Seneb - Discovery and Location of Seneb's Tomb

Discovery and Location of Seneb's Tomb

Seneb was buried in a mastaba - a flat-roofed brick tomb – located in the West Field of the Giza Necropolis near modern Cairo, where a large complex of ancient Egyptian royal tombs and mortuary structures was built, including the Great Pyramid. It was rediscovered by the German archaeologist Hermann Junker in 1926. The tomb is situated close to that of another dwarf, Perniankhu, a high-ranking royal courtier who may have been Seneb's father. Its date was long uncertain but is now firmly attributed to the reign of Djedefre (2528–2520 BC). His wife's name also appears in the nearby tomb of an official, Ankh-ib, suggesting that the families of Seneb, Perniankhu and Ankh-ib may have been related. Seneb was apparently buried with his wife, but no trace remains of the bodies, and the tomb was looted long ago, like most of the others at Giza. It was one of the first known attempts at building a ceiling dome over a square chamber, with the dome resting on jutting bricks at the corners of the room.

The rectangular interior of Seneb's mastaba contained two cult niches with a false door and cavities containing stone chests. Three statues were found within the chests – the painted limestone sculpture of Seneb and his family and two other statues in wood and granite. The wooden one disintegrated when it was discovered but Junker recorded that it had been about 30 cm (12 in) high and depicted Seneb standing with a walking-staff in one hand and a sceptre in the other. The remnants of the wooden statue are now in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim in Germany, in a very fragmentary state; the outline of a curled wig can still be made out, as can the pose of the left arm, which was held forward at the elbow. Seneb's 1.5 ton sarcophagus is part of the collection of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig.