Seneb

Group of statues of Seneb, his wife Senetites and two of his children

Seneb was a short court official of the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom . He was, among other things, minister of God (" Hem-netjer " priest) of the death cult of the pharaohs Cheops and Radjedef and overseer of the ruler's cloakroom. An exact dating has not yet been possible. The construction of his grave was originally dated to the end of the 5th dynasty (around 2500–2350 BC) or the 6th dynasty (around 2348–2198 BC). However, more recent studies place him in the 4th Dynasty (around 2670-2500 BC). Seneb is best known today for his family's group of statues.

Surname

Seneb in hieroglyphics
Name (short form)	Seneb Snb (... is) healthy
Name (long form)	... u-seneb ... w-snb ... u is healthy

The name Seneb (= is healthy ) mentioned in several places in the grave is a short form. In its full form, which only exists in one place in the grave, it stands behind a royal cartouche to which Seneb refers. Since the inscription is damaged and only the last hieroglyph (w) has survived, the king's name can no longer be clearly identified. Due to the dating to the Old Kingdom, only Sneferu , Chufu or Sahure come into question here. The full name means, for example, "Chufu is healthy".

family

Seneb was married to the princess Senetites (snt-jt = s) . The title suggests that it descends from the line of the kings of the 4th dynasty. He had three children with her - the son Anchema-Radjedef and the daughters Auiben-Chufu and Semert-Radjedef. The images in the grave show that they were all normal.

Profession, title and social status

Seneb's activities are attested by a number of official, priestly and honorary titles in the grave. The official titles indicate an activity in the administration of the cloakroom and the weaving mills of the king. Furthermore, five priestly titles are occupied, as well as a number of honorary titles, which indicate a high social position. Apparently his short stature did not stand in the way of advancement to higher administration or higher society.

Main offices	Priestly title	Honorary title
Head of the linen and clothes dwarfs Head of the jwhw Head of the court weaving mill "Who is carried in the litter" (= top manager of the weaving mills) Head of Administration of the Lower Egyptian Crown (= Head of the administration of the workshops for the regalia of the Lower Egyptian Crown) Head of Administration of the mw Head of the crews of the ks ships God Privy Seal of Wnhrb3w -Schiffes	Servant of God ( Hem-netjer priest) of Cheops Servant of the Radjedef Servant of God of the Uto Gottesdiener the large bull, at the tip of Stp t is Servant of the Mrhw bull	Friend of the king Friend of the house Head of the palace Lord of dignity with his master Loved by his Lord Loved by his Lord every day who does what his master loves

On inscriptions on the false door of his grave, numerous servants and domestic servants are sometimes also documented by name, as well as officials subordinate to him. From the large number of servants it can be concluded that Seneb had a very extensive household. This, as well as his tomb, testify to great wealth.

Short stature

The cause of Seneb's short stature cannot be determined with certainty, as his skeleton has not been preserved. A diagnosis can therefore only be made on the basis of his statue. This clearly shows a disproportionate short stature, ie the trunk is about an average size, but arms and legs are shortened. These are typical features of achondroplasia . Seneb's face, on the other hand, does not show any features typical of achondroplasia, which is why his short stature could also have been caused by hypochondroplasia . However, this can also be due to the conventions of the Egyptian artists, who in most cases portrayed people of short stature with a normal face.

Seneb's tomb and its furnishings

Seneb in a boat, Seneb's false door

Entrance building of the tomb of Seneb with a domed roof

Seneb's Mastabagrab (S 4516/4524) in the necropolis of Giza was excavated and researched by Hermann Junker in 1927 . Among other things, the famous group of statues of Seneb and his family was found there.

The mastaba tomb is difficult to date because it has various unusual stylistic elements that are not known from any other tomb and are so difficult to put into context. The dimensions of the mastaba are 15.8 m × 7.8 m. The actual mastaba points to the 6th Dynasty due to its construction of small limestone cubes for the outer cladding and rubble stones for the interior , while other studies indicate an earlier origin. Two false doors each for Seneb and Senetites are on the east side, with a Serdab next to each . The cult room with altar is located in front of Seneb's false door. The forecourt and the entrance building with a domed roof as well as the separate storage building are unusual.

Some of the finds from his grave are now in Cairo , including a famous group of statues. A box is in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim and the sarcophagus of Seneb is in the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig .

Statue group

Seneb is best known for the superbly preserved group of statues from the northern Serdab of his Mastabagrab. The group consists of painted limestone and is 43 cm high and 22.5 cm wide.

The group of statues (see picture above) shows Seneb and his wife Senetites in a sitting position. While his wife is shown in the typical position, Seneb is shown crouching with crossed legs due to his small stature. Instead of the legs reaching to the floor in the representation of normal stature, the artist has positioned two of the children (Anchema-Radjedef and Auiben-Chufu). This crouching position is iconographic for the office of the scribe , which is interpreted as an indication of the administrative activities of Seneb.

The children are shown naked and with a finger in their mouth. The son wears the typical youth curl that falls over his shoulder. Both Seneb and his son are shown with suntanned skin, while his wife and daughter are pale skinned. Inscriptions on the statue indicate his professional activities.

The group of statues is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 51280).

More statues

In addition to this famous group of statues, the remains of two other statues were found. This is a wooden statue that was found in the southern small Serdab. Further south is a larger serdab, in which the remains of a granite statue were found, which probably originally stood together with the wooden statue in the small serdab.

