THE FACADE  At the eastern end of the north facing front of the mastaba (about 14 meters long and 4 meters in height) is a pillared portico which gives entry to the interior. The names and titles of the tomb owners are symmetrically inscribed on the architrave and the outwards facing sides of the two pillars, Niankhkhnum on the right and Khnumhotep on the left, the titles being the same, only the names differ. The architrave contains two horizontal inscriptions, both starting from the middle and reading either left or right.  THE FIRST VESTIBULE  With a height of approximately four metres and being only 1.80m in depth and 3.45m in width, this area provides very little manoeuvrability and must have posed several problems during its decoration. This would a...

In 1964 in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, Egyptian archaeologist Ahmed Moussa discovered a series of  tombs with rock-cut passages in the escarpment facing the causeway that lead to the pyramid of Unas. Soon after the Chief Inspector Mounir Basta reported crawling on his hands and knees through the passages, entering one of the Old Kingdom tombs. He was impressed with its unique scenes of two men in intimate embrace, something he had never seen before in all the Saqqara tombs. Meanwhile archaeologists working on the restoration of the causeway of Unas discovered that some of the stone blocks that had been used to build the causeway had been appropriated in ancient times from the mastaba that had originally served as the entranc...

In Egyptian culture the more important and frequently encountered aspects of visual symbolism are form, hieroglyphs, relative size, location, material, color number, action and gesture. However, symbolism in ancient Egypt is a very complex topic that, from one Egyptologist to the next, can have different connotations. Certainly, we have some obvious examples of symbolism, but as we delve deeper into the intricacies of symbolism, there is less clarity. On the other hand, any investigation of this topic is an expedition into the ancient Egyptian mind, and the study of symbolism adds much to our understanding of ancient Egypt. Form Egyptian art utilizes form symbolism at two levels, which may be said to be primary and secondary, or direct and indirect types of association. At the first level, objects are shown in the forms they are meant to represent and gain symbolic significance through association and context. An example of this is the djed pillar as a symbol of support. At the seconda...