Heneni's false door

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heneni's false door
False door of the Heneni.JPG
material limestone
Dimensions H. 169.5 cm; W. 95 cm; D. 14 cm;
origin Giza , Necropolis , Mastaba S 319
time Old Kingdom , 6th Dynasty , around 2250 BC Chr.
place Hildesheim , Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum , PM 3179

The false door of the Heneni from the Old Kingdom (late 6th Dynasty , around 2250 BC) belongs to the Egyptian collection of the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim .

Origin, size and state of preservation

The false door of the Heneni was excavated in 1929 in the eastern part of the southern cemetery of the necropolis of Giza under the direction of Hermann Junker (grave no. GVIII S). The mastaba des Heneni has three grave shafts. The false door was probably one of the northernmost and oldest of the three. It was tipped forward in front of the shaft (S319); the stone slab, which was set as the foundation for the false door, was still in situ at the southern end of the east wall, so that the original installation site seems secure. Wilhelm Pelizaeus acquired this false door in 1929 and transferred it to his home town of Hildesheim in the same year. The false door is made of Nummulitkalkstein ( Nummulite ) and has a height of 169.5 cm, is 95 cm wide and has a depth of 14 cm. The reliefs are sunk and partly incomplete. The surface of the false door shows numerous pieces of material, especially in the edge zones and in the lower part of the false door. A piece has broken off in the upper left corner.

Meaning and description

The mastaba of the Heneni did not have a cult chamber, only this false door as a cult site. The upright rectangular false door is elaborately worked from a single block and has a total of three door frames. The inner door frame frames the door opening with the rolled up mat. The middle frame, which surrounds the inner door and the sacrificial table with the dining scene, is bordered by a round rod with a braided pattern and crowned by a hollow, so that it looks like a chapel. This chapel-like structure is then reinforced by an outer frame. With the actual false door framed by round bars and the upper end by a hollow groove, this sacrificial site is an unusual and rare type.

All framing elements are provided with inscriptions. The representations of the tomb lord walking inward at the end, i.e. at the bottom of each door frame, appear like concluding hieroglyphic symbols . Heneni wears a long wig or short hairstyle. The rank of the grave owner show him as a representative of the middle civil service. On the inner post his arms hang down from his body, on the middle one he holds a Medu dignitary staff and a Sechem scepter and on the outer one he only leans on the dignitary staff. On the left outer post he is shown as a well-fed, age-typical official. On the inner lintel is the name Heneni with his most important title "Only Friend". The official title "Head of the entrance area of ​​the two administrations" can still be found on the inner post. The inscriptions on the central door post are arranged in a perfectly mirror-symmetrical manner. The titles of the grave lord "Personal recorder of the king, overseer of the court clerks, administrator of the border district, the fed Heneni" are on the center post. A prescription has crept into the first part of the right center post so that the name is shown in the wrong direction.

Spelling mistake on the false door

On the end strip of the cove above the middle door frame, the titles "estate manager, only friend, reading priest, head of the entrance area of ​​the two houses and chamberlain of King Heneni" are mentioned. Two of the usual sacrificial prayers to Anubis and Osiris are on the upper architrave and the beam above the dining table scene.

literature

  • Hermann Junker (Ed.): Gîza XI. The cemetery south of the Great Pyramid. Eastern part . Report on the work carried out by the Academy of Sciences in Vienna at joint expense with Dr. Wilhelm Pelizaeus † undertook excavations in the cemetery of the Old Kingdom near the pyramids of Gîza (=  Austrian Academy of Sciences. Philosophical-historical class. Memoranda . Volume 74.2 ). Rudolph M. Rohrer, Vienna 1953, p. 69–73 ( gizapyramids.org [PDF; 85.3 MB ] Figure 37, 40 and panel VIIc).
  • Hans Kayser : The Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim . Cram, de Gruyter, Hamburg 1966, p. 22 and 42 (Figure 6. False door from Heneni's tomb).
  • Hans Kayser: The Egyptian antiquities in the Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1973, ISBN 3-8067-8002-1 , pp. 40-41 and Fig. 6.
  • Bertha Porter , Rosalind LB Moss : Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. III. Memphis. Part I. (Abû Rawâsh to Abûṣîr) . 2nd edition, revised and expanded by Jaromír Málek . The Clarendon Press, Oxford 1974, pp. 222 ( gizapyramids.org [PDF; 31.0 MB ]).
  • Karl Martin: Heneni's false door. In: Dietrich Wildung , Günter Grimm (ed.): Gods and Pharaohs. von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0422-6 , catalog number 176 (catalog for the exhibition in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim from May 29 to September 16, 1979).
  • Arne Eggebrecht (ed.): The old empire. Egypt in the age of the pyramids. von Zabern, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-8053-0936-8 , pp. 80-81.
  • Arne Eggebrecht (Ed.): Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim. The Egyptian Collection. von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-8053-1579-1 , pp. 34–35 and Fig. 26.
  • Bettina Schmitz : "... digging the pyramids, hopefully with success!" Giza, the Old Kingdom in Hildesheim . In: Katja Lembke (Hrsg.): Das Alte Reich. Egypt from the beginnings to high culture (=  Ancient Egypt in Hildesheim ). tape 1 . von Zabern, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-4073-1 , p. 18 (catalog for the permanent exhibition).
  • Martin von Falck: From the beginning to high culture. The way of Egypt in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC Chr. In: Katja Lembke (Hrsg.): Das Alte Reich. Egypt from the beginnings to high culture . S. 38, 40 .
  • Martin von Falck: Heneni's false door . In: Katja Lembke (Hrsg.): Das Alte Reich. Egypt from the beginnings to high culture . S. 104-105 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim: Inventory number PM 3179