Sedment
Sedment is a village in what is now Egypt , at the entrance to the Fayyum . There are extensive necropolises in its vicinity . In research, these burial sites are known as " Sedment ". They probably belonged to several villages on the edge of the desert.
history
The oldest tombs date from the early Dynastic period , and there are some significant tombs from the end of the Old Kingdom . The grave of Meryhaishetef dates from this time and contained a number of wooden figures and was spared from grave robbers. Three of the figures show the grave owner naked, others represent servants doing various work.
A particularly large number of simple shaft graves in these cemeteries date from the end of the First Intermediate Period or from the early Middle Kingdom . Since organic materials have been well preserved here, these graves are considered prime examples of burials from this period. Most of the dead were buried in simple coffins, of which only the most elaborately decorated. In addition to the coffin, there were usually various wooden models of servants who were shown doing daily work.
There are only a few graves from the high Middle Kingdom. However, numerous tombs can be dated to the time of the New Kingdom . During this time a remarkable change becomes visible. After only members of the local population, who only played a subordinate role in the state hierarchy , were buried in the previous periods , now, as in other provincial cemeteries since the beginning of the 19th dynasty , the highest dignitaries are buried. This includes, for example, the grave of the vizier Rahotep , who was in office under Ramses II . When the tomb was discovered in modern times, it was already very much destroyed; but it must have been an important facility once. Fragments of columns, reliefs made of various stones and fragments of various statues were found . Another large complex belonged to the general of the lord of the two countries Sethi, who presumably also served under Ramses II. There were octagonal columns of his grave and relief fragments.
The necropolis was also occupied in the following periods, but the tombs of these periods have so far only been insufficiently investigated.
literature
- Sir Flinders Petrie / Guy Brunton: Sedment I + II . London 1924
- Henning Franzmeier: The grave fields of Sedment in the New Kingdom. (= Problems of Egyptology. Volume 34). 2 volumes, Brill, Leiden 2017, ISBN 978-9-0043-4342-9 .
- Wolfram Grajetzki: Sedment. Burials of Egyptian Farmers and Noblemen over the Centuries . London 2005
Coordinates: 29 ° 8 ' N , 30 ° 54' E