If Pyramids not tombs where are the pharaohs?

[Thanos5150]

On 4/4/2024 at 5:31 PM, Thanos5150 said:

Apparently it needs to be said, but if they were "tombs" the source would say "tombs" not "tomb-shaped structures". And to read it the description is not that it is a mastaba but that a mastaba is a representation of the "underground world" implying that these "tomb-shaped structures" look why they do because of this symbolism not because, again, they are actually mastabas or "tombs".    

Unfolding Sennedjem’s tomb p3:

"The tympanum of the west wall shows two jackals recumbent on tomb-shrines on the opposite sides of a central passage. These are the guardians of the gates to the West, the Kingdom of Osiris, and they are the openers of the road to eternity." Which the shrine is the gateway. 

The Tomb of Sennedjem in the Necropolis of Deir el-Medina:

"Turning the corner, we encounter a scene of Snnedjem [sic] and his wife worshiping the gods of the dead below a dual representation of Anubis in the form of a jackal crouching on a shrine."

Not "tomb". We can also see these shrines have nothing to do with reality related to Sennedjem's tomb with their meaning in context clearly symbolic. Tomb of Sennedjem:

Depicted multiple times in the BoD as their actual tomb as well:

Obviously nothing like the dual shrines having nothing to do with it. Also from the BoD, several shrines/buildings including similar to the ones in question, i.e. not "tombs" nor are they mastabas:

Which there are several nearly identical examples in the BoD to what is seen in TT-1 which are shrines, not tombs:

And not mastabas and there is no source I wager that will tell you that they are. They are shrines which in the NK this form of shrine or chapel with the serekh corniced roof in various forms for various purposes is ubiquitous continuing well into the Ptolemaic Period yet none are mastabas or tombs: 

 

Yeah, we definitely do not want to mislead the readers. 

"They depict two tombs".

"Correct." 

They are not tombs. Or mastabas. Either singular or plural. Instead of "These are my conclusions. You will not find them in any textbook..." or rambling personal interpretive bloviations surely, again, there must be an actual source to back up the claim that these are mastabas/tombs, right? Just one. You shouldn't have to even look for it. And yet there is no reference I have seen or can find that describes them as anything other than not mastabas or tombs, but rather typically "shrines" or the like, which the Anubis shrine was common in the NK none more so than at Deir el Bahari where this is found:

Pashedu TT3 "The sidewalls of the passage are beautifully painted with a scene of Anubis jackals on top of large white chapels with cavetto cornices." p134.:

Nefertari (?-don't think this is correct):

 Others:

Or just as a single shrine (Papyrus of Ani) "The scene below depicts Anubis recumbent on a shrine....":

Nefertari "Anubis is depicted as a jackal recumbent on a shrine".:

Inherkhau TT359:

On and on it goes. See E16 and E16A.  The hieroglyph itself is not "lying canine on mastaba". "Not lying canine on tomb". It is a "lying canine on shrine". It is also even referred to as a "podium", for example "The shrine features Anubis portrayed as a jackal, resting on his podium.". Also, see I4. Same building: "crocodile [Sobek] on shine". 

Portable Shrine of Anubis:

"Here, he [Anubis] assumes this role in response to the secretive aspects 33 of the embalming rituals. A parallel of Anubis’s Shrine is seen in Figure 3, the Papyrus of Ani. 34 This depiction is significant because it further reiterates Anubis’ longstanding place within the Egyptian pantheon since the Old Kingdom, affirming the rebirth of older traditions. The seated Anubis depicted on the Papyrus of Ani predates the Portable Shrine of Anubis, however the latter is the first three-dimensional example known to date....

The Portable Shrine of Anubis ensured the King with a successful journey into the afterlife, aided by Anubis’s protective power."

To Explore the Land of Canaan

"Still, an Anubis shrine should not be confused to be a shrine for Anubis, but rather, it was a structure for the washing and purification of the body as it was prepared for burial, which ritual was connected to Anubis. Thus it is sometimes called an Anubis shrine, but it was a shrine for royal burial preparation, not to worship Anubis."

