Victory's Museum Trip II - The Museo Egizio of Turin VII

victory622 (66)in #history • 7 years ago

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Cylinder seal with royal names of pharaoh Neferirkara-kakai ( 2435 - 2305 BC )

Today we continue to see the artifacts and history of the Old Kingdom period. Djoser is commonly believed to the first ruler of the 3rd Dynasty, which is conventionally regarded as the beginning of the Old Kingdom. In reality, there was no dynastic interruption with previous rulers and the central seat of power remained the ancient capital of Ineb-hedj (The White Wall, Aneb-Hetch was one of 42 nomes in Ancient Egypt). However, it was under the reign of Djoser that the first royal funerary complex made of stone in Egyptian history was built. This event seems to mark the origin and the culmination of significant changes, both in the administrative apparatus and social fabric of Egypt. The tomb of Djoser at Saqqara was the first pyramid in Egyptian history, consisting of six steps and about 60 meters high, surrounded by a perimeter wall that was 10 metres high and over 1500 meters long.

A door to the afterlife - False door stela (2543 - 2305 BC)

In the period of the Old Kingdom period, concerning the funerary traditions, one the typical feature of the mastaba (a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides, constructed out of mud-bricks (from the Nile River)) is the false door stela, an opening framed by a series of door jambs and lintels as if it were at the end of a series of recessed niches.

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Normally, this kind of false door stela decorated with portrayals of the deceased or the family and relatives of the deceased, tables full of funerary offerings or bearers of offerings of all sorts, false-door stela provided a point of contact between the living and the dead and were essential for the magical evocation of the provisions of food required for the afterlife.

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Noticed that on the east side of the mastaba there were sometimes two false door stelae, a main one to the south and a secondary one to the north. The false door stela shown in below photo has broader panels and the addition of spacious upper panel, but it also displays all the canonical features as mentioned above. The panel in the upper part includes a portrayal of the deceased in front of a table with hieroglyphic inscriptions that list the offerings of food, fabrics and drinks. The name of the deceased and his titles or the blood relation to the pharaoh, are then repeated on the architraves below. The door jambs usually have images of the walking figure of the deceased or his relatives and priests in charge of the funerary cult, and images of other figures portrayed carrying offerings of various kinds.

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The false door stelae gradually became more complex and were moved inside the funerary superstructures, and then the mortuary chamber during the 5th Dynastic. During the middle Kingdom they were also portrayed on a smaller scale on rectangular coffins and even incorporated into decoration of ordinary funerary stelae. [//]:# (!steemitworldmap 45.0684296 lat 7.6843041 long ME7 d3scr)

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In the next post, we will continue to see the valuable works of art in Old Kingdom period. I am not the researcher of history or archaeology. Just want to share with you some beautiful antiquities. If I made some critical errors in my post, please feel free to help me correct them, thank you very much.