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The Pyramid-Tombs of Kings in Egypt
Posted by: Anthony (IP Logged)
Date: October 2, 2007 11:15AM

Repeatedly I have been assailed with the argument that there is no direct evidence that pyramids, specifically G1, G2 and G3, were ever used as the tombs of kings in the Old Kingdom.

In fact, the evidence from ancient Egypt leaves us, for all intents and purposes, with no other conclusion that we can logically draw.

I'm going to spend a few minutes here outlining the levels of evidence that we possess that clearly indicate that three kings from the Fourth Dynasty were, in fact, intended to be interred in their respective pyramids at Giza.

First, I want to address two issues that have been, in my assessment, misused as arguments against the pyramid-tomb conclusion. One of the loudest objections we often hear is that, if indeed pyramids were intended to be used as tombs, then why did Sneferu have three pyramids? This is a valid question, but it is one that has a very reasonable explanation when one becomes familiar with all the data we have at hand. Naturally, though, the answer will take a lot more explaining than the few words it takes to ask the seemingly simple question.

Sneferu's Multiple Pyramids

Sneferu developed the first smooth-sided pyramid. In doing so, he originally modified a step pyramid (Meidum) into the world's first smooth-sided pyramid. It appears that this might have given him problems (and perhaps he finished it while he was still quite young), so he adjusted his plan to create a new pyramid, one that was solid limestone, but with a very steep slope. This pyramid, known as Dashur South, was structurally unsound and the outer mantle ended up slipping down about 9-11 inches (from memory), during its construction phase. The evidence of this slippage is clear in both entry passages of the pyramid. The engineers then changed their design to lessen the weight on the mantle, creating the distinctive "Bent" pattern that serves as the namesake of the pyramid today.

Although they had created this enormous strucutre, it was still clearly flawed. The goal of Sneferu was still to have a perfect smooth sided pyramid for his burial edifice. Therefore, Sneferu moved his work forces about half a mile north at Dashur, and commenced with the construction of the Red Pyramid, which was to serve as his ultimate burial structure. The Bent Pyramid (Dashur South) was converted into a cenotaph, as is evidenced by the stelae in the would-be mortuary temple.

The use of a cenotaph in Egypt is actually well documented from this time, but usually they are not built right next to each other. They are often used to mark the fact that the king was lord of both Upper AND Lower Egypt... thus, one real tomb, and one false tomb (or cenotaph), most frequently located at polar opposite ends of the country. In this case, we have one real and one false, located at the polar opposites of the Dashur plateau. The differences between a cenotaph and a tomb are made most obvious by the construction of a stela, or stelae, in the pyramid temple itself. The structure of a temple surrouding a stela are very different from those found in a typical pyramid temple that was built alongside a tomb-pyramid, and to put it succinctly, the temples at Giza match the mortuary pyramid temple design, and not the cenotaph temple design.


Is a tomb still a tomb if there's no body put in it?

There is a second objection, but if one really thinks about it carefully, it doesn't matter to the argument at hand. What if, perhaps, the body of the king was simply not available for burial? What if he died at sea, or was eaten by a crocodile? Then, of course, no body could have been put inside the pyramid. Does this suggested scenario, however, have any real bearing on the intended function of the pyramid? I would say no, simply because whether or not a body was actually put in the pyramid at the time of the king's death is a completely separate discussion from whether or not the pyramid was built to house the king's body for all eternity at the time of his death.


A millenium of Context from Ancient Egypt


I would now like to take the time to outline the contextual evidence we possess that clearly indicates that pyramids G1, G2 and G3 at Giza were originally intended to serve as burial edifices for kings of the Old Kingdom. This venture is going to involve a cross-chronological understanding of the styles and customs of mortuary practices across several centuries of Egyptian Dynastic history. I am going to simplify it in some ways, but only because of time and space considerations here in this particular venue. There are many more details that can be added that reinforce the case I will make, and to my knowledge, none that materially contradict it.

First, we must start later in Egyptian history. We will all agree that we are more likely to find more "newer" things than "older" things, so starting with times when we have more data can be helpful when understanding how things began.

Follow this description I provide here, and one will see a pattern emerge that "starts" during the New Kingdom, but extends backwards in a mutative fashion, all the way to the Archaic Period in Egyptian history.

