History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
We have an interesting example of the custom of building a secondary
tomb for royalties in these two nécropoles of Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga and
Abydos. Queen Teta-shera, the grandmother of Aahmes, a beautiful
statuette of whom may be seen in the British Museum, had a small pyramid
at Abydos, eastward of and in a line with the temple and secondary tomb
of Aahmes. In 1901 Mr. Mace attempted to find the chamber, but could
not. In the next year Mr. Currelly found between it and the Aahmes
tomb a small chapel, containing a splendid stele, on which Aahmes
commemorates his grandmother, who, he says, was buried at Thebes and had
a _mer-âhât_ at Abydos, and he records his determination to build her
also a pyramid at Abydos, out of his love and veneration for her memory.
It thus appeared that the pyramid to the east was simply a dummy,
like Usertsen’s mastabas, or the Mentuhetep pyramid at Dêr el-Bahari.
Teta-shera was actually buried at Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga. Her secondary
pyramid, like that of Aahmes himself, was in the “holy ground” at
Abydos, though it was not an imitation _bâb_, but a dummy pyramid of
rubble. This well illustrates the whole custom of the royal primary and
secondary tombs, which, as we have seen, had obtained in the case of
royal personages from the time of the 1st Dynasty, when Aha had two
tombs, one at Nakâda and the other at Abydos. It is probable that all
the 1st Dynasty tombs at Abydos are secondary, the kings being really
buried elsewhere. After their time we know for certain that Tjeser and
Snefru had duplicate tombs, possibly also Unas, and certainly Usertsen
(Senusret) III, Amenemhat III, and Aahmes; while Mentuhetep III and
Queen Teta-shera had dummy pyramids as well as their tombs. Ramses III
also had two tombs, both at Thebes. The reasons for this custom were
two: first, the desire to elude plunderers, and second, the wish to give
the ghost a _pied-à-terre_ on the sacred soil of Abydos or Sakkâra.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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