EARLY DYNASTIC EGYPT

A New Second Dynasty royal tomb (C) at Saqqara
by Francesco Raffaele (23-11-2001; 1st Update 20-12-2001; last update 19-08-2002)

Plan and 3D-view of Meryneith tomb and the Second Dynasty substructure (Tomb C) which the NK tomb reused

I have been informed that Phoenix* 47 (1/2 2001 p. 68-89) has recently published an article by Rene' van Walsem "Sporen van een revolutie in Saqqara. Het nieuw ontdekte graf van Meryneith alias Meryre en zijn plaats in de Amarnaperiode." ("Traces of a revolution in Saqqara. The newly discovered tomb of Meryneith alias Meryre and its / his place in the Amarna period").
*[Phoenix is the Bulletin of the Society Ex Oriente Lux, Leiden (Netherlands)].
This article introduces the dutch excavations of the 18th dynasty tomb of the High priest of Aton in Memphis and Akhetaton Meryneith - Meryra; the tomb site is Saqqara, in the field south of Djoser's Step Pyramid complex, the area of the Apa Jeremias monastery (east of the tomb of Horemheb).
The excavations, which will continue in 2002 seasons, are a joint expedition of the University of Leiden (UL) and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) at Leiden, with Maarten Raven as René van Walsem's co-field director.

The article at p. 87 runs :"But there have been found pieces of ceramic and stone dummy vases, outside the tomb, in the courtyard, in the shaft and in a system of corridors, which on that base must be dated to the 2d dynasty."
Note 29 : "In other words, Meryre has rased an early dynastic tomb and reused the shaft. The extensive system of corridors from the 2nd dynasty as well as the Late Period will only be examined systematically during the 2002 season."

Contrarily to the immediate neighbourhood of the Step Pyramid complex and its enclosing 'dry moat'-trench (i.e. the mastabas near the south temenos), the area far south has been left relatively less explored.
The same is true for the area some meters north of the complex (cfr. M. Baud, 'Aux pieds de Djoser - Les Mastabas entre Fosse et Enceinte ...' in Or. Monsp IX. 1997/ 69-87) where Lepsius and Mariette excavated few Early Dynastic and many Old Kingdom tombs.

A joint Polish-Egyptian team (Warsaw Univ.-SCA) directed by Karol Mysliwiec found possible Second Dynasty royal tombs superstructureswest of the Djoser complex in 1996-1997 (L.L. Giddy, E.A. 10, 1997 p. 28).
Part of its sone-mudbrick wall was razed for the construction of a Third Dynasty mastaba. In the shafts pottery and blu faience tiles were found. Similarly to the recent discoveries by Munro (D.E. 26) in the area of Ninetjer 's tomb superstructure, also this western tomb must have had "a rock cut court paved with mud and bearing many traces of ritual fires" (Giddy, loc. cit.). [Cfr. Al Ahram Weekly article cached from http://www.cbjd.net/orbit/graphics/text38.htm]

The bibliography on the architecture of the Second Dynasty Royal tomb at Saqqara is somewhat scanty; the only ascertained burials have been discovered at the beginning and middle '900 beneath the Unas Pyramid and Temple (Hotepsekhemwy) and some 100 m east (Ninetjer). Only the rock cut galleries remained, few meters from the surface, rased by the late Vth dynasty royal complex and, in the case of Ninetjer's one, by some OK mastabas (cfr. A. Dodson, 'The Mysterious Second Dynasty' in KMT 7:2 .1996/ 19-31).