And while true the mastaba was the "archetypical tomb", though the OK at least where it petered out toward the end then saw a revival in the MK, that ain't a mastaba. But by all means, again, we are still waiting on all those those sources that say the Anubis shrines are "mastabas" and/or "tombs".  

Edited April 9 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

7.1. Theban tomb 3
The architecture of TT3 includes
a few stairs at the entrance leading to a
vaulted passage and into the burial
chamber [15], fig. (11). The sidewalls of
the passage are beautifully painted with
a scene of Anubis jackals on top of large
white chapels with cavetto cornices.

My bold, and this chapel is of course the top, the visible part of a mastaba tomb

This image below is always described as Anubis on a shrine, but what Anubis sits on is different to what is described as a chapel, the top part of a mastaba. In the images of Anubis on a chapel, no matter how many times, or by whom it is described as a shrine, it is clearly a different structure to a shrine. Shrines have a door at one end, not the side, and the shrines are decorated over their entire surfaces, while these chapels that Anubis sits on are plain white, and what does a shrine contain ? and do these structures, these chapels, that Anubis sits contain this, whatever.

It could even be argued that while this is always described as a shrine, it it technically a shrine shaped box. It is decorated all over, but has no door at the end as a true shrine does, in fact it has a sliding door at the top, which Anubis sits on. But to deny this is a shrine is quibbling I think.

The image below, from KV62 shows a true shrine

The next image shows a reproduction of Tutankhamun's outer shrine, elongated as it has to cover other shrines and the sarcophagus, but clearly still the same type of structure, and not the same as the images of Anubis sitting on a chapel.

Another image of the small golden shrine from KV62, where we see it is made to hold the image of a god, in this case the now deified king, again, not like Anubis on a chapel

Here we have two shrines in the temple of Edfu, yet again not like the structure that Anubis sits on in tomb wall or papyrus decorations.

The only way that the images of Anubis sitting on chapel/mastaba could be said to be of him on a shrine are if the entire tomb is seen as a shrine. Now in NK royal tombs a case could be made that the burial chamber is itself an large shrine containing nests of shrines all the way to the sarcophagus, though it's not described like this, only the actual guilded shrines being described as a shrine. However, the entire mastaba is not a shrine, even if the burial chamber could be described as one, as shrines have a specific use to contain the image of a god, or in a royal tomb, the mummy of the dead king, now a god. In the images of Anubis sitting on a chapel, if actually a shrine, which god is inside this shrine, why is it not deocrated as obvious shrines are, and why is there a small door in the middle, not a large door at the end.

Curious, is it not, that in the previous post not a single image of an undoubted shrine was presented to compare with the images of Anubis on a chapel, neither was there any description of an undoubted shrine or it's purpose. That there was not even an image of the most famous imgae of Anubis, the KV 62 one, why not, perhaps because it;s clearly not the same as the images of Anubis on a chapel. Anubis, god of embalming, so sitting on a shrine shaped box in KV62 that probably held the king's canopic jars during the funeral procession, before they were moved into their chest within it's own proper shrine, as they are part of the body of a god.

Anubis, guardian of the necropolis and it's tombs, depicted sitting on a tomb to guard it, a tomb, not a receptacle to hold a god because all these images presented of Anubis on a chapel come from the tombs of commoners, or their BoD papyrus scrolls.

Edited April 9 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Further, this time on hieroglyphs.

The signs for both Anubis and Sobek, as has been pointed out, describe them as being on shrines, and I'll reproduce the signs

Sobek

 

Anubis

I note that Sobek is I believe always depicted sitting on a base, so though the description states "shrine", I do wonder if this is correct, for instance, what deity is contained in this shrine. What was not refered to in the earlier post were the signs for shrine, of which there are several, and the sign lists are at odds with each other on some of them.

