Umm el-Qa'ab

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Umm el-Qa'ab

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The Afterlife of Djet, Merneith and Den

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Umm el-Qa'ab

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The Royal Tombs of pre-dynastic, 1st and 2nd Dynasty Egypt.

Tombs here have been traced as far back as the pre-dynastic Naqada I period, ca. 3800 BC. Called in Arabic "The Mother of Pots" for all the ancient potsherds and pieces of worked clay found here, it is located just to the west of Abedjou proper, in the desert before the mountains to the south-west of that city. It is dramatically located at the foot of a ridge, and aligned to a cleft in the hills, no doubt on purpose.

Umm el-Qa'ab is divided into two regions: Cemetery U, the oldest, and Cemetary B, more "modern".

Pre-dynastic tomb U-j

The tomb U-j apparently belonged to an unnamed early pre-dynastic ruler who seemed to have at least some contact with lower Egypt. If translations of a tablet found at this site are correct, he had contact with the city of Bubastis, located in the Delta.

Cemetery B is exclusively early Dynastic. There are indications that Narmer may have been buried here, he who unified the Two Lands of Egypt. Other tombs belong to Aha, Djer, Djet, Den, Semerkhet, Qa'a, Merneith, Anedjib, and Peribsen.

While the royal tombs at Cemetery U differ from each other, they share some characteristics. Each has a large, roughly square, pit lined with bricks. They are surrounded by chambers, usually elevated with respect to the tomb in the center. In the late 1st Dynasty, these surrounding chambers served as subsidary burial plots. In the tombs of Djer and Djet, there are connections from the central tomb to the surrounding chambers; with Merneith and later tombs, these connections were not constructed. It is known that in the First Dynasty sometimes retainers were killed to join their ruler in the afterlife.

The earliest 1st Dynasty tombs were likely covered with a mound of earth. From Djet onwards, it appears that a tumulus was constructed over the tomb, which was then topped and completely covered with a mound. The subsidary chambers were likely covered at the same time.

Should you choose to live in Umm el-Qa'ab, you might be a caretaker, or a priest, or a scribe, or perhaps a guard. Perhaps you supply food and drink to the people who maintain these grounds, in this parched land. Just outside of this region, to the east, we have the finest mudbrick homes for your prediliction.

Welcome to the earliest days of an already-ancient land!

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