Hans: "Were any intact wooden panels found in earlier Mastaba?"



Mastaba V [www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk]


"Within this chamber was a wooden lining, which rested on a footing beam; and the space between the lining and the wall was divided by the brick piers. Such is exactly the arrangement of the tomb of king Zet, contemporary with this at Abydos. These brick piers-as at Abydos-were built in after the wood lining was in place, as the ends abutting on the wood are bare brick, while the sides are plastered, and the mud mortar has been squeezed out against a vertical face at the end. The corner pier is shown on P1. 11, where the groove of the footing beam can be seen running into the pier, but met by the beam at right angles before entering the brickwork. A strange feature is that the upper part of the piers has a hollow shell of one brick thick, the wall was plastered behind this, and then the hollow was filled up with bricks, as seen in the photograph. The purpose of these piers was not merely to subdivide the space, but also to embrace and steady the upright posts which carried the wooden lining. In each pier is a circular hollow, shown at ground level on the plan. These hollows are 5 or 6 inches across, and slope forward as they rise. The best preserved, at the north-west corner, are 5 to IO inches from the lining face at 62 up, 8 to 13 inches at 42 up ; therefore it would lean forward to touch the lining face at 95 up, or exactly at the level of the roof. These posts doubtless carried a long beam to which the wooden lining was attached. The wooden chamber inside was about 356 x 164 inches, according to the traces of the base beams and posts. There is no trace of a wooden floor either in the burial chambers or in the shallower chambers at the ends. In the southern chamber a line of wood along the floor was part of a box about half an inch thick. The clearing out of the chamber by the Museum workmen may have removed traces of the flooring and fittings, as they had certainly taken out large jars, which were standing in place. Though the chambers were partly burnt, the floor beams had survived till much later times." ('Gizeh and Rifeh', Petrie 1907: 3) [www.case.edu]

CT