N. Swelim has shown that the area immediately south of the Step Pyramid complex might have preserved some traces of Third Dynasty kings' cults, as evidenced by the finding of tombs of Vth and VI th dynasty priests whose names were perhaps based on those of Horus Ba (NiankhBa) and Nebka (Niankhnebka) (cfr. Swelim, 'The Dry Moat of the Netjerykhet Complex' in J. Baines ed. 'Pyramid Studies and other Essays ... to I.E.S. Edwards' 1988 p. 12-22).
There is also the well known funerary priest Shery, whose tomb (Mariette Mastaba B3) in the north field (Kaiser, G.M. 122, 1991) yielded inscriptions attesting the funerary cult of Sened and Peribsen; this would suggest the presence of athe royal tomb(s) in the same area; on the other side, a mudbrick inscription (later?) with the cartouche name Nefer-SENED-Ra has been recently found (cfr. Orientalia 57, 1988 p. 330 and Vercoutter 'L' Egypte et la ...' 1997) near the tomb of Ninetjer.
H.G. Fischer published ('An Egyptian Royal Stela of the Second Dynasty' in Artibus Asiae 24, 1961 p. 45-56) the funerary pink granite stela of Horus Nebra found reused in a house at Mit Rahina. His tomb has not been found although some seal impressions with his name in Hotepsekhemwy's galleries lead Lauer to think about a possible reuse of the latter's burial by Nebra.

R. Stadelmann published an important article in 1985 ('Die Oberbauten der Konigsgraber der 2. Dynastie in Sakkara', in B.d.E. 97,2 Mel. Mokhtar II p. 295-307) discussing the possibility that more royal tombs of the Second Dynasty must have been built in Middle and West Saqqara, having as a counterpart, alike those at Abydos, the wide funerary enclosures known as Gisr el Mudir and Ptahhotep enclosure -and a possible third one-). The german archaeologist advanced that the galleries beneath Djoser complex West Massifs, more than 400 m from N to S, could have been a Second dynasty tomb substructure reused by Netjerykhet (see also W. Kaiser's 1991 article, 'Zu den Konigsgrabern der 2. Dynastie in Sakkara und Abydos' in Bryan-Lorton eds. 'Essays in Egyptology in honor of H. Goedicke' 1994 p. 113-123).

Kaiser hypothesized that more IInd Dynasty royal tombs (Nebra, Sened, Wneg, Neferkaseker, Nwbnefer) must have been built around the area of the Step Pyramid complex, in Middle Saqqara, West Saqqara -and maybe we may add Abusir-; the excavations of the next year (2002) will shed new light on the Second Dynasty Royal (?) tomb found beneath the sepulchre of the High Priest of Aton Meryneith Meryra, and on the early Dynastic (and late period) galleries below it.

My degree thesis 'The Second Dynasty: Historical and Archaeological problems' will resume all the known data on this obscure dynasty; but, as always, only the fieldwork can increase our knowledge on the kings and culture of this period.
On the inscriptional side we will surely benefit of two tools of highly valuable importance which are going to be published: Jochem Kahl 's Frühägyptisches Wörterbuch and Ilona Regulski 's Paläographie der Frühzeit.

UPDATE

I have been informed, by Dr. Joris van Wetering, that the tomb in object is in a wadi west of Apa Jeremias, between Sekhemkhet complex and Apa Geremias monastery (one of the places where it was hypothesized more IInd Dyn. royal tombs should have been). It is located just on the prolongment of Djoser complex eastern wall, thus not many meters east of the latitude where Ninetjer's own tomb is.

As van Wetering notes citing the immediate parallel of the North Saqqara elite necropolis, it is not known the southernmost occurrance of Early Dynastic tombs near the escarpment. There could be a continuation of the northern archaic tombs line built on the edge of the escarpment for the high officials (the southernmost ED tombs yet known are those in the area between the EEF house and the Inspectorate Office). But no similar tomb has been found to present. And the missing proof would account for the presence of Royal tombs to the south, which, as known, were still kept very distant from private ones.
Nothing more can be said before the reprise of excavations in January-February 2002.
These should focus just on the Second Dynasty tomb structures.

At first one could think that the edge of the escarpment would have been the most preferred site were a king might have built his tomb, in a very exposed and visible position.
But in this period the site of Memphis must have been still north of the later one (in front and at the feet of the northernmost part of the North Saqqara necropolis) so a greater part and importance must have been attributed to the access into the necropolis from the Wadi Abusir as well as to other topographical factors and to other reasons.
If the edge of the escarpment had been considered suitable for a Royal tomb, Hotepsekhemwy, the first king buried at Saqqara (if we exclude the ephemeral and still uncertainly placeable Sneferka), would not have been buried in such a western position, c. half a Km from the edge of the pleteau.

It would be certainly more interesting for various reason if the tomb was of a Second Dynasty King; there are many gaps in the informations about some sovereigns and in their sequence; on the other hand, if the tomb proved to be an elite one, this fact wouldn't lack important consequences for the interrelations between royal and private tombs in the necropolis; this would mean that, in this period, the distance of the sepoltures of the kings from those of their officials was significantly smaller than it was presumed.
Until now, apart from the small pits of the retainers around the Abydos royal tombs and enclosures, the earliest signs of a direct relationship between royal and private funerary structures are those in the IVth-VIth Dynasties pyramids; at Saqqara this seemed to first occur in the Vth Dynasty, with the mastabas nearby the Unas complex.
However this statement could also be erroneous in view of the possible proximity of early IIIrd Dynasty private tombs west of the Step Pyramid Complex of Netjerykhet; these have been excavated by K. Mysliwiec (cf. id. in: P.A.M. 8-12, 1997-2001; later IIIrd Dyn tombs or cult chapels south of StPyrCom have been suggested to exist by N. Swelim 'The Dry Moat...', 1998, p. 15, 22, with regard to the names of the officials NjankhBa and NjankhNebka) and appear to have been contemporary with the reign of Djoser and the earliest constructional phases of his funerary complex (cf. J. van Wetering "The Royal Cemetery of the Early Dynastic Period at Saqqara and the Second Dynasty Royal Tombs" in: 'Proceedings of the Krakow Conference 2002'; id. "The Early Dynastic Royal Cemetery at Saqqara. Area West of the Step Pyramid Complex" n.p.).

LAST UPDATE (April- 15/18 -2002)
SECOND DYNASTY ROYAL-TOMB DEVELOPMENT

The important discovery of this tomb adds a fundamental piece of evidence into the still scarcely documented development of royal funerary architecture during the Second Dynasty.
We have already precised that, given the lack of evidence concerning the Saqqara Early Dynastic private tombs south of Teti pyramid, it must be assumed that the ED elite cemetery was confined to the 'North Saqqara' plateau: to my knowledge the three southernmost tombs are Tomb X (partly under the EES house), Herneith's S3507 and, some meters SW, SCA 1995 (GM 152, 1996, 105ff); I don't know of any evidence from further south (in which case the tombs would have been destroyed under the Teti cemetery and the modern Inspectorate Office).
There is a strong likelihood that the tombs situated in the area of the NK cemetery did belong to the Second Dynasty ephemeral followers of Ninetjer. The area must have been devoted, at that time, exclusively to royal tombs.Saqqara: 2nd Dynasty Limestone cylinder dummy-vessels from Meryneith tomb substructures
Circa 70 limestone dummy-vessels were found in the subterranean structures together with jars and pottery/stone sherds. The vessels belong to El-Khouli (Egyptian Stone vessels, 1978, vol. II, 770) class I (cylinder vessels), types: 1-J,346-347 (found in the Abydos tomb V of Khasekhemwy), 2-D,468 (Naga ed-Deir t. 536, 2nd dyn), 2-J,755 (t. 549, 1st dyn.), 3-H, 1136 (Badari t. 3112: an alabaster vessel fragment bearing Hotepsekhemwy's serekh was found by Brunton in this early 2nd dyn. tomb).
[Also cfr. for stone vessels: Raven et al., JEOL 37, 2002, 98, n. 8, pl. 10].

