Gisr el-Mudir

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Map of Saqqara with the location of Gisr el-Mudir ( Great Enclosure , red)

Gisr el-Mudir (Arab. Residence of the boss ), also with the English description Great Enclosure ("Great enclosure"), is the oldest known stone masonry building in Egypt and is located in Saqqara a few hundred meters west of the Djoser Pyramid and the Sechemchet pyramid . The function of the area has not yet been clarified.

Construction details

The structure consists of a wall rectangle oriented in a north-south direction with dimensions of around 650 m × 350 m. The wall consists of two outer walls made of roughly hewn limestone at a distance of 15 m, the space between them being filled with rubble stones , gravel and sand. In the north-western corner the wall has been preserved over 15 layers of stone, up to a height of 4.5 to 5 m. The type of masonry indicates an original height of around 10 m. In the south, the degree of preservation of the walls is significantly worse than in the north. On the south side there was presumably an overlap of the walls that formed such an entrance, as the western wall of the structure is 30 m shorter than the eastern one. This shape is repeated in the great ditch of the Djoser pyramid.

The wall was probably completed, but no building remains were found in the enclosed area, so a pyramid or mastaba can be excluded as the center, as these structures would have had to be erected before the enclosing walls were completed. A smaller building may have existed on the northwest corner of the site as numerous limestone, rose granite and basalt stone fragments were found there. A hill originally registered in the middle turned out to be rubble from the excavation of a grave from the Greek era by Perring .

The stone robbery recorded in many monuments affected the Gisr el-Mudir to a much lesser extent than other structures, which is probably due to the poor quality of the stones used.

Remains of similar structures can be found to the north and northeast of Gisr el-Mudir.

exploration

Map of the Lepsius expedition from Saqqara (1842). The northern part of Gisr el-Mudir can be seen southwest of the Djoser pyramid (north is on the right)

Already when John Shae Perring explored Sakkaras in 1837 the outlines of the enclosure were discovered. It was also noticed by Karl Richard Lepsius (1842-46) and Jacques de Morgan (1897), but no research was carried out.

The first excavations took place in 1947-48 under the then director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Abdel Salam Hussein. Its nickname "el-Mudir" (= the boss ) gave its name to the current name Gisr el-Mudir . The results of these excavations have not been published.

Systematic investigations were only carried out in the 1990s by archaeologists from the National Museum of Scotland , using techniques such as magnetometry and ground penetrating radar . Prior to the excavations, the structure was considered to be an unfinished 3rd Dynasty pyramid district . Ceramic shards from the wall filling are assigned to the 2nd dynasty and allow the conclusion of the classification of the complex to the end of the 2nd dynasty (end of the 28th century BC ). This makes Gisr el-Mudir the oldest known building in Egypt, for which only hewn stones were used as building material.

A builder of the structure has not yet been proven from the finds. Rainer Stadelmann sees a connection between these structures and two gallery graves of the 2nd dynasty south of the Djoser complex, which are ascribed to Hetepsechemui or Raneb and Ninetjer . In his opinion, the empty rectangular structures relate to the graves in a similar way as in Abydos the valley districts to the graves. Other researchers ascribe the structure because of similarities to its enclosure in Abydos Chasechemui , as this is attributed to the construction of a stone structure called Men-Netjeret on the Palermostein and the timing of Gisr el-Mudir is appropriate. The rectangular structures presumably represented a transition element from the fences in Abydos to the fences of the Djoser pyramid complex.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Illustration of the masonry of Gisr el-Mudir ( Memento of the original from September 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sis.gov.eg
  2. ↑ a b c d Francesco Raffaele: Saqqara - Early Dynastic monuments (Dynasties 1-3)
  3. ^ A b Ian J. Mathieson, Ana Tavares: Preliminary report of the National Museums of Scotland Saqqara Survey Project, 1990–91. In: The Journal of Egyptian Archeology. Volume 79, 1993, ISSN  0307-5133 , pp. 17-31.
  4. ↑ Mark Lehner : Secret of the pyramids. ECON, Düsseldorf 1997, p. 82ff. Saqqara at a glance.
  5. ↑ Ian Mathieson, Elizabeth Bettles, Joanne Clarke, Corinne Duhig, Salima Ikram , Louise Maguire, Sarah Quie, Ana Tavares: The National Museums of Scotland Saqqara Survey Project 1993–1995. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology. 83, 1997, pp. 17-53, here pp. 36, 38ff., 53.

Coordinates: 29 ° 51 ′ 59 ″  N , 31 ° 12 ′ 23 ″  E