Methodology
CHAPTER 2 SIBLINGS OF THE TOMB OWNER
2.1 The Designations of Siblings
This chapter analyzes the designations, titles, and iconography of brothers and sisters of the tomb owner in tomb chapels, including their stances, clothing, accessories, and other related iconographic specifics within the context of the scenes. It also discusses how they interact with the tomb owner or other people in the same scene and the
relationship between them.
The identification of siblings of the tomb owner depends mainly on the associated inscription. If the inscription associated with a figure contains the designation sn.f “his brother,” the figure identifies the brother of the tomb owner. Likewise, a female figure marked snt.f “his sister” represents the sister of the tomb owner. In a few cases, the designations sn.s “her brother” and snt.s “her sister” occur. They either refer to a female tomb owner or the wife of a male tomb owner. Parents of the tomb owner sometimes appear together with their siblings. In this case, the siblings may have the designations z#.f or z#t.f with the suffix pronoun .f referring to the father of the tomb owner. In circumstances when no kinship designation occurs in the inscription, it is possible to identify the sbiling relationship through certain clues, such as the names and titles of children recorded in the tomb of their parents. In the following discussion we will discuss the basis for determing kinship in each case.
From the Fourth Dynasty to the early Sixth Dynasty, the designation sn-Dt / snt- Dt, “brother/sister of the funerary estates,”340 appears in tomb inscriptions.341 The sn-Dt / snt-Dt may have been a biological brother or sister of the tomb owner. For example, in the tomb of %o.f-Ro-onX at Giza, Harpur identifies a sn-Dtnamed Jttj as a real brother, a conclusion based on a comparison between their titles and their presence in each other’s tomb decoration.342 Therefore, it is necessary to examine the representations of
individuals bearing the title sn-Dt / snt-Dt to draw a complete picture of siblinghood. In a few cases, the snt-Dt is the wife of the tomb owner. In the tomb of Nfr-Htp at Giza, for example, his wife is designated as snt-Dt.343
The representation of siblings occurs in 67 tombs (including those containing sn- Dt / snt-Dt) in the dataset: 29 examples in Giza, 23 in Saqqara, and 11 in the provinces. The total number of brothers depicted on chapel walls is 84, while the number of sisters is only 28, excluding 50 examples sn-Dt and 7 examples of snt-Dt.344 Brothers of the tomb owner appear more frequently than their sisters, probably because of the decrease in ties to their brothers’ families after sisters married and moved to their husbands’ houses.
340 Jones, An Index of Ancient Egyptian Titles, 907. See also Rainer Hannig, Ägyptisches Wörterbuch I: Altes Reich und
Erste Zwischenzeit. Hannig-Lexica 4; Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt 98 (Mainz: von Zabern, 2003), 1154-1155; Erman, Wörterbuch Der Ägyptischen Sprache, Bd. 4, 152.
341 For a discussion of the scholarship of the term sn-Dt, see Yvonne Harpur, “Two Old Kingdom Tombs at Giza,”
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, no. 67 (1981): 30-31. Previous studies include Junker, GîzaII, 194-195, Junker, Junker, GîzaIII, 6-7, Junker, GîzaIX, 73, Bernhard Grdseloff, “Deux inscriptions juridiques de l’ancien Empire,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 42 (1943): 39-49, Goedicke, Die privaten Rechtsinschriften aus dem Alten Reich, 122-130, Wolfgang Helck, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des alten Ägypten im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend vor Chr (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 80, 85, 89-90, and Wolfgang Boochs, “Zur Funktion des sn Dt,” Varia Egyptiaca 1 (1985): 3-9. For the most recent study of this term, see Juan Carlos Moreno García, “A New Old Kingdom Inscription from Giza (CGC 57163), and the Problem of cN-Ev in Pharaonic Third Millennium Society,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 93 (2007): 117-136.
342 Harpur, “Two Old Kingdom Tombs at Giza,” 24-30. 343 Hassan, Excavations at GîzaIX, 63.
344 In the tombs of Wḥm-k#(D 117), Nfr-ḥtp, Ḫwfw-onḫ (G 4520), and K#-pw-PtH (Cairo JE 37716) at Giza. Nṯr-wsr and
Ptḥ-ḥtp (D 51) at Saqqara. Jj-mry (Gebel el-Teir).Thesnt-Dt also have the designation Hmt.f “his wife” in the tombs of Nfr-ḥtp and Nṯr-wsr.
Among the 15 tombs at Giza containing the depiction of siblings (excluding sn-Dt / snt-Dt),345 only one tomb dates to the Fourth Dynasty,346 7 to the Fifth Dynasty,347 3 to the Sixth Dynasty,348 and 3 to the end of Fifth or the beginning of the Sixth Dynasties.349 The depiction of sn-Dt / snt-Dt occurs in 15 tombs. The tomb of#Xtj-mrw-nswt (G 2184) contains both brothers and sn-Dt. Among these 15 tombs, 2 tombs date to the Fourth Dynasty,350 11 to the Fifth Dynasty,351 and only one to the end of the Fifth or the beginning of the Sixth Dynasties.352 The tomb of K#-Xr-PtH(G 7721) is the only tomb dated to the mid-late Sixth Dynasty.353
At Saqqara (including Abusir), 13 tombs contain the depiction of siblings of the tomb owner (excluding sn-Dt / snt-Dt), all dated to the Fifth and the Sixth Dynasties. Among these tombs, 7 date to the end of the Fifth Dynasty and the early Sixth
Dynasty,354 4 to the Fifth Dynasty from the reign of Sahure to Neuserre,355 and 2 to the late Sixth Dynasty.356 Eleven tombs contain sn-Dt or snt-Dt. The tomb of K#.j-m-Hzt
345 The date of the tomb of K#j is uncertain. A date of the Fifth to the Sixth Dynasties is suggested in Bertha Porter and
Rosalind L. Moss, Topographical Bibliography, vol. III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 194.
