Location

Hesy-re's mastabe (S2405) is located in the northern part of Saqqara, about 260 metres northeast of the pyramid complex of King Djoser in tomb sector G2-G3. The tomb is squeezed in between about a dozen other official graves, which date from between the Protodynastic period and the Fourth Dynasty, which are themselves packed close together.

Size and materials

The mastaba of Hesy-re was originally about 43 metres long and at least 5 metres high; it is oriented only ca. +11° off a north-south axis. Black, baked mudbrick was used as the building material. Interior rooms, including corridors and the exterior walls of the mastaba were originally carefully covered in white limestone plaster. The exterior walls were also decorated with an imitation of a palace facade. The entire monument is a massive mudbrick building, completed with grey granite door frames and decorative cedar wood panels.

Exterior and interior architecture

The 'official' entrance is located on the east side. A wall stands in front of the east wall of the mastaba, forming a narrow corridor. This corridor leads south and then turns to the west after 16 metres in order to run along the south side of the mastaba. There it widens into a kind of anteroom, which was blocked up immediately after completion. The north side of the anteroom was decorated with a frieze at the time of excavation depicting people, livestock and a crocodile. This is now in the Cairo museum. Slight remains indicate that the south side of the anteroom may also have been decorated. The anteroom led on to the serdab, which extended in a southerly direction and contained the stone base of a ka-statue which was not preserved. The corridor led on from the serdab in a westerly direction. Another corridor branches off to the north after 6 metres, where it terminates in a 23 metre long passage. This was originally sealed with six blocks of granite, but grave robbers destroyed these in antiquity. After this first branch, the entrance corridor continued another 4 metres to the west, where it turned off to the north and ended in a 37 metre long niched gallery. The niches were painted and contained eleven decorated wooden panels.

In the centre of the mastaba is an isolated, elongated niched room, which was walled with mudbricks; Quibell suggested that the room was either installed for religious/magical practice or because of an alteration to the plan of the building in the course of construction.

Near the west end of the mastaba, an isolated vertical shaft sinks 21 metres down to the underground grave chambers. These are oriented to the south and divided into three levels. The top level contains two main passages which lead to several rooms and magazines. The west passage divides into two and ends in stairs which descend to the other two levels and lead to unfinished passages. The actual grave chamber had already been plundered when it was discovered.

Wood panels

The most significant objects from the grave of Hesy-re are the decorated Lebanese cedar panels. From the very fact that cedar wood was imported and worked in such quantity, it seems that Hesy-re was not just a high-ranking and influential man, but also very rich. Typical Egyptian woods like palm and sycomore were only suitable for very limited work, since they are very soft. For steles, ship planks, and architectural elements, it was necessary to use to use better wood, like the Lebanon cedarwood.

The panels of Hesy-re were originally 1.14 metres high and 0.57 metres wide. Of the eleven panels which were found, six were nearly whole, while only fragments could be recovered from the other five. They were found in the niches of a palace facade and each was fastened by a square peg to a small rectangular opening in the wall of the niche. Today the panels are on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

All the wooden panels are decorated with reliefs of high artistic quality. They preserve figural depictions of Hesy-re, who is shown standing in an official role or sitting at an offering table. While his face is shown in profile, his body is shown in a 3/4 view, so that all parts of his body can be seen. This style of perspective is entirely typical of the relief art of the Old Kingdom, as is the fact that Hesy-re's angular face with a false beard is modelled on that of his king Djoser. With each portrait, Hesy-re appears older: in the first panel, Hesy-re is depicted as a young, upstanding man and already has the high rank of "royal scribe" and "royal confidant." On the last relief, Hesy-re is depicted as a very old man sitting at an offering table. Here he is probably shown at the high point of his career, bearing titles such as Elder of Qed-Hetep and Chief of Pe.

The inscriptions accompanying the portraits name the high offices and titles which Hesy-re held. In addition, the normal numerous offering are listed, such as bread (Egypt. ta), beer (henket), incense (senetjer) and meat (kaw).

These panels are almost without parallel in Egyptian art. The closest example is the stele of the high official Merka from Saqqara, which dates to the end of the First Dynasty. In his grave, a single stele depicting Merka sitting down and including his titles, was found in a niche in the facade of the tomb. The main differences from Hesy-re's panels are the number of them (Merka had only one) and the fact that Merka's stele was carved in stone.^[5]

Wall paintings

The niches in which the panels were found were plastered and painted with geometric designs. At the time of the excavation the colours were still clearly recognisable: red, green, black, yellow and white. The aforementioned palace facade does not really form the outer wall of the west wall, since a free-standing wall stands opposite it. The inner side of this wall was originally completely decorated with paint. The paintings of the west wall can be separated into three registers: the lowest consisted of a smooth red band with black spaces above and below.

Above this was a series of reed motifs with various green and yellow patterns. Above this was another red band. On the east wall, the lowest register consisted of a green and yellow diamond pattern. Above this was a painted depiction of the grave offerings of Hesy-re, which include offerings like bread, poultry, dates and wine; in addition there were images of oil and ornamental vessels as well as equipment for hunting and writing. Various types of beds and couches and a table with feet, whose upper side is decorated with a soiled snake, decorated the west wall. Each of these objects was accompanied by a short inscription, which were also painted, and describe the objects and the contents of the vessels.

Above the depictions of the grave offerings is a pattern of ten lined designs in red, white and black. To protect these valuable wall paintings, the mastaba has been closed to any further excavation. Unfortunately, large parts of the decoration had already been destroyed by the elements and fire damage from grave robbers' torches.

Objects discovered

Numerous smashed ornamental and storage vessels were discovered. The majority were made of alabaster, breccia or clay and seem to have had inscriptions in black paint. Broken jug seals were also found. Among these were two cylinder sealings with the Horus name of King Djoser "Hor-Netjerikhet", which allows the tomb to be dated to this reign. The few remaining intact clay pots contained the valuable "Seti-shemai" oil, among other things. Among the bones found in the tomb were two skulls and other body parts, which J. E. Quibell believed to derive from two different people. Since the skeletal remains have been lost in the meanwhile, certainty is not possible.