Cult chamber of Uhemka

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Part of the cult band of Uhemka

The cult chamber of the Uhemka is one of the most important cultural and historical exhibits in the Egyptian collection of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim . The originally preserved chamber was part of the mastaba of Uhemka in Gizeh (No. D 117). It belonged to the above-ground part of the grave and was used by the bereaved for ritual acts and for making offerings for the deceased (inventory number: PM 2970). Uhemka lived in the early 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom around 2440 BC and was the property and asset manager of Prince Ka-ni-nisut. In addition, he held the titles of "judge and chief of the scribe", "head of the scribe for the petitions", "head of the house", "scribe of the archives", "scribe of the recruits" and "commissioner for the affairs of the king".

Site, dismantling and construction

The cult chamber was found in 1903 in the west cemetery at the pyramids in Gizeh during excavations of the Leipzig Egyptological Institute under the direction of Georg Steindorff , which were largely financed by Wilhelm Pelizaeus . Wilhelm Pelizaeus succeeded in acquiring the cult chamber for his collection or for the museum he founded in his home town of Hildesheim, in accordance with the ancient laws applicable at the time. However, the outbreak of World War I initially prevented the chamber from being dismantled. For transport in 1925, it was broken down into 90 blocks, boxed and shipped. In 1926 the cult chamber could be rebuilt in the new part of the museum. Photos prove the color of the reliefs that was still essentially present at the time . In the following years, however, the limestone suffered from salt efflorescence due to the more humid climate in Hildesheim. Soluble salts could only be successfully freed from it and the structure of the reliefs retained by extensive watering.

Size and location

The mastaba of Uhemka is in the immediate vicinity of his employer, Ka-ni-nisut. The coffin chamber was in the west, which was associated with death, where the sun sets. Here the coffin was placed in such a way that the eyes painted on the outside of its walls could look to the east, i.e. to the false door and the cult events. The cult chamber itself is about 2.35 m wide, 12 cm deep and 2.30 m high. The room in the east of the grave with its false doors was considered to be the interface between the world on this and the other.

Decorations

The lower 60 cm of the chamber is not decorated. The remaining part of the walls is covered with images and texts up to the ceiling. The tiny, rectangular cult chamber was the only accessible interior of the tomb. With the two false doors on the west wall and the relief depictions on the walls, the care of the grave owner and his family, immortalized in stone and thus secured, is shown. The southern, left false door is, as always, the main cult site and intended for the tomb lord, the northern, right false door for his wife. The two false doors also establish the connection to the land of the dead, which was located in the direction of sunset. On the architraves of the two false doors there is a short sacrificial formula and in the middle the titles and inscriptions of Uhemka and his wife. The pictorial program contains all the elements that are important for this purpose and in this composition is typical for graves of this time and size.

Between the false doors you can see the grave lord with his family: lovingly embraced by his wife Hetep-ibes, accompanied by their daughter Henut-sen and their son Ra-hetep, who clings to his father's staff. Relatives and members of the household meet them, followed by a grown-up daughter of Uhemka with her husband and daughter. On this wall alone, Uhemka and his wife are shown seated at dinner tables four times, which underlines the central importance of this scene for caring for the dead. Other representations are also repeated and thus serve for multiple backups. On the south wall on the left is a list of victims, in the lower register cattle are slaughtered for the dead sacrifice. Opposite on the north wall is Uhemka with his wife and son; they are followed by another couple with children. While these people are all oriented in the direction of the grave entrance, the offering bearers in the two registers below step with their gifts towards the false doors, where they actually lay down their food offerings. The east wall shows the grave owner with his wife again. Uhemka inspects his property, his herds of cattle, donkeys, sheep and goats, the number of which is noted by two scribes crouching on the floor, while a third presents the register to the tomb.

Aligned to the south wall, another couple appears here who are identified in the inscription as the father and mother of Uhemka. Accordingly, four generations of one family are represented in this tomb. In the lower register, the servants march up in two registers with the grave equipment; this includes clothing, jewelry, boxes, vessels, fans, offering tables, etc.

Due to the special position of the Uhemka in the household of his employer Ka-ni-nisut, it was possible for him to maintain his own tomb with a fully decorated cult chamber in such a prominent position near the royal pyramid.

literature

  • Arne Eggebrecht (ed.), Bettina Schmitz, Regine Schulz, Matthias Seidel: The Old Kingdom, Egypt in the Age of the Pyramids (= catalog / Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim. Volume 2). Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, von Zabern, ISBN 3-8053-0936-8 .
  • Arne Eggebrecht: Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim (= Museum (Georg Westermann Verlag) December 1979 ISSN  0341-8634 ). Westermann, Braunschweig 1979, pp. 46-55.
  • Hans Kayser : The mastaba of the Uhemka. A grave in the desert. Torchbearer, Hanover 1964 ( digitized version )
  • Günther Roeder : The mastaba of Uhemka in the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim. Lower Saxony Image Archive Wienhausen, Vienna 1927.
  • Georg Steindorff , Uvo Hoelscher, Alfred Grimm (eds.): The mastabas west of the Cheops pyramid. According to the results of the excavations undertaken in Giza in the years 1903-1907 on behalf of the University of Leipzig and the Hildesheim Pelizaeus Museum (= Munich Egyptological Studies. Volume 2). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-631-40503-0 , plate 16.

Web links

Commons : Mastaba of Uhemka  - collection of images, videos and audio files