The first image is taken from egyptianhieroglyphs.net

 

 

The second image is from the wiki here

 

I'll leave it to the reader to spot the inconsistencies between the two lists, the wiki being more accurate in my opinion, and will just point out that the shrines that Anubis and Sobek sit on are not like any of the actual signs for a shrine, however, I am certainly not precluding them as being shrines, the main point being do they correlate to what Anubis is sittiing on in a painting, not a hieroglyph, on the wall of a tomb as seen here. I agree that it can seem so, but the question that needs to be addressed is if we see two shrines in this image, then what or who are they shrines for, which deity is inside these shrines, and if there is none then it is not a shrine, and why, when undoubted shrines are richly decorated, are these plain white. Also, note sign O22 in the first list and 021 in the second, both being the same sign. It shows the facade, the front of the shrine, not the side, so where we see the sign for Anubis on a shrine, is he really sitting crossways over the entrance to a rather wide shrine, or sitting lengthwise on something that has a door in it's side, which would not be a shrine if the case.

Edited April 9 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

12 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Yeah, we definitely do not want to mislead the readers. 

"They depict two tombs".

"Correct." 

They are not tombs. Or mastabas. Either singular or plural. Instead of "These are my conclusions. You will not find them in any textbook..." or rambling personal interpretive bloviations surely, again, there must be an actual source to back up the claim that these are mastabas/tombs, right? Just one. You shouldn't have to even look for it. And yet there is no reference I have seen or can find that describes them as anything other than not mastabas or tombs, but rather typically "shrines" or the like, which the Anubis shrine was common in the NK none more so than at Deir el Bahari where this is found:

Pashedu TT3 "The sidewalls of the passage are beautifully painted with a scene of Anubis jackals on top of large white chapels with cavetto cornices." p134.:

Nefertari (?-don't think this is correct):

 Others:

Or just as a single shrine (Papyrus of Ani) "The scene below depicts Anubis recumbent on a shrine....":

Nefertari "Anubis is depicted as a jackal recumbent on a shrine".:

Inherkhau TT359:

On and on it goes. See E16 and E16A.  The hieroglyph itself is not "lying canine on mastaba". "Not lying canine on tomb". It is a "lying canine on shrine". It is also even referred to as a "podium", for example "The shrine features Anubis portrayed as a jackal, resting on his podium.". Also, see I4. Same building: "crocodile [Sobek] on shine". 

Portable Shrine of Anubis:

"Here, he [Anubis] assumes this role in response to the secretive aspects 33 of the embalming rituals. A parallel of Anubis’s Shrine is seen in Figure 3, the Papyrus of Ani. 34 This depiction is significant because it further reiterates Anubis’ longstanding place within the Egyptian pantheon since the Old Kingdom, affirming the rebirth of older traditions. The seated Anubis depicted on the Papyrus of Ani predates the Portable Shrine of Anubis, however the latter is the first three-dimensional example known to date....

The Portable Shrine of Anubis ensured the King with a successful journey into the afterlife, aided by Anubis’s protective power."

To Explore the Land of Canaan

"Still, an Anubis shrine should not be confused to be a shrine for Anubis, but rather, it was a structure for the washing and purification of the body as it was prepared for burial, which ritual was connected to Anubis. Thus it is sometimes called an Anubis shrine, but it was a shrine for royal burial preparation, not to worship Anubis."

And while true the mastaba was the "archetypical tomb", though the OK at least where it petered out toward the end then saw a revival in the MK, that ain't a mastaba. But by all means, again, we are still waiting on all those those sources that say the Anubis shrines are "mastabas" and/or "tombs".  

RE:

7.1. Theban tomb 3
The architecture of TT3 includes
a few stairs at the entrance leading to a
vaulted passage and into the burial
chamber [15], fig. (11). The sidewalls of
the passage are beautifully painted with
a scene of Anubis jackals on top of large
white chapels with cavetto cornices.

