Tomb Chapel of Raemkai

History

The tomb was built and decorated for a judge and inspector of scribes, Neferiretnes, who lived sometime during the later Old Kingdom but who cannot be dated precisely. One scholar argues that the mastaba was built in the reign of Niuserre (Baud 1997, p. 77). The decoration of the chamber walls was completed at that time and belongs to the original concept.

At one point, the tomb was usurped by Raemkai ("the sun is my life force"), who was a "king’s bodily son." He may well have been a true prince, although we do not know definitely from which pharaoh he descended, although he might have been a son of Djedkare. He removed the inscriptions on the false door of Neferiretnes, but in such a superficial way that most can still be deciphered (see Curatorial Interpretation, figure 1). The process of reinscribing the false door was begun and carried out in a suspiciously crude way and left unfinished. The short-term usurpation by Raemkai is unusual and unexplained. The affair cannot have lasted more than a very few days, when work was stopped again. One has the impression that the usurpation was an overnight coup and was stopped soon afterwards.

Since the reliefs seem to belong to the original owner, they cannot be used for dating Raemkai’s interference. His names and titles appear in a crude way on the false door. His office as chief lector-priest was religious in character, but the title "representative of el-Kab" points to an association with ceremonies around the royal coronation, indicating that Raemkai was, at least on occasion, close to the king's person.

The tomb of Neferiretnes/Raemkai belonged to the group of mastabas directly outside the northern enclosure wall of the Djoser complex, which were cleared by Mariette from 1851 on. Mariette drew a sketch plan of the interior of the tomb but he did not continue his work to the east, where he would have soon found the Perneb mastaba (see 13.183.3). From Mariette’s counting sequence, one assumes that the Neferiretnes/Raemkai mastaba was directly west of that of Perneb. Quibell’s counting does not support this conclusion because he separates this tomb from that of Perneb by nine more tomb numbers. However, Neferiretnes/Raemkai was the earlier building in the area.

Several of these mastabas were dismantled by Quibell and sold to museums. Quibell says in the publication of his 1907/08 season: "Mariette, Mastabas, D.3: This tomb was this year taken down and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of New York." (Quibell 1907–08, p 24). Unfortunately, no plan of the exterior or information about the location of the mastaba exists. We therefore do not know how the tomb relates to the neighboring Perneb mastaba. Following Baud’s maps (1997), only a small corridor would have separated the two tombs, suggesting that Raemkai was only accessible through a narrow passage along Perneb’s west wall.


Building

The rectangular chapel was oriented north-south with the false door in the west wall opposite the entrance. A side niche for storing cult equipment etc. is located behind the entrance passage, in the north wall.

The extraordinary fine relief decorating the tomb includes, among other scenes, bird-catching, butchering, baking and brewing, and a large scene of the hunt in the steppes with lasso and dogs.

Dieter Arnold 2015

Discovered by Mariette between 1858 and 1863; recleared in 1907-08 by Quibell on behalf of the Egyptian Antiquities Service and sold to the Museum in 1908.

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Baud, Michel 1997. "Aux pieds de Djoser: Les mastabas entre fossé et enceinte de la partie nord du complex funèraire." In Études sur l'Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqâra dédiées à Jean-Philippe Lauer, pp. 69-87.