Therefore most of the substructures of this tomb were certainly of Second Dynasty origin. The development of the Archaic (royal) tombs substructure -from late First Dynasty to early Third Dynasty- can be summarized in the following phases (with parallels from elite the cemeteries):

1) Den-Qa'a: Ongoing development and enlargement of the subterranean apparatus, mainly consisting of the central burial chamber (dug from above as a wide open-pit roofed with poles and planks) surrounded by storerooms; these latter are more distant from the burial chamber (cf. Semerkhet) than in the earlier tombs; the stairway, which was introduced by Den, is flanked by the first (paired) storerooms branching off from it (only two in Saqqara X, dated to late Den); its slope increases with time, alike the depth of the burial chamber. Also to Den dates the first evidence of side-chambers with a possible proto-serdab function. The small tomb of retainers neatly decrease in number or disappear at all with the end of the First Dynasty.
Similar patterns can be observed in the elite mastabas of the same period at Saqqara S3500, 3505, 3120, 3121, and Helwan 150H5. The superstructure, where preserved, indicate a general pattern of simplification of the niches and the less use of spaces within them than in the previous tombs (in the earliest niched mastaba, the Naqada tomb, the chambers and minor rooms were all above the ground surface) leading to the II-III dyn. filled brick mastabas.
2) Hotepsekhemwy-(Nebra) (Tomb A): The superstructure is still a puzzle, but cf. Ninetjer page for some clues from Munro's 1990s excavations in the Saqqara tomb (B).Hotepsekhemwy tomb (Saqqara)
The access stairway gently slopes on the entrance and the corridor becomes horizontal at the dept of 7 meters, which is approximately the level of the whole tomb substructure. This is labyrinthic, developed on the main N-S axis, with several long corridor-like side chambers branching off of the main central gallery. This latter is blocked at regular intervals by four heavy portcullis. The burial chamber (completely excavated in the rock, not a shaft from the surface as before) is at the south end of the main corridor, and flanked by a model washing niche with water jar and by a latrine, once again stressing the similarity of the tomb with the royal palace apartments (see plans and photos in J.E. Quibel, Archaic Mastabas, 1923, Pl. 30, 31; A.M. Roth, in: JARCE 30, 1993, 33-54, esp. 40ff.; A.G. Reisner, Tomb Development, 1936, 122-146, appendix B, C; Vandier, Manuel I.2; Helck, LÄ V, 387ff.).
Ninetjer's tomb (Saqqara)3) Ninetjer (Tomb B): Most of the known IInd Dynasty private tombs of North Saqqara date to Ninetjer's reign.The huge tomb of Nyruab (or Ruaben, S2302) had a plain double casing with only two niches in the eastern face (in both the casing walls), the southern ones were more developed and larger than the northern ones (cf. the contemporary tomb S2429 Khnwmenii/ Ij-n-Khnemw). Other contemporary tombs are S2171, S2498, S3009 (discussed in the page of Ninetjer) and the Helwan tomb 505H4 (Saad, 1951; cf. Wilkinson, in: MDAIK 52, 1996, 337-354).
The royal tomb at Saqqara (PM, B), less than 150m east of Hotepsekhemwy's one, has a different arrangement of subterranean parts, which were once thought to be more widespread than Hotepsekhemwy's tomb. Munro has only partly revealed the extension of these galleries; there is a shaft south of the entrance stairway (which starts from within an OK tomb) but I don't know if it's archaic or late: many skeletons of late period I have seen in photos (kindly shown to me by Dr. Nabil Swelim whom I thank) demonstrate the same Saitic-period reuse of the galleries which was encountered beneath the Unas pyramid temple where Hotepsekhemwy's substructure lies.
At the present state of knowledge it seems that Ninetjer's galleries have a greater extension in E-W directions than the other tomb, but less in the N-S axis; the same pattern is followed in the following phase. The last part of the main corridor slightly bends westwards, preannouncing the shift of the position of the burial chamber into the south-west end of the substructure.
4) Wneg-Peribsen: The 'squarish' arrangement of the substructures of the new found Saqqara tomb is in line with the progression started by Ninetjer in tomb B. The minor overall extension clearly agrees with the minor character of these middle Second Dynasty sovereigns.
The use of the shafts (not those for portcullis, but true pits) will persist for a long time and is encountered also under Khasekhemwy and Djoser.
We have very few informations for contemporary private tombs (vessels with Uneg's name were found in S3014).
As attested in the IVth dynasty cult directed by the chief of the Wab priests Shery (Saqqara B3; Kaiser, GM 122, 1991) Peribsen and Sened had reigns very close in time (or contemporary, one in the UE and the other in LE); the latter could be, together with Uneg, a serious candidate for the ownership of the tomb here dealt with (other likely candidates are the similarly obscure kings Nwbnefer, Neferkaseker and few more).