Both the group of statues in the north and the two individual statues in the south Serdab were originally housed in limestone boxes. The northern of these boxes is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the southern in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim. In addition to the statues, they also contained some additions, including tables, bowls and jugs made of alabaster in miniature format . Both the boxes and the storage of the model objects in them instead of in the burial chamber are without parallel in the ancient Egyptian burial equipment.

sarcophagus

Restored sarcophagus of Seneb in the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig

The limestone sarcophagus of Seneb is undecorated and simple, box-shaped. It measures 184 × 69.5 × 65 cm and has a 3.75 cm thick fold on the upper edge to accommodate the sarcophagus lid. The lid itself is 6 cm thick and has an inner fold of 3.5 cm, which means that there is only very little space between the sarcophagus and lid. The cover has two holes at each end. These were attached to attach ropes with which the lid was lifted onto the sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus was found in ruins by Junkers and only one long side was almost completely preserved. The fragments were put back together again by the curator of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig, Friedrich Koch. Junker explained the poor state of preservation by saying that the piece found was only the inner part of two sarcophagi. The exterior was said to have been reused for a later burial. For the sake of simplicity, the inner sarcophagus was broken up and removed from the outer one piece by piece. This assumption was confirmed by the discovery of a from granite existing bosses , which belonged to the outer sarcophagus.

See also

• Short people in ancient Egypt

literature

General

• Andrey O. Bolshakov : Hinting as a Method of Old Kingdom Tomb Decoration I. The Offering-Stone and the False Door of the Dwarf Snb. In: Göttinger Miszellen (GM) 139, 1994, pp. 9–33 ( PDF file; 8.84 MB ); Retrieved from Digital Giza - The Giza Project at Harvard University .
• Nadine Cherpion : De quand date la tombe du nain Seneb? In: Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale. Volume 84, 1984, pp. 35-54 ( PDF file; 9.21 MB ); Retrieved from Institut français d'archéologie Orientale (IFAO) .
• Véronique Dasen : Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece. Clarendon, Oxford 1993, ISBN 0-19-814699-X .
• Hermann Junker (Ed.): Gîza V. The Maṣṭaba des Šnb (Seneb) and the surrounding graves. 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 (= Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Philosophical-historical class. Memoranda. Volume 71, 2nd treatise). Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna / Leipzig 1941 ( PDF file; 25.7 MB ); Retrieved from Digital Giza .
• Bertha Porter , Rosalind LB Moss , Ethel W. Burney: Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. Volume III: Memphis. Part 1: Abû Rawâsh to Abûṣîr. 2nd edition, revised and expanded by Jaromír Málek . The Clarendon Press / Griffith Institute / Ashmolean Museum , Oxford 1974, pp. 101-103 ( PDF file; 19.5 MB ); Retrieved from The Digital Topographical Bibliography .
• Alexandra Woods : A Date for the Tomb of Seneb at Giza: Revisited. In: Alexandra Woods, Ann McFarlane, Susanne Binder (Eds.): Egyptian Culture and Society. Studies in Honor of Naguib Kanawati Volume 2 (= Supplément aux Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte. Volume 38). Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l'Égypte, Cairo 2010, ISBN 978-977-479-845-0 , pp. 302–331 ( online version ).

To the statue group

• Alessia Amenta , Alessandro Bongioanni , Araldo De Luca : Treasuries of the World - Egyptian Museum. Mairs Geographischer Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-934385-81-8 , p. 81 ( online version / National Geographic Germany, Hamburg 2006 ).
• Jaromír Málek : Egypt. 4000 Years of Art. Phaidon Press, London / New York 2003, ISBN 0-7148-4200-1 , p. 57.

To the sarcophagus

• Anna Maria Donadoni Roveri : I sarcofagi egizi dalle origini alla fine dell'Antico Regno (= Università di Roma. Istituto di studi del vicino Oriente. Series archeologica. Volume 16). Istituto di studi del vicino Oriente - Università, Roma 1969, pp. 136-137 ( PDF file; 46.5 MB ); Retrieved from Digital Giza .

Medical

• Chahira Kozma : Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt. In: American Journal of Medial Genetics. Part A, Volume 140A, No. 4, 2006, pp. 303-311 ( PDF file; 0.5 MB ); accessed from academia.dk .
• John F. Nunn : Ancient Egyptian Medicine. British Museum Press, London 1996, ISBN 0-7141-0981-9 , pp. 78-79 ( online version ).

Web links

Commons : Seneb  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Dwarf Seneb And His Family

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Year numbers according to Thomas Scheider: Lexicon of the Pharaohs . Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002, ISBN 3-491-96053-3 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Nadine Cherpion: De quand date la tombe du nain Seneb? 1984.
3. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 6 The name .
4. ↑ H. Junker: Gîza V. Wien / Leipzig 1941, p. 18 Die Familie des Snb .
5. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 8 The professions and H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 12 The title .
6. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 19 The budget of the snb .
7. ↑ John F. Nunn: Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London 1996, p. 78.
8. ↑ Chahira Kozma: Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt. 2006, p. 306.
9. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 4 Construction .
10. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 107 The sculptural group from the northern Serdab .
11. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 104. The preparation of the statues in the grave conditioning .
12. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 105 The stone boxes ; The additions .
13. ↑ H. Junker: Gîza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, pp. 122–124 Der Sarg .
14. ↑ H. Junker: Giza V. Vienna / Leipzig 1941, p 124 The coffin .