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Mastaba S3503
Mastaba S3503 (Saqqara Tomb No. 3503) is a large mastaba tomb at the Saqqara necropolis in Lower Egypt. The burial was constructed around 3000 BC during the 1st Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Structure The structure was excavated by Walter Bryan Emery and his team at Saqqara. The superstructure of the mastaba is 42 metres long and 16 metres wide and was made from sun-dried mudbricks. The exterior was decorated with a palace facade, with nine niches on the long sides and three on each of the short sides. Within the structure were 23 chambers. Below the ground level was a large burial chamber in the middle of the building with four side chambers. There are 20 subsidiary tombs arranged around the structure. Contents The tomb was probably robbed in ancient times. The burial chamber was also robbed, but still contained many items in their original locations when it was excavated, which allowed a relatively good idea of the original contents. In the centre of the tomb chamber was a l ...
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Niche (architecture)
A niche (CanE, or ) in Classical architecture is an exedra or an apse that has been reduced in size, retaining the half-dome heading usual for an apse. Nero's Domus Aurea (AD 64–69) was the first semi-private dwelling that possessed rooms that were given richly varied floor plans, shaped with niches and exedrae; sheathed in dazzling polished white marble, such curved surfaces concentrated or dispersed the daylight. A is a very shallow niche, usually too shallow to contain statues, and may resemble a blind window (a window without openings) or sealed door. (Compare: blind arcade) The word derives from the Latin (), via the French . The Italian '' nicchio'' () may also be involved,OED, "Niche" as the traditional decoration for the top of a niche is a scallop shell, as in the illustration, hence also the alternative term of "conch" for a semi-dome, usually reserved for larger exedra. In Gothic architecture, a niche may be set within a tabernacle framing, like a richly de ...
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Mastabas
A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides, constructed out of mudbricks. These edifices marked the burial sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypt's Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom. In the Old Kingdom epoch, local kings began to be buried in pyramids instead of in mastabas, although non-royal use of mastabas continued for over a thousand years. Egyptologists call these tombs ''mastaba'', from the Arabic word (maṣṭaba) "stone bench". History The afterlife was important in the religion of ancient Egyptians. Their architecture reflects this, most prominently by the enormous amounts of time and labour involved in building tombs. Ancient Egyptians believed the soul could live only if the body was fed and preserved from corruption and depredation. Star ...
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Abydos, Egypt
Abydos ( ar, أبيدوس, Abīdūs or ; Sahidic cop, Ⲉⲃⲱⲧ ') is one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, and also of the eighth nome in Upper Egypt. It is located about west of the Nile at latitude 26° 10' N, near the modern Egyptian towns of El Araba El Madfuna and El Balyana. In the ancient Egyptian language, the city was called Abdju (''ꜣbḏw'' or ''AbDw''). The English name ''Abydos'' comes from the Greek , a name borrowed by Greek geographers from the unrelated city of Abydos on the Hellespont. Considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt, the sacred city of Abydos was the site of many ancient temples, including Umm el-Qa'ab, a royal necropolis where early pharaohs were entombed. These tombs began to be seen as extremely significant burials and in later times it became desirable to be buried in the area, leading to the growth of the town's importance as a cult site. Today, Abydos is notable for the memorial temple of Seti I, ...
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Djer
Djer (or Zer or Sekhty) is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid- thirty-first century BC and reigned for c. 40 years. A mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was discovered by Flinders Petrie, but was discarded by Émile Brugsch. Name The Abydos King List lists the third pharaoh as ''Iti'', the Turin King List lists a damaged name, beginning with ''It...'', while Manetho lists ''Uenéphes''. Jürgen von Beckerath in the Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen (1999) translates the hieroglyphs of the name Djer as "Defender of Horus." Length of reign Although the Egyptian priest Manetho, writing in the third century BC, stated that Djer ruled for 57 years, modern research by Toby Wilkinson in ''Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt'' stresses that the near-contemporary and therefore, more accurate Palermo Stone ascribes Djer a reign of "41 complete and partial years." Wilkinson notes that years 1–10 of ...
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Cylinder Seal
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. According to some sources, cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and slightly later at Susa in south-western Iran during the Proto-Elamite period, and they follow the development of stamp seals in the Halaf culture or slightly earlier. They are linked to the invention of the latter's cuneiform writing on clay tablets. Other sources, however, date the earliest cylinder seals to a much earlier time, to the Late Neolithic period (7600-6000 BC), hundreds of years before the invention of writing. Cylinder seals are a form of impression seal, a category which includes the stamp seal and finger ring seal. They survive in fairly large numbers and are ...