My bold, and this chapel is of course the top, the visible part of a mastaba tomb

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The 5th Dynasty mastaba of Washptah at Saqqara is depicted above. First we note what was not bolded: "The sidewalls of the passage are beautifully painted with a scene of Anubis jackals on top of large white chapels with cavetto cornices." i.e. not a component of mastabas but common as already shown in other structures like shrines, chapels, temples, pylons etc. . 

Regardless, obviously this is not true. Either that the superstructure of a mastaba is a "chapel", let alone what the source or any other is reffering to when they use these words, or that it is what is portrayed in the Anubis shrine. And again there is no source that will support either of these claims if only the opposite which we note despite several requests none have yet been offered to back it up. 

While there is a chapel ("tomb-chapel") of some sort inside or at the entrance of the superstructure, typically a small niche or room or sometimes even a separate structure entirely, a place to give offerings to and/or communicate with the dead, it should be common knowledge the superstructure of a mastaba itself is not a "chapel". 

And we would also note despite the fact there is not one source that will refer to these Anubis shrines as tombs/mastabas (or mastabas as "chapels"), which several examples were given that specifically do not instead as explained over several posts either refer to them most commonly as "shrines" or variants like "podium" or "chapel", despite this this one quote is cherry picked as if in context it were the only one and then meaning imposed on it the author in no way shape or form intended if only the opposite. 

For anyone interested in mastaba architecture see: The Architecture and Mastaba Tombs in the Unas Cemetery.

[Wepwawet]

The internal part of the upper, above ground, structure of the tomb, mastaba simply being the name for a style of tomb, contains the chapel. Therefore if Anubis is depicted on top of a tomb, specifically here a mastaba style tomb, he is also sitting on it's chapel. That later tombs are different in that they can have a small pyramid on top of them is not relevant. Anubis is sitting on the older mastaba type because, in my opinion, it provides a flat surface for him to sit on, and is also serving the purpose of representing a tomb generically. If a persons tomb is completely hidden underground, as many are, then how do you represent their tomb in depictions within the tomb when it has no external shape, and the object is to depict Anubis as the guardian of the tomb.

The question remains about this image of Anubis, by what criteria is what he is sitting on a shrine, how can any explanation of this being a shrine square with what we know a shrine is and what it looks like, and I believe the examples I have provided are perfectly adequate. The question also remains about the role of Anubis, psychopomp, not applicable to the images in question, god of mummification, also not applicable to the images in question, which just leaves him as guardian of the necropolis and it's tombs. Where is he described as "guardian of the shrine/s" ? even though there are some images of him on a real shrine, in a very different context. What does it look like he is guarding in the relevant images that fit with his job description, a shrine or a tomb, which is the more likely for the "Guardian of the Necropolis".

Edited April 9 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

In a previous post I presented this image of two ba birds on a tomb, what else would they be on,

I'll follow this up with another image, two versions, from TT 359, the tomb of Ankherkhau. The first image describes his ba bird as being praised by "Ankherkhau in his tomb", what is the ba bird on that looks like what we see Anubis on in the relevant images, a tomb perhaps.The second image of the same scene is described by Salima Ikram as being "Ankherkhau at his tomb". It is not unusual to depict a ba bird on a depiction of the deceased's tomb. If the tomb in these images is the same as the structure we see Anubis on, longer in proportion due to the size of Anubis, then how can Anubis not also be sitting on a tomb when the structures are the same.

 

 

Edited April 9 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

20 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

The logic path here is because mastabas are rectangular structures with sloping sides, a flat roof, and an entrance door, these may or may not be tombs depending on one's interpretation, ergo these are mastabas because they are found in tombs in funerary reliefs despite the fact these actual tombs look nothing like mastabas. The rub is there are no mastabas as a rule that had cavetto corniced roofs yet as discussed there are many a non tomb structure, particularly in the NK, that do but also have this same "mastaba" shape. So this looks like a duck must be a duck things doesn't fly. For one, but again, the mastaba was basically done for in the MK which mastabas become increasingly rare and more or less disappear by the NK which from what I can tell is where depictions of these shrines first appear. Which begs the question why would mastabas from centuries before be symbolic of this new fangled depiction of tombs the likes of which they did not even build anymore but also had depictions as noted before of their actual tombs?

