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Giza: Mastaba Tombs near the Pyramid of Cephren
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Tombs along route to Ceprhren's pyramid (Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypte und Aethiopia 1849).
The German expedition to Egypt and Nubia, led by Carl Richard Lepsius
in 1843-1846, provided a comprehensive study of the monuments
and inscriptions of ancient Egypt, following the French Expedition of
1798-1800. Lepsius himself is considered one of the greatest
Egyptologists, and the heir to Champollion's successful translation of
heiroglyphic writing, which began the historical study of ancient
Egyptian texts. During the German Expedition, Lepsius and his colleages
copied thousands of inscriptions and made accurate drawings and plans
of numerous sites in Egypt and Nubia (today's Sudan, then called
Ethiopia). These were published over the next 20 years in the
multi-volume report entitled Denkmäler aus Aegypte und Aethiopia (Monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia).
This drawing, published by Lepsius in 1849 in the first volume of Denkmäler, shows
part of the dense cluster of mastaba tombs along the processional route
leading from the valley temple and sphrinx to the mortuary temple of
Cephren. Many of the tombs, details of whose architecture and
inscriptions were first described in detail in the Denkmäler, date from the Old Kingdom. |
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