Tomb No. 3357_ from the Reign of Hor Aha

Tomb No. 3357_ from the Reign of Hor Aha

 

The tomb no. 3357 dating to the reign of Hor Aha is the earliest known mastaba of the Saqqara necropolis. The monumental aspect of this tomb, indirectly emphasized the king's power. It was discovered in 1936 and although many of the excavations of these 1st Dynasty royal tombs were not published until much later, this one was published in 1939.

The mastaba was surrounded by two plain enclosure walls about 1.2 meters apart, with the outer one having a thickness of about .75 meters and the inner one .55 meters. The enclosure walls were preserved to a height of no more than a half meter, and both were covered with mud plates and faced with lime wash.

The substructure of the tomb was divided into five separate chambers, the central one being the tomb chamber where the sarcophagus was placed. These, and other chambers of the substructure were roofed with wooden beams running east-west that in turn supported planks set perpendicular to them. The roof was then surmounted by a superstructure which contained twenty-seven rooms. The central five rooms in the superstructure were built directly above the five main subterranean rooms. The outer walls of the mastaba were decorated with recessed paneling

Some dummy buildings and a large brick boat pit outside the enclosure wall to the north were also included in the tomb complex. One should note that, at this early juncture, there was no cult center such as a mortuary temple included within this structure.

The contents of this tomb consisted mostly of wooden labels and clay jar sealings, though there was also hundreds of small pottery containers with the royal name of Hor Aha inscribed on them in the form of a serekh, along with details of their content and origin. The clay jar seals covering wine and food containers were imprinted using engraved wooden cylinders. These, and the small engraved wooden and ivory labels attached to various funerary commodities provide our main source of written evidence at the beginning of the dynastic period. Other items found within the tomb included pottery rhino horns, as well as pieces of furniture, flint tools, palettes and stone vessels.

In the underground chambers, human remains from different individuals were discovered, prompting a few early scholars to theorize that the king (this was then presumed to be a royal tomb) took some retainers to the grave with him, but this is not the only instance in these 1st Dynasty tombs that evidences human sacrifice.