CHAPTER VIII

PTOLEMAIC VAULTED GRAVES

BY HOWARD CARTER

Covering the upper stratum of the sites explored in the Birâbi were numerous brick-vaulted graves, mostly found not more than a metre or so beneath the surface rubbish (Pl. XXXIII).

Probably when these vault-graves were first made they actually stood above the surface, their superstructures being in all probability intended to be exposed, as would be gathered from the fact of their external walls showing, in some cases, painted decoration upon the plaster still adhering to them (Pl. XXXIV. 2). In every case they were found to be plundered, and in the course of examining some forty examples that we came across, we rarely found but the very slightest traces of the burials they once contained. And all that we were able to gather from these vestiges of the actual interments was that they were of the Ptolemaic period, but almost pure Egyptian in type. This fact thoroughly corroborates Mr. Edgar’s statement that ‘during the Ptolemaic period many of the Greek inhabitants began to adopt the practice of mummification. At first naturally their custom went to the native undertakers, and their mummies were decorated just like those of the Egyptians. Here and there as time goes on, signs of Greek influence begin to appear. But it is not till the Roman period that the style becomes what could be properly called Greek.’[20]

In these graves the coffins were of rectangular and anthropoid form, and the mummies were enclosed in canvas cartonnages covered with stucco elaborately decorated with pictures of the numerous Egyptian deities and ritual inscriptions of the usual formulae. Their funerary objects were glazed faience bowls of several colours, such as many different blues, violets, &c.; small roughly glazed shawabti figures; porcelain deities and amulets; painted carved wood _Ba_-birds; erotic figures in faience; and beads, &c. There were also vases and bowls in pottery; and in two instances we found a bowl of copper gilt (Fig. 12) and vases in lead, left or forgotten by the plunderers.

Luckily the substructure of these graves was nearly always found intact, and likewise in many cases their superstructure. And by this we were able to gather that it was a common custom for them to have small brick vestibules or shrines before their entrances; and that under the floors of either the out-buildings or the vaulted chambers themselves, one or more amphorae were buried for water or food for the dead (Pl. XXXIV, Fig. 1); the mouths of these jars were covered by inverted bowls and sealed with mud.

In one of these sealed vessels, found under the floors, two demotic papyri were discovered (see description by Spiegelberg, p. 46); in others were date cakes, grain, and seeds of different kinds; and in the corner of one of the small outer chambers a batch of forty-seven Ptolemaic coins (p. 44). The fortunate discovery of the papyri and coins, treated hereafter, give data for fixing the period of these vaults to the earlier Ptolemaic times.

With regard to construction, these vault-graves built of mud-brick are of a rectangular longitudinal shape. The side walls, one and a half bricks thick, are from six to ten bricks high, while the end walls are carried up to the height of the crown of the vault. On the inner face of the side walls a ledge is left, half-way up, for a support to carry the vaulted roof (the outer faces are run up as high again to receive the thrust of the vault). The vaulted roof, one brick in thickness, has its rings leaning against the end wall, starting at the foot with first one brick on either side, then two, three, and so on, until the feet of these incomplete rings are far enough out to allow a complete leaning ring to be formed with its crown actually touching the end wall at the top. To this complete ring the bricks of the subsequent rings of the vault are stuck, thus avoiding the force of gravity and enabling the vaulting to be built without the aid of timber centring. This is a method by which a barrel-vault can be made, technically known as a _flown-vault_, and which is known and used by natives in Egypt at the present day.

For strength and to reduce the thrust, the vault is of parabolic section and not truly semicircular.

Access to these vaulted chambers was sometimes by means of an arched opening in the end wall covered by the vestibule (Pl. XXXIV. 2), or, when the latter structure was wanting, by a chimney-like hole at the top of one end of the barrel-vault.

The flat vault bricks (34×16×6 cms.) have grooves on one side to allow the mortar to have a better and firmer grip--a very necessary point for this style of vaulting.

The group of forty-seven Ptolemaic copper coins (Fig. 13), the preservation of which is unusually good for coins found in Upper Egypt, new coinage rarely getting so far south, belong apparently to the dominations of Ptolemies III and IV. They are of four sizes and in detail are as follows:--

Av. weight Av. diam. _grammes._ _mms._ 10. _Obv._ Head of Zeus Amon to right. _Rev._ Eagle on thunderbolt to left; cornucopia in field in front of eagle.

Mints: [Illustration: hieroglyph] 73·0 42·0

6. _Obv._ Head of Zeus Amon to right. _Rev._ Eagle on thunderbolt to left; cornucopia in field in front of eagle. Mints: [Illustration: hieroglyph] 67·0 40·5

17. _Obv._ Head of Zeus Amon to right. _Rev._ Eagle on thunderbolt to left, head turned to right; cornucopia in field over back of eagle. Mints: [Illustration: hieroglyph] 48·0 39·0

14. _Obv._ Head of Zeus Amon to right. _Rev._ Eagle on thunderbolt to left; cornucopia in field in front of eagle. Mints: [Illustration: hieroglyph] 35·5 34·0