There are three clues to be considered: 1) Shery's tomb evidence of a funerary-cult for king Sened suggests that the latter's tomb was at Saqqara (cf. Kaiser, in: GM 122, 1991); 2) Wneg must have been a relevant individual during Ninetjer's reign (if not his own son), espacially if he really was the Wr-Maaw Wadj-sen attested in ink inscriptions on stone vessels from Djoser's pyramid. Therefore it's probable that might have chosen to build his tomb closer to the one of his prestigious predecessor. 3) A mudbrick stamped inscription with the cartouche name Nefer-Sened-Ra (which could be archaic as well as Ramesside) is surely a sign of the closeness of a royal monument of Sened (who undoubtly is the same as Nefersenedjra) to the point of its finding, namely the area few NW of the tomb in object (Orientalia 57, 1988, 330; Vercoutter, L' Egypte et la Vallée du Nil, I, 1990, 227) near that of Njnetjer (B).
Hence these indications point to a probable ownership of the tomb (C*) to king Sened. However J. van Wetering has kindly informed me that a sherd inscribed with "Hwt Ka Horus Za" (alike the 39 examples from the Step Pyramid Complex ink inscribed stone vases with Khnemwenii's name) was found in late 1980's near the tomb of Maya (in Tutankhamon reign's high elite cemetery); thus much closer to the tomb in object than Nefersenedjra brick.
J. van Wetering prefers to attribute this royal tomb to Horus Za (cf. "The Royal Cemetery of the Early Dynastic Period at Saqqara and the Second Dynasty Royal Tombs" in: 'Proceedings of the Krakow Conference 2002'); the latter king name has been proposed as the Horus name of Wneg, but it might also have been instead Sened's or a different king's one.

          * I follow J. van Wetering (op. cit.) in the denomination of this new found tomb as Tomb C: independently
                from the precise attribution to one of the followers of Ninetjer, the original tomb was almost certainly that
                of a 2nd Dynasty king, therefore it can be denominated in line with the labels "Tomb A and B", which are
                (however only seldom) used to indicate the galleries/tombs of Hotepsekhemwy and Ninetjer respectively.

