Mastaba
These edifices marked the burial sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypt's Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom.
[3] Ancient Egyptians believed that the needs from the world of the living would be continued in the afterlife; it was therefore necessary to build tombs that would fulfill them, and be sturdy enough to last for an eternity.
[4] Starting in the Predynastic era (before 3100 BCE) and continuing into later dynasties, the ancient Egyptians developed increasingly complex and effective methods for preserving and protecting the bodies of the dead.
They first buried their dead in pit graves dug from the sand with the body placed on a mat, usually along with some items believed to help them in the afterlife.
The exterior building materials were initially bricks made of the sun-dried mud readily available from the Nile River.
Priests and family members brought food and other offerings for the soul, or ba, of the deceased, which had to be maintained in order to continue to exist in the afterlife.
[11] Mastabas were highly decorated, both with paintings on the walls and ceilings, and carvings of organic elements such as palm trees out of limestone.
[12] A second hidden chamber called a serdab (سرداب), from the Persian word for "cellar",[13] was used to store anything that may have been considered essential for the comfort of the deceased in the afterlife, such as beer, grain, clothes and precious items.
Generally, there would be five of these storerooms, used by the living to store equipment needed for performing rites; unlike the serdab, they were not meant to be used by the deceased.
Due to the great expense of adding a complex of storerooms, these were only constructed in the largest of mastabas, for the royal family and viziers.
[11] The mastaba was the standard type of tomb in pre-dynastic and early dynastic Egypt for both the pharaoh and the social elite.
During the 1st Dynasty, a mastaba was constructed simulating house plans of several rooms, a central one containing the sarcophagus and others surrounding it to receive the abundant funerary offerings.
The actual tomb chamber was built below the south-end of mastaba, connected by a slanting passage to a stairway emerging in the center of a columned hall or court.
[20] By the time of the New Kingdom (which began with the 18th Dynasty around 1550 BC), "the mastaba becomes rare, being largely superseded by the independent pyramid chapel above a burial chamber".
