tomb-relief
- Museum number
- EA1848
- Description
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Limestone false-door of Kaihap.
- Production date
- 2400BC (c.)
- Dimensions
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Height: 203 centimetres (In GTM publ; 209 in Jap catalogue)
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Height: 207 centimetres
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Width: 142 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Published:
Martin, Hetepka pl. 21 (14), pp 20-1.
A.M. Donadoni Roveri and F. Tiradritti [eds.], Kemet: Alle Sorgenti del Tempo, Ravenna 1998, p.295 [300].
P. Pasini [ed.], Kemet: Guide all mostra, Ravenna 1998, p.28.
Art and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Japan 1999-2000, [18];
N. Strudwick, Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt, London 2006, pp. 64-5.
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PM III (2): 448
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Strudwick N 2006
This rather elaborate false door was made in two pieces, presumably for ease of manufacture, transport, and installation. It is all that survives of the chapel of Kaihap at Saqqara. The stela is unusual for its date because of the sheer number of people depicted on it, in addition to the inscriptions. The latter are conventional, consisting of a two-line funerary formula at the top, and names and titles elsewhere.
The central aspect of any false door is the central panel of the upper part of the false door. This one shows Kaihap and his wife Meretminu seated at a table, on which are stylized slices or thin loaves of bread; above these is a list of sacred substances. On either side of the couple is a row of five male and five female figures; their relationship to the couple is not specified, though they might be their children. The lower part of the door presents two large standing depictions of the couple, with their names and titles above and in front of them. Behind each depiction are four sub-registers of individuals, male on the right and male and female on the left; these are their grandchildren, six boys and three girls in all. Below the standing figures are ten men carrying offerings, all of whom are soul priests, responsible for the rituals to be performed in the tomb. A considerable amount of colour is preserved on the figures, with red used for males and yellow for females.
It is unusual for quite so many figures to appear on a door, and it seems probable that the entire decoration of the tomb was concentrated on this stela, a compression of the more standard compositions which might put children and priests on adjacent walls. Kaihap was a relatively minor official who would have been close to the bottom of the tomb-owning ladder, and he was probably delighted to have been able to commission a monument of this quality. His two titles on the door are 'royal acquaintance', denoting relatively lowly rank among those important enough to own a decorated tomb at this date, and the unusual 'inspector of those chosen to be in attendance'. Whom Kaihap attended is not clear, but it might have even been the king.
The tomb in which this false door was found was located roughly 100 metres southeast of the South Ibis catacombs, burial places for votive sacred birds in the Late Period and just one group of a number of animal cemeteries in this area, excavated in the 1960s and 1970s by the Egypt Exploration Society. The area had previously served as part of the Old Kingdom North Saqqara necropolis, containing tombs from the Third to the Sixth Dynasties.
The false door was given to Britain in acknowledgement of the country's contribution to the Nubian Rescue Campaign of the 1960s.
- Location
- On display (G4/B24)
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2005-2008, California, The Bowers Museum, Death and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
- Condition
- good
- Acquisition date
- 1973
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA1848
- Registration number
- 1973,0224.1