For ease of understanding, I am assuming people already know the differences between the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of Coming Forth by Day. These are general names we use for the Egyptian funerary texts that accompanied the mummified remains of the dead, and were specifically used as magical aids to help the spirit of the dead person cross over to the Duat, or "Underworld".

In the New Kingdom, we have copies of the Book of Coming Forth by Day (BoCFbD) encased with the mummy inside a sarcophagus, and the sarcophagus placed inside a series of rooms and passages, built in either a rock-cut tomb or a mastaba.

Moving back toward the Middle Kingdom, we find the texts are actually written directly on the sarcophagus (The Coffin Texts, or CTs), a mummy inside that sarcophagus, and that sarcophagus placed in the westernmost of a series of rooms either inside a rock cut tomb or a mastaba.

Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, we find virtually the same texts, inscribed on the walls of the burial chamber, the chamber is part of a series of chambers and passages, and there is a sarcophagus in the westernmost room that has the texts on the walls. There is no mummy, but often the sarcophagus has been broken open, or appears to have been sealed, sometimes empty.

Now we move back to the early Dynastic era, in which we find pyramids with a series of chambers and passages, and a sarcophagus within the westernmost of those chambers.

When we move back further, into the very early Dynastic Era, or even the late Archaic Period, we find mastaba tombs with similar burial chambers. One of these tombs, originally intended to be a mastaba for Netjerikhet, ended up becoming the first pyramid structure in Egyptian history, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. The burial apartments, located deep underground, contain inscriptions, reliefs and offerings that remove all doubt about the funerary function of this particular structure.

During the time these structures were being built, the tombs of nobles also mirror the developments, but again in reverse chronological order. To put a quick snapshot together, we find the Pyramid Texts of late Dynasty V and Dynasty VI to describe particular scenes and natural events, and those scenes are located on specific walls within the royal tombs. At the same time, we find the tombs of the nobles do not contain the same texts, but they do, however, contain images that reflect the same natural elements that appear in the Pyramid Texts. Texts that involved marshes and water, for example, are reflected in the nobles' tombs by depictions of reedy banks, rivers, fish and water fowl. (See Vischak, 2004). As we trace back these same styles, we find they "loosen up" in the Dynasty IV tombs, precisely as they "loosen up" in the Dynasty IV pyramids. However, in those Dynasty IV and V tombs (especially the ones at Giza) we find specific references to the tomb cults of the kings for whom the pyramids themselves were built, namely, Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu, in reverse chronological order.

These finds, however, only mirror the histories related to us by Greek travelers who visted Egypt many centuries after the pyramids at Giza were constructed. In fact, it is Herodotus who first reports on the pyramid as a funerary structure, and he gives us the exact name of the three kings for whom the three largest pyramids at Giza were constructed: Cheops, Chephren and Myceranae. These names are, of course, the Grecified names of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. The fact that they are reported by Herodotus as being buried within these tombs is a kind of "one off" piece of information, but it is important when we consider what happened in the 19th century, when Howard Vyse blasted open the Relieving Chambers above the burial chamber in G1, and very fortunately found in situ texts that clearly document the name of the king for whom the pyramid was built in the Fourth Dynasty: Khufu, or Khnum-Khuf, at birth.

There is no other funerary structure anywhere else in Egypt that can be attributed to this king, either. There are no cenotaphs, no rock cut tombs, no mastabas... nothing. This same fact applies to the other kings buried at Giza. Until or unless another viable option is found, there can be no discussion of these structures being cenotaphs (and that's not even getting into the fact that they contain sarcophagi, and their temples are set up wrong for cenotaphs).

There are many more details I can add to this connection of data points. Others are invited to "add on" what they know that also reinforces this depiction. Those who know things that at times appear to contradict what is presented here are welcome to do some more research to find out how those potential anomalies still fit within the obvious conclusion that the pyramids of the Old Kingdom were, first and foremost, designed to be the tombs of Kings.

Again, the answer is much more complicated than the question first indicates. There may not be a body (although there are records of legal proceedings in which tomb robbers were charged and convicted of robbing a pyramid of its royal owner's body!), but there doesn't have to be one after 4000 years of looting and tourism... and a lifetime of risk from crocodiles, hippos and attacking armies. It doesn't change the argument or the conclusion, though.

Anthony