The Tomb of Queen Sesheshet

The recently discovered pyramid and tomb in Egypt shed light on a dark episode in a pharaonic tradition of court intrigue and murder most foul

  • By Stephen Glain
  • Smithsonian.com, February 03, 2009, Subscribe
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Ancient burial ground of Queen Sesheshet
Egyptian archaeologists work at an ancient burial ground in Saqqara, dating back to 2,700 B.C., where a 4,300-year-old pyramid has been discovered at the Saqqara necropolis. It was first built for Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Teti who founded the 6th Dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom. (AFP Photo / Khaled Desouki)

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"Let's start from the beginning," Abdel Hakim Karar suggests as he scampers up the north side of an archaeological dig of sun-bleached pink stone and gravel.

When you make your living unearthing the royal riches of ancient Egypt, the beginning is a very distant place indeed – more than four millennia away, during the time of the 6th dynasty. We are standing on the rim of the necropolis of King Teti at Saqqara, where Karar and his team of archaeologists are excavating the tomb of Queen Sesheshet, Teti's mother. The tomb, and the once five-story-high pyramid that accommodates it, was until recently a dump for the sand and detritus of surrounding digs. But the intuitive power of Karar and his inimitable boss, Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, rescued it from oblivion last November. It was a once-in-a-lifetime strike – how often does one "discover" a pyramid? – and it may shed light on a particularly notorious episode in a pharaonic tradition of court intrigue and murder most foul.

"We suspected this was the mother's pyramid," says Karar, as he gestures to a horizon line interrupted only by the iconic step pyramid of Saqqara, the Eiffel Tower of its time, built by the legendary 3rd dynasty ruler Imhotep. "Then we came across stones carved with the characters for 'Seshi' and we knew what it was."

The surrounding complex was discovered and unearthed by a fraternity of French and British archaeologists in the mid-19th century. Its centerpiece is the pyramid of Teti, the first ruler of the 6th dynasty, and the subsidiary pyramids of his two principal wives, queens Iput I and Khuit. Like many such digs in Egypt -- a country that, because of its strategically vital location, has played host to several great civilizations -- Saqqara offers a bounty of archaeological wealth beyond what was once the property of pharaohs. Enveloping the site is a containing wall of dung-colored mud bricks built in 330 B.C. by Ptolemy I, the Macedonian general who campaigned with Alexander the Great and who may have been mentored by Aristotle. The U-shaped wall contained a drawing of the funeral procession that followed the death of a sacred bull as ordained under Serapis, the Greek deity promoted by Ptolemy as a way to fuse Hellenist and Greek religions.

Hawass, who began working at the Saqqara necropolis in 1988, says Sesheshet's pyramid "might be the most complete subsidiary pyramid ever found" in the area. It is certainly one of the largest. The remains of its 72-square-foot base suggests a pitch of 51 degrees, a common feature of 5th and 6th century pyramidal design, and a height of 46 feet. Large, smoothly carved blocks of limestone around the southern end of its foundation is all that's left of the casing that gave Egyptian pyramids of the time their clean, elegant lines. The entire structure would have been built with bronze tools.

Karar and his team waited several weeks before opening the tomb's burial chamber so as not to disrupt the remains while the surface excavation was going on. In January, when they finally entered the chamber, they found a mummy inside wrapped in linen and conclusive evidence to suggest it is Sesheshet, Hawas told the Cairo-based Al Ahram Weekly.

Beginning in the 4th dynasty, the kings of Egypt were careful to commemorate their wives and mothers with regal monuments. (In a monograph published in a 2000 edition of Archiv orientalni, a quarterly Czech archaeological journal, Hawass hinted at the possibility of a third subsidiary pyramid in honor of Teti's mother.) Yet the size and grandeur of Sesheshet's pyramid is as much a political statement as it is an expression of filial piety. Sesheshet came from a powerful family at a time of civil war within the royal clan and she protected Teti for much of his 20-year rule. Sadly for Teti, her talismanic powers did not extend from the grave; after her death, according to the Ptolemaic historian Manetho, Teti was murdered by his own bodyguards working in league with the treacherous Userkare. In testament to the hardboiled political culture of the time, Userkare himself was ousted by Pepy I, son of Queen Iput I, only a few years after he had seized the throne. While Manetho is vague as to Userkare's fate, there are few surviving monuments to his rule, the modern-day equivalent of being airbrushed out of the history books and a fate worse than death in edifice-obsessed ancient Egypt.

