Pacal,

At the close of the 6th dynasty began the 1st Intermediate period (dyn. 7-11), the evidence associated with the latter period trends towards a long period of unrest and lawlessness, to what degree is anyones guess. Petrie assumed, as well as many today, that the wholesale distruction of icons, statues and names belonging to the tombs and temples of the Old Kingdom was more of a 'personal' attack than a robbery, not to exclude subsequent robberies of abandoned sites.

Just so, this period is post 6th dynasty. Overwhelming amounts of evidence reveal that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom lived in better than average times (dyn 3-6). Some of the finest works of AE art belong to this period. Subject to the fact that most remnants we have are associated with their afterlife beliefs we can only assume the scale of economy, realizing of course all that is necessary to build even a modest mastaba with a chapel.

The Giza plateau reveals a small remnant of early dynasty burials, however its through the Old Kingdom that we see successive generations occur amongst the original mastaba complexs, heck by the 6th dynasty the western mastaba feild at Giza more than doubled in size. With so much building activity around it, daily ritual and monthly festivals, incantation offerings, the pyramid temples - valley temples occupied by priests 24 hours a day;;> a desolate location for tomb robbers to exercise for weeks if not months to manage the extraction of goods is not the image that comes to my mind.

Significant evidence has been collected that demonstrates what M. Lehner describes as "an economic engine", he was refering to the economies of resource to build a pyramid; each translating into population growth and the founding of many towns or cities on their perimeters and beyond.

All we can say is that tombs were violated, in many cases it appears the violators' knew exactly where to dig their tunnels. Noting that to dig such tunnels would require a significant amount of time and labor resources.

Many kinds of context can be argued, I only offered this one for debate. And you are correct, my supposition is just a supposition.

Best Regards,

B.A. Hokom