Czech team re-excavates Old Kingdom tombs of Sabu and Ptahshepses at Saqqara
Czech archaeologists have re-excavated the tombs of two senior officials from Egypt's Old Kingdom, the age of pharaohs who built the great pyramids. The tombs belong to Sabu and his son Ptahshepses and sit at Saqqara, a large burial ground near Cairo. ArtNews reported the findings on 2 November.
The Old Kingdom ran from about 2686 to 2181 BCE. Both men worked in the cult of Ptah, the god of craftsmen worshipped at the ancient capital Memphis, which means a religious following devoted to one god. Ptahshepses held senior posts under four kings of the Fifth Dynasty: Sahure, Neferirkare, Raneferef and Nyuserre. He was also the first non-royal man to marry an Egyptian princess, Khamaat, the daughter of King Userkaf, who founded the dynasty.
The tombs were first found by Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, a scholar of ancient Egypt, between 1858 and 1860. Mariette identified about 160 Old Kingdom tombs around Saqqara. Several, including these, were only partly explored and were later covered over again. The new project was run by the Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague. Its goal was to find, dig out and record them. The Czech Institute of Egyptology announced the project in late October.
Sabu's tomb lies north of his son's. According to Archaeology magazine, it measures more than 175 feet long and 90 feet wide, and once stood about 16 feet tall. Its outer walls copy the facades of royal palaces. Inside, the team found well-preserved reliefs, carved pictures in stone, showing Sabu and Ptahshepses overseeing processions of offering bearers, people carrying gifts for the dead.
The team also excavated an offering chapel belonging to Sabu's wife, Ikhetnefert, which Mariette never found. Its false door, a carved niche through which offerings were believed to reach the dead, shows Ikhetnefert with her husband and their two sons.
The Czech institute also announced a separate project on 27 October. The Ancient Egyptian Women's Database, which it describes as the first of its kind, holds 2,165 records of women from Dynasties 7 to 11. It is the main output of a research fellowship funded under the European Union's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, which supports early-career researchers. The database is online at ancientegyptianwomensdatabase.cegu.ff.cuni.cz.
