Red granite sarcophagus
From Giza, Egypt
5th
Dynasty, 2494-2395 BC
'Palace façade'
panelling
Once the Egyptian élite progressed from the
practice of burying the dead in simple pits in the ground, it was
not long before they developed the concept of a container for the
body. Very early examples are made of wood or ceramic, but early in
the Old Kingdom (about 2613-2160 BC), the idea of a container of
hard stone, a sarcophagus, developed. This example is made of
granite, one of the hardest stones available to the Egyptians, and
is common from the Fourth Dynasty (about 2613-2494 BC) onwards.
The exterior of the
sarcophagus is decorated with a panelling known as 'palace
façade', so called because it was based on the mud-brick
façade of the early Egyptian palace. At the ends of each long side
is a small false
door, to enable the spirits to gain access to
and from the body inside. The top is rounded, and there are remains
of protrusions on the ends to enable the lid to be
lifted.
This sarcophagus
was first mentioned in the early 1840s when the German Egyptologist
Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-84) said that it came from a shaft in
his tomb number 28 at Giza, the precise location of which is
unclear. It then disappeared into provate hands, only surfacing in
1990, when it was acquired by the British
Museum.
B. Porter and R. L. B. Moss, Topographical bibliography of (7 volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1927)
A.M. Donadoni Roveri, I sarcofagi egizi dalle origi (Rome, 1969)
S. Quirke and A.J. Spencer, The British Museum book of anc (London, The British Museum Press, 1992)