Tomb No. 3504 _from the Reign of Djet

Tomb No. 3504 from the Reign of Djet 

(Possibly belonging to Sekhemka-Sedj)

Tomb 3504 was discovered by Emery in February of 1953 and its excavation was promptly published the next year. This northern tomb indicates a definite advance in both design and building techniques in comparison to the actual Royal tomb of Djet at Abydos. It is considerably larger than those at Saqqara dating to the reigns of Hor Aha and Djer.

Here, the burial chamber is flanked by four large storerooms to the north and south and a further series of smaller subsidiary chambers to the east and west. The substructure measured 22.6 by 10.2 meters and the central chamber was dug to a depth of 3.1 meters. The other chambers of the substructure were dug about one meter shallower than the central chamber. One curious feature that Emery noticed on the south wall of the burial chamber was a recessed niche just off the floor. At the foot of this recess was a brick offering platform that still contained the skeletons of two gazelles. The central chamber appears to have been originally paneled with wood which was inlaid with strips of gold plate. In earlier tombs, colored reed mats were stuck to the walls in the manner of wallpaper.

Above, the superstructure was vast, divided into 45 magazines. This mastaba structure had a niched facade on the outside, completely washed in white limestone except for the innermost panel of the large niches which were painted red. Around the facade of the mastaba was built a low bench that surrounded the whole structure. Upon this bench were placed 300 clay modeled bull's heads that were adorned with real horns.

Within the superstructure a large amount of stone and pottery vessels were found, along with many clay seal impressions on jars, flint, furniture, game pieces, arrow heads, a god ring and a wooden label. Nine more labels were found in the burial chamber and a few others in the surrounding underground rooms. The tomb also contained other items carved in ivory, including a wand inscribed with the serekh of Djet, followed by the name of Sekhemkha-Sedj, a tiny lion and the legs of a bull.

Within the burial chamber itself, the bones of a human adult thought to be about 26 years old were discovered, along with considerable broken wooden furniture, pottery and stone vessel fragments, sandals, toilet sticks, copper tools, leather, gold inlay and objects of unknown use. The mastaba was completely surrounded by an enclosure wall, about .95 meters thick, and beyond it was a single row of 62 subsidiary burials dug in two continuous trenches that were compartmentalized by mudbrick walls. One trench runs about the western and southern sides while the other is on the northernmost three quarters of the eastern side. On the north side there is instead another wall. Each of these subsidiary tombs has its own separate superstructure composed of a small, rounded topped, rubble filled mubrick mastaba. They measure about 1.70 by 1.45 meters, and less than half a meter in height. Surprisingly, despite the fact that many scholars believe this to be a privately owned tomb, many believe that these retainers were slain at the time of the owners burial. These burials include those of servants, attendants, a dwarf and some dogs. Interestingly, the tomb was blundered and burnt not long after the owner's burial, and there is evidence of reconstruction and repairs under the reign of Qa'a. The burnt burial chamber was cleared and reinforced by a 1.2 meter thick mudbrick wall.