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Meritneith
Merneith (also written Merit-neith and Meryt-Neith) was a consort and a regent of Ancient Egypt during the First Dynasty. She may have been a ruler of Egypt in her own right, based on several official records. If this was the case and the earlier royal wife Neithhotep never ruled as an independent regent, Merneith may have been the first female pharaoh and the earliest queen regnant in recorded history. Her rule occurred around 2950 BC for an undetermined period. Merneith’s name means "Beloved by Neith" and her stele contains symbols of that ancient Egyptian deity. She may have been Djer's daughter and was probably Djet's senior royal wife. The former meant that she would have been the great-granddaughter of unified Egypt's first pharaoh, Narmer. She was also the mother of Den, Wilkinson, Toby A.H. ''Early dynastic Egypt'' Routledge; 1 edition (14 Jun 2001) p.7/ref> her successor. Family Merneith is linked with the kings Djer, Djet and Den in a variety of seal impressions a ...
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Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek σάρξ ' meaning "flesh", and φαγεῖν ' meaning "to eat"; hence ''sarcophagus'' means "flesh-eating", from the phrase ''lithos sarkophagos'' ( λίθος σαρκοφάγος), "flesh-eating stone". The word also came to refer to a particular kind of limestone that was thought to rapidly facilitate the decomposition of the flesh of corpses contained within it due to the chemical properties of the limestone itself. History of the sarcophagus Sarcophagi were most often designed to remain above ground. The earliest stone sarcophagi were used by Egyptian pharaohs of the 3rd dynasty, which reigned from about 2686 to 2613 B.C. The Hagia Triada sarcophagus is a stone sarcophagus elaborately painted in fresco; one style of later A ...
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Façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect from a design standpoint, as it sets the tone for the rest of the building. From the engineering perspective, the façade is also of great importance due to its impact on Efficient energy use, energy efficiency. For historical façades, many local zoning regulations or other laws greatly restrict or even forbid their alteration. Etymology The word is a loanword from the French , which in turn comes from the Italian language, Italian , from meaning 'face', ultimately from post-classical Latin . The earliest usage recorded by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is 1656. Façades added to earlier buildings It was quite common in the Georgian architecture, Georgian period for existing houses in English towns to be give ...
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Mastaba
A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides, constructed out of mudbricks. These edifices marked the burial sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypt's Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom. In the Old Kingdom epoch, local kings began to be buried in pyramids instead of in mastabas, although non-royal use of mastabas continued for over a thousand years. Egyptologists call these tombs ''mastaba'', from the Arabic word (maṣṭaba) "stone bench". History The afterlife was important in the religion of ancient Egyptians. Their architecture reflects this, most prominently by the enormous amounts of time and labour involved in building tombs. Ancient Egyptians believed the soul could live only if the body was fed and preserved from corruption and depredation. Star ...
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Mudbrick
A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also been fired, to increase their strength and durability. In warm regions with very little timber available to fuel a kiln, bricks were generally sun-dried. In some cases, brickmakers extended the life of mud bricks by putting fired bricks on top or covering them with stucco. Ancient world The history of mudbrick production and construction in the southern Levant may be dated as far back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (e.g., PPNA Jericho). These sun dried mudbricks, also known as adobe or just mudbrick, were made from a mixture of sand, clay, water and frequently temper (e.g. chopped straw and chaff branches), and were the most common method/material for constructing earthen buildings throughout the ancient Near East for millennia. Unfired ...
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Walter Bryan Emery
Walter Bryan Emery, CBE, (2 July 1903 – 11 March 1971) was a British Egyptologist. His career was devoted to the excavation of archaeological sites along the Nile Valley.Archaic Egypt (bio), Walter B. Emery, Pelican Books, London, 1963. During the Second World War, he served with distinction as an officer in the British Army and, in the immediate aftermath, in the Diplomatic Service, both still in Egypt. Early life Walter Bryan Emery was born in New Brighton, Cheshire, the son of Walter Thomas Emery - the head of a technical college - and Beatrice Mary Emery. Emery was educated at St Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool. On leaving school, he was briefly apprenticed to a firm of marine engineers. His training there resulted in his becoming an excellent draftsman, a skill which produced the brilliantly-executed line drawings that permeated his later published works on Egyptology, and which was similarly influential in his wartime military career. Field archaeologist After ...
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