the roof
had fallen in, crushing the bones and often also the pottery below.
Even if the roof was complete when we opened the tomb, it would
usually fall before we could examine and clear out the interment. With
only the warning of the fall of a single pebble, or just a little
gutter of sand, a mass of perhaps two tons would suddenly drop with a
thud. On two occasions a man was caught by some part of the fall, and
once, just as the helpless man was being dug out, a clumsy helper
dislodged a few more hundredweight and buried him again. These are
anxious moments, for when this shifting ground has once begun to slip,
the whole side of a tomb may fall at once. Happily we had no serious
accident, though there were many narrow escapes. It is necessary in
such work to watch the men very carefully, and to insist on their
taking reasonable care, for they will, if left alone, burrow beneath
dangerously overhanging masses of soil rather than take the trouble of
removing them. The method in which the door of the burial-chamber was
closed was not at first clear; but four or five of the large jars (PL.
XIV) were so often found just inside the entrance that it seemed
probable they had been used as a building material, just as the
peasants near Keneh now use the spoilt water-jars from the potteries
there. Later on two of the doorways were found actually blocked up in
this way--three jars in the lower tier, two more above them, and the
interstices filled with mud. Probably, then, these large pots were the
common water-jars of the Middle Kingdom. Other tomb-doors were blocked
with bricks, very roughly laid. Coffins were very rare; there was one
of unbaked clay, long and narrow; and a trace of wood (No. 121) in
another grave may have been part of a coffin. But the soil of El Kab
is so damp and full of salt that unpainted wooden coffins may have
disappeared without leaving any trace. The same causes have doubtless
removed the clothes in which the dead were buried, for of these I
saw no trace. The most remarkable fact was the entire absence of
mummification, at least, of any effective kind. In the ground near the
good XVIIIth dynasty tombs, mummies were found, perhaps the servants
of the great men of the inscribed tombs. There seemed no great
difference in the conditions to which these mummies and the bodies
of the XIIth dynasty people had been exposed. Yet no trace of
mummy-cloth, dried skin, hair, or bitumen was ever met with in the
earlier cemetery. Nor in the early burials that I opened at Ballas
were any mummies found, and certainly most of the mummies known belong
to the XVIIIth dynasty or later. Is it possible that mummification was
confined to the upper classes until the great increase of wealth in
the XVIIIth dynasty led to the wider adoption of the custom?
Some of the later Neolithic bodies were, however, dried, either by
artificial means or by some property of the soil, so that the whole
body could be lifted out without any of the limbs snapping off. It is
reported that the body of an engineer, who, not many years ago, died
and was buried at Assuan, and afterwards exhumed to be sold as a
mummy, was dried up in this way.
A chamber generally contained more than one body; four was a not
uncommon number, and in one chamber eight persons, probably women,
lay side by side. This fact certainly agrees badly with the idea just
expressed of the absence of mummification. The objects found in the
graves were of well-known types. Bottle-shaped vases at the head and
feet, alabaster kohl pots, kohl sticks of ivory, bronze mirrors
without handles, paint-slabs with their pestles and spatulae of
serpentine and basalt, with beads of green glaze and various kinds
of hard stone, were the regular staple of our finds. And the date of
these was already well known from Kahun and other places; indeed the
date of this cemetery could be seen at once from the chips of pottery
lying on the surface. This conclusion was confirmed by the two
private stelae (PL. IV), and a cylinder of Amenemhat III, found in one
necklace. Inscriptions were extremely rare; there were few scarabs,
and perhaps the most interesting object was the plain alabaster
statuette (PL. V, 2), which was found close to the skull of its owner.
This was the only figure of the kind found in the cemetery, and is
probably the earliest dated ushabti. It represents a mummy-shaped
figure; no hands, hoe, or basket can be seen, but the face is well
executed.
The tombs were, of course, often robbed, how often, it was difficult
to decide, for the destruction caused by the falling roof is very
similar to that caused by early robbery. But it was very seldom that a
skull could be preserved, or that the exact position of the bones in
the body could be worked out. There had been very little re-use of the
shafts; in one occurred pottery and a mirror of the XVIIIth dynasty,
in another a Roman lamp; but these were exceptions; it was purely a
Middle Kingdom cemetery.
22. A fine collection of beads was obtained, chiefly in hard stone. In
one tomb alone (No. 156) I spent most of two days trying to recover
the order in which the beads had been strung on the necklaces. Seven
people had been buried in one chamber of this tomb; a great mass of
pebbles had fallen from the roof, smashed the bones and pottery, and
so scattered the beads that some care was needed to keep together
those from one string. Some of the bodies were adorned with necklace,
bracelets, and anklets, and had also a string of beads round the
waist.
The commonest beads were spherical and barrel-shaped, of carnelian,
haematite, and amethyst, and discs of shell, these last the commonest
of all. In green felspar there were small flat discs, hawks, and
hippopotamus heads. Sphinxes with human heads are generally of
amethyst. Uninscribed scarabs, in carnelian, amethyst, and jasper,
were not uncommon.