All these tombs were robbed, excepting, possibly, one. This (St. 2)
was the smallest tomb of the kind that I have seen. The stair was
reduced to a couple of roughly cut steps; the total depth was only 1
m., and though a large stone slab had been placed as a door to the
burial chamber, a robber had only to pierce 20 cm. of soil to get into
the chamber through the roof. The chamber, which was about a metre
square, was filled with a thick damp clay. The bones had decayed so
much that only a few parts could be identified but distinctive
fragments of the skull, the hip ends of the two femurs, a tibia, a
radius and ulna, enabled one to see that the body had lain on the
left side with the head to the north. Before the face was an ivory cup
(shape X, 44). Below the body was a little red dust with spots of
white in it, probably the remains of a wooden coffin painted white.
In and below the white paste, which was all that was left of the bones
of the hand, were two nuggets of gold (one 18 dwts. = 28 grammes) and
a handful of barrel-shaped carnelian beads mixed with very small beads
of gold. By scraping away the earth very gently, one could see that
the gold beads had been strung together to form bands 5 or 6 mm.
broad, alternating with bands of carnelian. A gold bar, 2 cm. long,
pierced with five holes, had clearly served to hold the strings on
which the beads were threaded. There was also a bracelet of a single
thick gold wire. The total weight of gold was about 4 oz. (125
grammes). In the N.W. corner of the tomb, behind the head, were five
vessels of ivory, two very coarse vertical jars (14 and 19 cm.), two
bowls (23 and 26 cm. diameter), one with a spout (X, 26), and a bowl
of the spreading shape of Ka-mena's bronze (XII, 51); there was also a
small double vase of limestone (X, 15). A little steatite plaque with
the inscription Neb.ra was stated by the workmen to have come from
this tomb, and there is no reason to doubt them; but I did not
actually see it in place. The name Neb.ra is one of the three Ka names
on the shoulder of the famous archaic statue No. I at Ghizeh, and the
name on the plaque may perhaps be the same, though it is not written
in the square Ka frame.
In the side of the tomb were two small balls of limestone and one of
carnelian, in shape and size like playing marbles, and some fragments
of malachite. By the door were some chips of diorite bowls. The
marbles were clearly part of a set for a game (_cf._ Naqada, PL. VII),
and the fact that the set was incomplete, and that the stone bowls
were broken, makes it probable, in spite of the presence of the gold
nuggets, that the tomb had been partially plundered. The early robbers
may easily have passed over the gold, for the moist and tough clay
hides small objects only too well; it was only the weight of two small
lumps of clay that betrayed to me the presence of the nuggets inside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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