 

This is interesting, also found at Deir al Bahari where nearly all (all?) of the examples we have pictured so far are found, there are other apparent similar structures namely mortuary temple "solar altars": 

"The excavations of the German Institute at Deir al Bahari have provided us with a splendid and comprehensive study of the funerary complex of Mentuhotep II at Thebes. One of the most debated features of the monument is the reconstitution of the structure in the central area, the “Kernbau”. The discussion was initiated by Naville and Winlock who both believed that it was once some kind of pyramid (fig. 1) 1. The accurate study of the remains by D. Arnold, after numerous and remarkable research campaigns, had led this scholar to the conclusion that the central structure was in fact a square mastaba-like building adorned with cavetto cornices (fig. 2) 2 ....

The best preserved exemplars of such altars are the one standing in Hatchepsut’s temple at Deir al Bahari (fig. 6) 6 and the one set in Sethi I’s temple at Gurna 7 . Traces of others have been found, in the mortuary temple of Thutmosis III, in that of Merenptah, and by Ramses III’s temple at Medinet Habu 8 . Their general shape is that of a mastaba topped with cavetto cornice and accessible through stairs that abut their eastern side."

THE “KERNBAU” OF THE TEMPLE OF MENTUHOTEP II AT DEIR AL-BAHARI: A MONUMENTAL SUN ALTAR ?

Yes it has 3 doors, but here is a barque shrine from Seti II that is a "mastaba-like building adorned with cavetto cornices":

If we go back here we see at the entrance of this pyramid chapel a protruding false door that is in essence a truncated the tomb-shrine:

The false door is not a tomb but a vignette of the serekh building and ultimately the gateway to the afterlife. The Egyptian meaning of the equivalent word for "mastaba"  was "eternal house" i.e. the final resting place of the dead. I am left to wonder if what is actually being represented in these NK tombs is a generic symbolic structure of this ideology, the "eternal house", which is technically neither a shrine or tomb but rather a representation of this gateway in its full form as part of a building which the context it is used implies its application. If that makes sense. 

Edited April 9 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

All of which above has merit, though it does not provide an answer to the specific structure that Anubis is depicted sitting on. I've already suggested that this specific shape, the shape of a mastaba, a bench in Arabic, was chosen as it provides a suitable platform for Anubis to sit on, the top of a pyramid as shown in a number of posts not being suitable. I think the only other alternative would have been to have Anubis just "floating" in the scene, but that then defeats the object of what is depicted in the scene.

So, seeing the comments above about design elements, we get back to this depiction of a ba bird on a depiction of the owners tomb within their tomb

and we then compare it to what Anubis is sitting on

and we see that, apart from the proportions being different to take the longer shape of Anubis, they are both the same structure. Therefore as the undeniable tomb with a ba bird on top of it is a tomb, yet has a cornice that a mastaba does not, cannot preclude this as being a tomb, and based on the shape of a mastaba, the cornice being a decorative item only.

Then we have this term "Tomb-Shrine". I found this used just the once in a search yesterday, didn't take long as it forms part of the wiki for the KV62 Anubis shrine here The image will not link. However, I have never seen this term used ever anywhere else, in the sign list it is just "Anubis on a shrine" or "Anubis on a shrine with flagellum", which we see in the image above. The wiki does mention that the sign comes with an epithet , and I'll quote directly,

Quote

However, this hieroglyph also signifies the title jnpw ḥrj-sštȝ ("Anubis over the mysteries"), apparently with a double meaning: watcher and master of mysteries.