The Abydos tomb P (Peribsen) was built NW of the subsidiary pits of Djet's and Djer's tombs; it is squarish and with magazines all around the central chamber, but in the same main pit.
The tomb of the follower Sekhemib has not yet been found (some scholars still think he was the same as Peribsen).
5) Khasekhemwy: The tomb V at Abydos, recently re-excavated by the DAIK archaeologists directed by G. Dreyer (MDAIK 54, 1998), was originally similar to that of Peribsen; built to the south of the main group, it was subsequently enlarged at least twice, finally assuming the known very elongated shape.
This character is echoed by the long rock-cut galleries found beneath the two innermost Western Massifs of the complex of Djoser at Saqqara. These develop for nearly 400m from North to South, with hundreds of comb-like side magazines, similar to those of Hotepsekhemwy's tomb. The tender and dangerous nature of the limestone has prevented further researches in this huge set of galleries since Firth and Lauer's explorations around 1930.
The same pattern, but at much less scale, is found in the E-W gallery of the north court of the complex, in which IInd Dynasty stone vessels and Khasekhemwy's seal impressions were found; this storeroom was obviously reused by Djoser from a previous tomb; Mariette (A4) found there a beautiful alabaster table with lion heads (now in Cairo Museum).
Stadelmann hypothesis that these galleries represented previous rulers' tomb substructures later incorporated in Djoser's complex area, is an intriguing one, but ought to be verified on the field with further researches (discussion).
6) Netjerykhet: In Saqqara private tombs superstructure the two eastern niches are retained, the southern one developing into a more elaborate serdab (S2407, Hesy; S3073, Khabausokar and Hathorneferhotep, cf. Cherpion OLP 11, 1980, 59ff.; S2405, Hesyra, with eleven inner niches and two -or three- parallel eastern galleries); the shafts to the burial chamber are deep, the descending stairway very slope (cf. Bet Khallaf K1, Djoser's reign), sometimes double as in S2407 or in Bet Khallaf K2 (Sanakht's reign); the burial chamber on the south end of the corridor, which is blocked by portcullis and provided with less departing magazines.
Djoser's pyramid galleries are very intricate, even if not as much as those in early Second Dynasty royal tombs.
The burial chamber is in the middle, at the bottom of a deep shaft cuirassed with granite and closed by a plug.
The area around the chamber is surrounded by four sets of galleries on all its sides, the eastern one provided with three niches in which the king's famous panels were set (in identical position as those beneath the South tomb).
Further to the east there were eleven pits (their access on the surface was hidden by the last phase of enlargement of the original Mastaba -M3-) at which bottom they curved towards the central burial chamber (but some meters lower than it) forming long rooms in which two alabaster sarcophagi (III) and many stone vessels (VI-VII) were found.
The main chamber had been dug at the end of a long N-S trench starting from north of the Mastaba 1; the entrance was sealed under the pyramid, so that a further gallery was started NW of the old entrance from the North Temple of the pyramid, which joined the old descending trench beneath the surface.
The arrangement of galleries around the burial chamber (which will be followed also in Sekhemkhet's and Zawiyet el Aryan South Step Pyramids substructures) is just what seems to emerge from the layout of this newly found tomb C (cf. Raven et al. in: JEOL 37, 2002, 100).

It can be concluded that among the enormous legacy of monuments which the site of Saqqara still hides, there must surely be more of Early Dynastic period. The prolonged use and frequentation of the site (cf. Saqqara page) plays against the chance to find unplundered tombs, but this cannot be excluded as a possibility; few objects could tell us as much as a long papyrus roll. Still more certain is the fact that the history of the Second Dynasty has in this site an outstanding potential source of knowledge for us. Many areas haven't yet received sufficient attention neither by modern nor by old archaeology.

The relatively easy way of excavating the rock at Saqqara and the need for more security against plunderers, led the ancient architects to devise new means to preserve the amounts of gravegoods stored in elite and royal tombs.
Much less was the relevancy of the superstructure in relation to this aspect; it became the focus of symbolical value and receptacle of visual attributes as niched palace-facade-walls with its intimate meaning; the monumental aspect linked to political and social role display, and metaphor of power; the importance of the inner path leading the offerers towards the offering stand (and its developments, i.e. Hesyra) whereby to supply nutrition for the dead's ka;
the sign of continuous presence in this world through a building destined to remain on/in it, to occupy a space, as is the case of the houses: and the lower part of the tomb infact replicated a building for the living, with its comforts.
Unluckily very few is known about the structures surrounding the royal tombs; but the comparison with the OK, some structural aspects of contemporary private mastabas (espec. S3357, S3505) and some suggestions made in respect of Ninetjer's tomb (Munro et al. in: D.E. 26, 1993, 47ff.), are alrady of great help to suggest the forms of rituals and cults which had to be dedicated to the dead and accomplished around and into their tombs; the scale and relevancy of these practices at the King's tomb-complex had to be of course of far greater proportions and interest for the people involved in it (royal cult priesthood/phyles, offering occasions, public ceremonies, feasts).

