Direction
Yann Tristant (Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)
How Eveha Participates
Archaeological physical anthropology
Location
Egypt
2019 Excavation Campaign at the Dendara Necropolis (Abu Suten Sector)
Following the work conducted at the Dendara necropolis since 2017, this year’s mission aimed to study how the “Abu Suten” mastaba (M1055)—perhaps the site’s oldest Pharaonic funerary structure—structured the central zone of the necropolis. The campaign also sought to verify the validity of previous excavations by W.M.F. Petrie and C. Fisher, and, above all, to study intact funerary assemblages. Excavations focused on three mastabas cleared during the 2018 mission: M1377 and M1403 to the north of M1055, and M1428 to the west.
M1377
Tomb M1377 consists of a 7-meter-deep vertical shaft leading to a small southern burial chamber. It is aligned with the eastern wall of mastaba M1055 and shares the same North-Northeast orientation. At ground level, the shaft is marked by a brick rim, with a miniature chapel attached to its eastern side. This chapel consists of a low brick wall enclosing a clay-prepared floor featuring an embedded limestone libation basin.
A total of nine skeletons were recovered. The anthropological study was conducted by Ch. Girardi (Associate Researcher, Montpellier III University) and Y. Prouin (Éveha International), with the assistance of J. Carruthers (Macquarie University). The tomb contained 2 mature adults (including one female) and 7 children (aged 1 to 10; the eldest suffering from bone tuberculosis), excavated between 4.4 m and 6 m deep. They were buried in a homogeneous sand fill containing highly fragmented pottery.
The ceramic assemblages, studied by K. Sowada (Macquarie University) and S. Marchand (IFAO), belong to the Old Kingdom (5th Dynasty) and the New Kingdom (18th Dynasty). The children were placed along the shaft walls in a supine position (on their backs) with no specific orientation; the two adults lay across the structure. At the bottom of the shaft, a small burial chamber (2.21 m E-W by 1.34 m N-S) was still partially sealed by a mud-brick wall. It yielded highly fragmented remains of an adult and pottery from the Old Kingdom (beer jars and bread molds) and the New Kingdom (red-slipped polished beakers) similar to the fill material. While originally established during the 5th Dynasty, the tomb was later looted and reused. The bodies in the lower shaft date to or after the 18th Dynasty.
M1403
Located west of M1377 and north of M1055, mastaba M1403 is aligned with the latter’s western wall. This small rectangular mud-brick mastaba measures 9.4 m long by 5.2 m wide. It features two shallow vertical shafts: Sh1418 to the south (2.5 m deep) and Sh1460 to the north (2.2 m deep). Both are square-plan (1.2 to 1.3 m per side) and lead to narrow western burial chambers. Stratigraphy indicates the northern shaft was dug before the southern one and prior to the construction of the mastaba walls.
In each chamber, an adult (including a woman over 50 in the north) rested in a wooden coffin behind a brick sealing wall. Both tombs had been looted. The fragmented pottery in the shaft fill dates to the 5th Dynasty, with no later intrusive material. On the surface, four disturbed individual burials (three adults in fiber wrappings and a 1-year-old in a basket) were found in the southwestern inner corner. Burial B1459, in the northern part, differs by its oval shape and north-south orientation, containing a flexed female skeleton (over 50 years old) with shroud traces. This burial likely predates the mastaba’s construction.
The 5th Dynasty pottery from M1403 includes bread molds, beer jars, conical mud stoppers, pot-stands, large ledged bowls, fine “wine” jars, and a series of small, roughly-made pointed-bottom jars (approx. 15 cm high).
M1428
To the west of M1055, mastaba M1428 survives as fragments of mud-brick walls covering an area of approximately 12 m (W-E) by 16 m (N-S). A limestone basin embedded in a brick platform indicates the presence of a chapel. Unlike other large mastabas in the sector, it has no shaft; access to the substructure is via a 12-meter-long sloping passage (descenderie) cut into the rock at a 25° angle.
The tomb entrance was sealed by a 1.3 m thick brick wall. A vestibule leads to two rooms (east and south) originally closed by thick mud-brick walls. A 8.12 m corridor with two rectangular niches leads to the main chamber (approx. 2.36 x 2.55 m). The walls are finished with mouna (mud plaster) and a pinkish-white lime plaster.
Funerary goods include two distinct sets:
- 4th Dynasty: Meidum bowls, beer jars, bread molds, and fine jars. A complete Meidum bowl found on the floor contained six small birds, likely a funerary offering (studied by M. Hartley, Macquarie University).
- 18th Dynasty: Red-slipped polished beakers, local clay jars, and censers. The lack of blue-painted pottery suggests a date in the first half of the 18th Dynasty.
A fragment of a decorated false-door stela from the late Middle Kingdom was also found, though traces of steel chisels suggest it may be an intrusive element brought into the tomb in the Ptolemaic or post-Ptolemaic period (epigraphic study by A. Pillon, IFAO). Anthropological analysis identified at least eight adults.
This season concludes the study of the “Abu Suten” zone. The next mission will focus on soundings inside and outside the Hathor temenos to study the necropolis’s boundaries, its chronological development, and the geoarchaeology of the Dendara site.
