Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2020 - 49

host of smaller, but nonetheless
dramatic, monuments in Abusir
and Saqqara also chart the changes
that transformed Egypt during the 5th
Dynasty. "These are kind of time capsules,"
says Bárta. "They are badly known and
poorly explored entities in Abusir and
Saqqara that are, however, of significance
in filling in our knowledge of this critical
era in Egypt's history." Bárta's colleague
Veronika Dulikova has conducted
extensive analysis of the names and titles
of officials buried in the cemeteries. This
has enabled her to partially reconstruct
a complicated network of family ties
that kept the 5th Dynasty government
functioning. These families constituted
what Bárta only half-jokingly refers to as
"the world's first deep state."
The Czech Mission has recently excavated tombs belonging to one of these
powerful extended families in a cemetery
at Abusir founded by the chief royal physician Shepseskafankh, who served the
pharaoh Neferirkare. Inscriptions in the
cemetery show that in many cases successive generations of the family held the
same titles. "We can follow a strong tendency towards nepotism during a period
when important offices were controlled
by the same families," says Bárta.
In 2012, his team unearthed the rockcut tomb complex of Niuserre's daughter
Sheretnebty in the Shepseskafankh cemetery. They were surprised to find the
tomb of a princess located so far from
her father's pyramid, where her sisters
The tomb (top) of Ptahshepses in Abusir is the site's most elaborate non-royal
were buried. Instead, her tomb was built
burial. Hieroglyphs (above) elsewhere at Abusir praise Osiris, the god of the dead.
next to that of her husband, an important
non-royal official whose name is lost, but
who must have been related to the Shepseskafankh family.
tomb at Saqqara belonging to an official named Ptahshepses,
Inside the tomb, the team discovered limestone statues
who served Userkaf and died during the reign of Niuserre.
of Sheretnebty and her husband, along with his elegantly
The official's son, also named Ptahshepses, was Niuserre's
crafted limestone sarcophagus. Bárta notes that despite the
son-in-law. The younger man's many titles included Privy
man's evident influence, men of his station rarely married
to the Secret of the House of Morning and Overseer of All
members of the royal family. "This shows that the king used
Works of the King. He seems to have been the first vizier
the marriages of his daughters as a means of controlling the
whose power came close to equaling that of the pharaoh, and
rising independence of powerful families," he says.
his many functions and titles were passed on to his descendants. In fact, his funerary monument in Abusir was more
Another large tomb in the cemetery recently unearthed
spectacular than the tombs of members of the royal family
by the Czech team belonged to Kairsu, a powerful scribe
and rose in pride of place in front of the pyramids of Sahure
who served under Niuserre. His tomb was built just north
and Niuserre. No hieroglyphs have been discovered in the
of Neferirkare's pyramid and featured dark basalt blocks in
tomb of the younger Ptahshepses acclaiming Osiris as the
its facade and in an adjacent chapel. This particular material
king of the dead, but it is likely that, just as his father had
was typically used in royal tombs, and Kairsu's monument
been, he was loyal not only to the pharaoh on Earth, but to
is thus far the only instance of an Old Kingdom non-royal
the pharaoh in the next world as well.
tomb outfitted with these blocks. They may have been

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Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2020

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