We might also ask ourselves about the causes implicit in the progressive development and transformation of the tombs structures, be them in the sphere of beliefs' evolution or rather a mere matter of means, budget and available time. As discussed above the burial chamber position moved from the centre of the substructure (Ist Dyn) to the south end of it (Ist half of IInd Dyn). The plan of the substructure changed during the IInd Dyn from the rectangular extension along the N-S axis, to a square orientation focusing on both the N-S and the E-W directions.
The long Khasekhemwy V at Abydos had its burial chamber in the middle of it; this is not the case at Saqqara Western Massif galleries; it remains purely speculative whether to interpret these latter as a Second Dynasty monument reused by Djoser, or as an original accomplishment of Imhotep for his king's mortuary complex.
The question of development of funerary architectures could play an important part in deciding the prime purpose of this large storeroom-tomb, also considering its likely relation with the Ptahhotep enclosure or with the Gisr el Mudir.

Concerning the ownership of tomb C, I have expressed a tentative attribution to Sened. This rests anyhow on purely speculative and intuitive grounds (see above) given the paucity of information on the reigns of the Ninetjer followers.
The same presence of late Second Dynasty kings at Saqqara is a puzzle: no contemporary attestation of Peribsen are found here, contrarily to those for Sekhemib (Djoser's complex stone vessels inscr.) and for Khasekhemwy (S3034, S3043, Djoser's complex, Mariette A4, Gisr el Mudir ?). The political situation and the often cited crisis of this period haven't found much data on which to base further hypotheses and researches.
These and other points will be the object of my thesis in which I hope to present an update panorama of the known data and theories, the old and the new ones, in order to trace a more comprehensible picture of this fashinating dark age.

Bibliography
- The Preliminary reports in English are in Journal of Ex Oriente Lux (JEOL) 2001/2002;
- R. van Walsem, Sporen van een revolutie in Saqqara. Het nieuw ontdekte graf van Meryneith alias Meryre en zijn plaats in de Amarnaperiode, in: Phoenix 47 (1/2 2001) p. 68-89
- Maarten J. Raven, René van Walsem, Barbara G. Aston, Eugen Strouhal: Preliminary Report on the Leiden Excavations at Saqqara, Season 2002: The tomb of Meryneith, in: JEOL 37, 2002, 91-109 (espec. 98-100)
- The Unexpected find of a Royal Tomb, in: Saqqara Newsletter 1, 2003, 8-12 (see: FRIENDS OF SAQQARA).

- Internet Links -
SAQQARA Online (with reports and photos)
*Final Report - Tomb* (Both cached here)

Al Ahram (first announcement)

General bibliography:
- W. Kaiser: Zur Nennung von Sened und Peribsen in Saqqara B3, in: G.M. 122. 1991, 49-55
- R. Stadelmann: Die Oberbauten der Konigsgraber der 2. Dynastie in Sakkara, in: BdE 97,2 (Mel. Mokhtar II) 1985, 295-307
- W. Kaiser: Zur Unteririrdischen Anlage der Djoserpyramide und ihrer entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Einordung, in: Wallert- Helck (eds.) Gegengabe - Festschrift Emma Brunner Traut' 1992, 167-190
- W. Kaiser: Zu den Konigsgrabern der 2. Dynastie in Sakkara und Abydos, in: Bryan-Lorton (eds.) Essays in Egyptology in honor of H. Goedicke, 1994, 113-123
- P. Munro, in: SAK 10, 1983, 277-295; id., in: GM 63, 1983 (Unas); id., in: DE 26, 1993, 47-58 (Tomb B)
- J. Van Wetering, The Royal Cemetery of the Early Dynastic Period at Saqqara and the Second Dynasty Royal Tombs, in: 'Proceedings of the Krakow Conference' in press
R. van Walsem, Une tombe royale de la deuxieme dynastie à Saqqara sous la tombe du nouvel empire de Meryneith, campagne de fouille 2001-2002, in: Archéo-Nil 13, 2003.


THANKS TO JOHN D. DEGREEF FOR POINTING ME OUT THE ARTICLE IN PHOENIX 47, 2001 AND FOR CITING THE TWO PASSAGES CONCERNING THE 2ND DYNASTY TOMB SUBSTRUCTURE.
THANKS TO RENE' VAN WALSEM AND TO JORIS VAN WETERING FOR VARIOUS USEFUL PRECISATIONS.

FRANCESCO RAFFAELE
I.U.O. NAPOLI

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