Abusir by Miroslav Verner

Author:Miroslav Verner [Verner Miroslav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781617972270
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2002-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

A striding statue of Neferefre. The ruler wears the crown of Upper Egypt on his head. In his right hand, which is placed on his breast, he holds the ruler’s mace. Basalt. The statue, 80 centimeters high, has a low base Egyptian Museum in Cairo (JE 98181) (photo: Kamil Voděra).

Yet further sculptures, however, were found in the hypostyle in Neferefre’s mortuary temple; these were not of the ruler, but closely associated with him. They were small wooden statuettes of the so-called enemies of Egypt. They represented Asians, Nubians, and Libyans kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs. The statuettes may have originally adorned the royal throne or naos in which stood the statue of the pharaoh. The motif of the captured enemies kneeling before the pharaoh is a thoroughly royal motif linked with the Ancient Egyptian conception of the arrangement of the world and the status of the pharaoh within it. This was the reason why the motif of the captive enemies so often adorns objects around the pharaoh. Not only the statuettes of the captive enemies of Egypt but also many other archaeological discoveries—symbolic models of boats, fragments of stone vessels or faience decorations, clay seals and so on—are allowing us gradually to reconstruct the significance and function of the columned hall in Raneferef’s mortuary temple.

The architectonic plan embodied the religious conception and made of the columned hall the place of the other world par excellence Under the heavenly night canopy of the hall sheaves of lotuses (perhaps papyrus), symbol of resurrection, flowered in the form of the columns. The pharaoh, finding his image in a cult statue—and his various sovereign likenesses in his various statues—had made for himself an intimate world of eternal bliss, from which he could continue to govern the destinies of “the people of his time,” exist as a living god on earth, and act as a mediator between the worlds of gods and men. This was the basic conception behind the cult which was practiced in the hall with the precision of a timetable of priestly services. It is also possible that the columned hall resembled the throne hall in a royal palace. To confirm this resemblance it would, of course, be necessary to find and archaeologically investigate at least one royal palace from the age of the pyramid-builders. Unfortunately, such a discovery still remains one of the unfulfilled goals of Egyptian archaeology.

While it is true that archaeological examples of royal palaces from the time of the pyramid-builders have not been found and are known only from contemporary Egyptian written records, Neferefre’s tomb complex has nevertheless yielded remarkable testimony of a different kind. When the excavations in front of the Unfinished Pyramid were shifted further towards the southeast, another large building of mud brick began gradually to emerge from the sand and rubble. Like Neferefre’s mortuary temple, it was built in two phases of construction, was rectangular in plan, and north-south in orientation. Its dimensions, orientation, and rounded outer corners indicate that it was not residential or economic but religious in character.

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