Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

ANGELA P. THOMAS: The Rediscovery of some Dynasty III Stone Vessels from Reqaqnah

Garstang clearly had this in mind in relation to his finds at Bêt Khallâf, where he thought he had found two royal mastabas, when he arrived with private sponsorship to investigate the site of Reqaqnah two miles to the north in 1901-1902. He was looking for a more general cemetery of Dynasty III. Here he found some large and some smaller tombs. The three large stairway tombs, R.l, R.2 and R.40, date to early Dynasty III as does the mastaba of Simery, Royal Priest, R.88A, but a northern mound revealed mastabas of later Dynasty III, and of Dynasties IV-V.

16 The three large tombs, R.l, R.2 and R.40, were similar in design to those at Bêt Khallâf with a stairway leading down to underground chambers, with shafts which could be blocked with portcullis stones for security

17 and with arches over the stairway (Fig. 1). Unfortunately the superstructures were not well preserved, but may have been in the form of an area enclosed by a wall and roofed and with a chapel or shrine above the underground rooms or burial chamber. The tombs yielded pottery and a large number of stone vessels and offering tables mainly in calcite but also in diorite, breccia, porphyry and steatite and some were of considerable size (Figs. 2,3 and 4). Although there were some intact vessels, many were broken, which is particularly apparent with the calcite vessels. Work still remains to be completed on the cleaning and reassembly of the 16 B. Porter-R. L. B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings. Vol. V. Upper Egypt: Sites, Oxford 1937, p. 36. 17 Garstang, op. cit. (note 10), pis. IVA, IVB. Fig. 1. Brick arch over the stairway in tomb R.l at Reqaqnah (courtesy of the School of Archaeology, University of Liverpool).