While Sesheshet's tomb is believed to have been plundered by thieves, like many Egyptian pyramids, the artifacts discovered in Iput I's burial chambers offer a glimpse of what might have been kept there: vessels and dishes made of alabaster and red clay, tools lacquered in gold, a sarcophagus carved from limestone and layered with gypsum, and canopic jars filled with the royal viscera in storage for the afterlife. The walls and pillars of the tomb may depict scenes of court life and religious rites and there will likely be granite stele with inscriptions identifying the royal matron as a "mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt."


"Let's start from the beginning," Abdel Hakim Karar suggests as he scampers up the north side of an archaeological dig of sun-bleached pink stone and gravel.

When you make your living unearthing the royal riches of ancient Egypt, the beginning is a very distant place indeed – more than four millennia away, during the time of the 6th dynasty. We are standing on the rim of the necropolis of King Teti at Saqqara, where Karar and his team of archaeologists are excavating the tomb of Queen Sesheshet, Teti's mother. The tomb, and the once five-story-high pyramid that accommodates it, was until recently a dump for the sand and detritus of surrounding digs. But the intuitive power of Karar and his inimitable boss, Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, rescued it from oblivion last November. It was a once-in-a-lifetime strike – how often does one "discover" a pyramid? – and it may shed light on a particularly notorious episode in a pharaonic tradition of court intrigue and murder most foul.

"We suspected this was the mother's pyramid," says Karar, as he gestures to a horizon line interrupted only by the iconic step pyramid of Saqqara, the Eiffel Tower of its time, built by the legendary 3rd dynasty ruler Imhotep. "Then we came across stones carved with the characters for 'Seshi' and we knew what it was."

The surrounding complex was discovered and unearthed by a fraternity of French and British archaeologists in the mid-19th century. Its centerpiece is the pyramid of Teti, the first ruler of the 6th dynasty, and the subsidiary pyramids of his two principal wives, queens Iput I and Khuit. Like many such digs in Egypt -- a country that, because of its strategically vital location, has played host to several great civilizations -- Saqqara offers a bounty of archaeological wealth beyond what was once the property of pharaohs. Enveloping the site is a containing wall of dung-colored mud bricks built in 330 B.C. by Ptolemy I, the Macedonian general who campaigned with Alexander the Great and who may have been mentored by Aristotle. The U-shaped wall contained a drawing of the funeral procession that followed the death of a sacred bull as ordained under Serapis, the Greek deity promoted by Ptolemy as a way to fuse Hellenist and Greek religions.

Hawass, who began working at the Saqqara necropolis in 1988, says Sesheshet's pyramid "might be the most complete subsidiary pyramid ever found" in the area. It is certainly one of the largest. The remains of its 72-square-foot base suggests a pitch of 51 degrees, a common feature of 5th and 6th century pyramidal design, and a height of 46 feet. Large, smoothly carved blocks of limestone around the southern end of its foundation is all that's left of the casing that gave Egyptian pyramids of the time their clean, elegant lines. The entire structure would have been built with bronze tools.

Karar and his team waited several weeks before opening the tomb's burial chamber so as not to disrupt the remains while the surface excavation was going on. In January, when they finally entered the chamber, they found a mummy inside wrapped in linen and conclusive evidence to suggest it is Sesheshet, Hawas told the Cairo-based Al Ahram Weekly.

Beginning in the 4th dynasty, the kings of Egypt were careful to commemorate their wives and mothers with regal monuments. (In a monograph published in a 2000 edition of Archiv orientalni, a quarterly Czech archaeological journal, Hawass hinted at the possibility of a third subsidiary pyramid in honor of Teti's mother.) Yet the size and grandeur of Sesheshet's pyramid is as much a political statement as it is an expression of filial piety. Sesheshet came from a powerful family at a time of civil war within the royal clan and she protected Teti for much of his 20-year rule. Sadly for Teti, her talismanic powers did not extend from the grave; after her death, according to the Ptolemaic historian Manetho, Teti was murdered by his own bodyguards working in league with the treacherous Userkare. In testament to the hardboiled political culture of the time, Userkare himself was ousted by Pepy I, son of Queen Iput I, only a few years after he had seized the throne. While Manetho is vague as to Userkare's fate, there are few surviving monuments to his rule, the modern-day equivalent of being airbrushed out of the history books and a fate worse than death in edifice-obsessed ancient Egypt.