Fortunately I know that the "mysteries" refer to the "mysteries of the tomb" and by extension an element of the Duat, for the tomb of Osiris, which is like a tomb and coffin combined, is also known as the "Mysterious chamber" within the Duat. This will I believe be a reference to re-birth. In the scene above, as I have mentioned before, we see reference to dawn and dusk, with the ba of the deceased leaving the tomb at dawn and returning at dusk.

I believe that the term "Tomb-Shrine" is a concoction made up by who knows, the editor of the wiki? However, they have at least used the word "tomb", but why have they used the word "shrine", because that's what it says in the sign list, but is that sign showing Anubis on a shrine such as in KV62, or just A.N. Other generic shrine. Let's take the tomb part, whose tomb when seen depicted, as above, in a tomb, anybodies tomb, or the owners, well, surely the owners, in which case, dispute over. What about the shrine part though, what defines the imgae above, and similar ones in other tombs, as being a shrine, a question I've asked before. There is a difference between the KV62 Anubis shrine and these tomb depictions, in KV62 Anubis sits on a shrine that contains items, and probably contained the canopic jars during the funeral procession, though this is not certain. The important fact is that it acted as a shrine in that it contains items, it was built to contain items, it's decorated like a shrine. If a shrine is depicted in the tomb scenes, why not decorated like a shrine, and what do they metaphorically/magically contain? The only item I can think of would be the tomb owners mummy, so it would be a depiction of his tomb, would it not, and again dispute over. But I dispute that these depictions would have ever been seen as shrines by the AE, just the owners tomb, just as with the ba bird depictions.

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

Fortunately I know that the "mysteries" refer to the "mysteries of the tomb" and by extension an element of the Duat, for the tomb of Osiris, which is like a tomb and coffin combined, is also known as the "Mysterious chamber" within the Duat

Strictly speaking the Amduat is "The Book of the Hidden Chamber", however when we reach the Fifth and Sixth Hours of the Amduat the word mysterious is used five times in relation to various aspects within these hours, and also the entire cavern, therefore everything in the cavern, including the chamber where Ra and Osiris unite, the resurrection, is mysterious. and I'll quote from the Fifth Hour,

Quote

It is the hauling of this great god upon the proper paths of the Netherworld in the upper half of the mysterious cavern of Sokar....

The "great god" being Flesh, the "dead" Ra. And yes, Anubis is here, and in a prominent position, right next to the "Burial mound of Osiris", and this is why I suggest a connection between the epithet of Anubis, "Anubis over the mysteries", and these crucial events in the Amduat. Anubis is also named as "Anubis of the chest", the chest being another term for the tomb of Osiris, and another reason to suggest that Anubis is depicted on a tomb, not a shrine, in both the hieroglyph and in tomb depictions.

Edited April 10 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

To conclude this side show where it started, the dual Anubis shrine, a purely NK symbolic depiction of duality and not even two physical structures, has nothing to do with satellite pyramids or the north/south two tomb scheme of early Dynastic  Egypt. 

And it actually started with this post:

Also: The Satellite Pyramid of Dahshur

Snefru's Subsidiary Pyramid at Dahshur (Bent Subsidiary Pyramid), Rigano

As discussed before in this thread, while technically a sarcophagus would (barely) fit it is generally accepted the chamber was otherwise too small for there ever to have been a sarcophagus in this pyramid (i.e. burial) nor any indication this was its purpose and was built as a cenotaph of some sort. It is interesting though, that despite this, great effort and ingenuity was spent to seal the chamber regardless.  

 

See HERE p11-14.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The point being the same effort and protections were spent to protect a pyramid "burial chamber" that was never built to inter a body in the first place. Which somehow leads to a two page conversation about NK Anubis shrines. 

Edited April 10 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

So it can be determined, by lack of evidence contra, that Anubis is on a tomb, based on the mastaba type, in these tomb decorations, and is not on a shrine, with no evidence, textual or pictorial, presented to show how they could be shrines. So that's a wrap then, excellent.