The false door of Princess Wenschet

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The false door of Princess Wenschet
RPM Egypt 024.jpg
material limestone
Dimensions H. 223.2 cm; W. 147 cm; D. 33.5 cm;
origin Giza , Necropolis , Mastaba G 4840
time Old Kingdom , 4th Dynasty , around 2460 BC Chr.
place Hildesheim , Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum , 2971

In the Egyptian collection of the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim is the false door of Princess Wenschet ( Wnš.t ), the she-wolf, from the late 4th dynasty around 2460 BC. Chr. (Inventory number PM 2971). This limestone false door is a very informative and interesting testimony to family and living conditions of the 4th Dynasty.

In the west of his great pyramid, King Cheops had a mastaba cemetery, structured as if in streets, for his most senior officials. They were buried there alone or their families. At the end of the 4th dynasty one of these graves was also laid for Wenschet . Presumably it is about the wife of a high official, because she had the court rank of a “natural king's daughter” as well as the honorary office of a “servant of God” to the goddesses Neith and Hathor . She was therefore a high-ranking member of the court, but certainly not part of the royal family, which had its own cemetery in the east. A replacement head and a fragment of a sacrificial plate were found very close to the mastaba . The sacrificial plate and replacement head are characteristic of the reign of King Cheops.

Location

The false door belonged to the mastaba G 4840 on the Westfriedhof in Gizeh and was found by George Reisner on the occasion of Hermann Junkers' excavation in 1914. It was built at the north end of the east side.

layout

The dimensions of the false door are 223.2 cm high; Width 147 cm; Depth 33.5 cm. The tomb architecture, the shape and the style of the false door are unusual for the Cheops era. The monumental false door, a monolith, had to be the only decoration of her grave in a compact form that had to contain all the representations that were essential for her continued life after death. Wenschet himself is not only shown sitting in the pediment at the offering table, but also appears on the right as the most important and therefore the largest person in the entire composition. In relation to her, her relatives and servants are depicted much smaller in finely graded ranks. Wenschet wears a long, highlighted wig, is richly adorned and dressed in the usual strappy robe for women. In the balanced proportions, emphatically feminine, slim and ageless-young looking, it corresponds to the desired ideal. In front of her is one of her daughters, who appears again at the top of the left outer post, now grown up with her own son in front of a priest of the dead. On the inner post there are two officers with staff, who are referred to as the sons of Wenschet, as well as four women, probably other daughters. Three generations of a family are shown here, only the husband and father are missing. It can be assumed that her husband, as a high official of the court, owned his own grave. Down on the false door, priests of the dead with washing dishes, beef thighs and antelopes ensure the eternal supply. On the left, six people appear with baskets on their heads. They represent domains that provide royalties for the Wenschet cult of the dead. It therefore has its own income for the regular sacrifices and the remuneration of the priests of the dead.

literature

  • Bettina Schmitz : Princess Wenschet's false door . In: Nofret - The Beautiful. The woman in ancient Egypt . "Truth" and Reality. von Zabern, Mainz 1985, ISBN 3-8053-0854-X , p. 24–25 (catalog manual for the exhibition in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim July 15 - November 4, 1985, volume 2).
  • Arne Eggebrecht , Bettina Schmitz, Matthias Seidel: The Old Empire. Egypt in the age of the pyramids . von Zabern, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-8053-0936-8 .
  • Katja Lembke , Martin von Falck, Bettina Schmitz: Ancient Egypt in Hildesheim . Volume 1: The Old Reich. Egypt from the beginnings to high culture . von Zabern, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-4073-1 .
  • Peter Jánosi : Mastabas - The graves of the elite . In: Katja Lembke, Bettina Schmitz (Ed.): Giza. At the foot of the great pyramids . Hirmer, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7774-3481-0 , pp. 74–77 (book accompanying the exhibition in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim, April 16 - August 21, 2011).

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