While Sesheshet's tomb is believed to have been plundered by thieves, like many Egyptian pyramids, the artifacts discovered in Iput I's burial chambers offer a glimpse of what might have been kept there: vessels and dishes made of alabaster and red clay, tools lacquered in gold, a sarcophagus carved from limestone and layered with gypsum, and canopic jars filled with the royal viscera in storage for the afterlife. The walls and pillars of the tomb may depict scenes of court life and religious rites and there will likely be granite stele with inscriptions identifying the royal matron as a "mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt."

Karar, who studied at Cairo University and has spent half of his 50 years digging up ancient relics, says he hopes the tomb will also yield new details about how the ancient Egyptians related to other such geopolitical powers as Rome, Nubia, Syria, Greece and Persia. The record of Sesheshet's era is particularly incomplete, he says, which is another reason why the discovery of her pyramid is so significant.

"It's never boring," says Karar of his profession. "Egyptians now appreciate what we do because of the attention it is getting in the media. They no longer take their heritage for granted." Sesheshet, whose name evokes a goddess of history and writing, would have approved.


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Comments (16)

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this is a very reliable site for research

Posted by anthony on April 21,2009 | 08:19 AM

I was just at Saqqara in Nov. 2008 and explored the "step pyramid," so this was a fascinating article. Thank you!

Posted by Carolyn Watanabe on March 1,2009 | 09:39 PM

I find Egyptian archaeology very interesting and I read everything I see about it. Thanks for fascinating reporting. JAM

Posted by JANE McIntosh on February 28,2009 | 04:25 PM

I have a strong ambition to be an archeaologist and every new find in eygpt excites me to no extent. I take great pride in living in a world where we can learn so much from our past. I have been keeping an eye out for a new discovery in egypt for a long time. After the find of KV-63 I have been studying up on Tutankahmen.(more than usual)...With this new dicovery I ahve found a new research topic and am floored to be able to learn more about my world.

Posted by laurel on February 25,2009 | 12:44 PM

The figure of "72 square feet" for the pyryamid's base is obviously a misprint since it would imply a side length of slightly under 9 feet.

Posted by Don Estabrook on February 23,2009 | 09:19 AM

I do so enjoy reading about the ancient civilizations.

Posted by Rosemary Rozen on February 22,2009 | 09:59 PM

How can the tomb relate to Rome Greece etc. when they hadn't been invented yet?

Posted by Frances Klodt on February 22,2009 | 12:45 PM

Hello,
Your site is very nice, convenient, interesting and friendly to the user. Thanks.

Posted by Dalia Shehori on February 22,2009 | 03:11 AM

The 3rd dynasty step pyramid at Saqqara was built for the pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep is generally described as the "architect" for the work – he was not a ruler.

Posted by Michael Berrie on February 21,2009 | 02:08 AM

I am always interested Egypt's archeology, particularly new finds. Very interesting.
DB

Posted by Dan Brupbacher on February 21,2009 | 09:15 PM

Did they have make up applicators made out of Alabaster?
I've seen the metal ones, but has an alabaster one been found?

Posted by L Brazell on February 21,2009 | 06:17 PM

very informative Egypt is not a place I have a desire to visit but fasinated by it's old culture.

Posted by KURT MARTIN on February 21,2009 | 03:46 PM

I wonder if all the plundered loot from Egyptian ruins that presumably was bought by collectors is still in existence and whether some of it could be found and recovered?

Posted by Dr. Edwin A. PHILLIPS on February 21,2009 | 02:45 PM

Keep up the excellent synopsis of your great magazine!

Posted by Cliff Rupnow on February 21,2009 | 01:26 PM



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