346Nb-m-#Xtj (LG 12, LG 86).
347Jj-mry (G 6020, LG 15), Jttj (G 7391), cSm-nfr III (G 5170), Qd-ns, K#pj (G 2091), Vtw I (G 2001), and E#ty (G
2337-X).
348Jnpw-Htp, Mry-Ro-mrj-PtH-onX / NXbw (G 2381 with shft G 2382A), and Mry-Ro-nfr / Q#r (G 7101). 349#Xtj-mrw-nswt (G 2184), Ḥtj (G 5480, LG 29, statue of sister), and Cpss-k#.f-onX.
350 The tombs of Wt#’s father and Ṯntj (G 4920, LG 47).
351Wḥm-k#(D 117), Mrw-k#(.j), Nj-M#ot-Ro, Nfr and Jtj-sn, Nfr-ḥtp, Ḫo.f-Ro-onḫ (G 7948), Ḫwfw-onḫ (G 4520), Zṯw (G
4710, LG 49), Snḏm-jb / Jntj (G 2370), Sšm-nfr I (G 4940, LG 45), and K#-pw-PtH (Cairo JE 37716).
352#ḫtj-mrw-nswt (G 2184).
353 Timothy Kendall, “An Unusual Rock-Cut Tomb at Giza,” in Studies in Ancient Egypt, the Aegean, and the Sudan:
Essays in Honor of Dows Dunham on the Occasion of His 90th Birthday, June, 1, 1980, eds. William Kelly Simpson and Whitney M. Davis (Boston: Department of Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, 1981), 111. PM III, 203 gives a Fifth Dynasty date. The sn-Dt depicted in this tomb is designated as sn-Dt.s “her brother of the funerary estate”, whose image is above the engaged statue of the tomb owner and his wife. Therefore, he is,
presumably, the sn-Dt of the wife.
354onḫ-m-o-Ḥr / Zzj, Mr.f-nb.f / Ffj, Mrrw-k#.j / Mrj, S#-mry, Q#r Junior (son of vizier Q#r), and K#.j-m-ḥzt, K#-gm-nj /
Mmj / Gmnj.
355Nj- onḫ -H̱nmw and H̱nmw-ḥtp, Nj-onḫ-Sḫmt (No.74 [D 12]), Nfr (in the same tomb of his father K#-ḥ#.j), and Tp-m- onḫ (D 11).
contains both siblings and sn-Dt. Five of these tombs belong to the Fifth Dynasty from the reigns of Sahure to Nyuserre.357 Five tombs date to the end of the Fifth Dynasty or the early Sixth Dynasty,358 and one tomb dates to the reign of Pepy I.359
Ten tombs at provincial sites contain siblings (sn or snt), all dated to the Sixth Dynasty. Only one example of snt-Dt comes from the tomb of Jj-mry Gebel el-Teir, dated to the Fourth or the Fifth Dynasty.360
The most common designations for siblings are sn.f and snt.f. The third person masculine possessive suffix pronoun .f refers to the male tomb owner and identifies the individual as his brother or sister. In two cases, the possessive suffix is the third person feminine .s, referring to the wife of the tomb owner. In the tomb of vp-m-onX at Saqqara, a woman named c#b-PtH has the designation sn(t).s “her sister.”361 As the sister of the wife (the sister-in-law of the tomb owner), she appears on her false door, seated at a small offering table to the right of the panel. The other example of the sibling of the wife occurs in the tomb of Ppy-onX-Hrj-jbat Meir. A man named Qrj designated as sn.s “her brother” appears behind the wife of the tomb owner.362 These examples demonstrate that the third person possessive feminine suffix is applied when the siblings of the wife appear on her false door or in her vicinity on the wall. Sn or snt without any suffix pronoun is
357Pḥ.n-wj-k#(D 70, LS 15), Nj-k#w-Ptḥ, Nṯr-wsr, Sḫm-k#(north-west of D 62), and K#-ḥ#.j.
358#ḫt-ḥtp (D 64), Ptḥ-ḥtp II / Ṯfj (D 64), Nj-onḫ-nswt, K#.j-m-ḥzt, and Ṯsmw (sn-ḏt of Ptḥ-ḥtp, lintel found in the tomb
of Ḥmt-Ro).
359Ptḥ-ḥtp (D 51).
360 Moreno García, “A New Old Kingdom Inscription from Giza (CGC 57163), and the Problem of cN-Ev in
Pharaonic Third Millennium Society,” 125.
361 Ludwig Borchardt, Denkmäler des alten Reiches (ausser den Statuen) im Museum von Kairo I, (Berlin:
Reichsdruckerei, 1937), Bl. 19. It is interesting to note vp-m-onX made the false door for his wife Nbw-Htp, on which both her children and sister have the kinship designations attached with the personal pronoun .s. See Silverman, “Pectorals, Seals, and Seal Cases(?),” 351.
uncommon. In the dataset, this only occurs in the tomb of vp-m-onX, where a man named Jj-m-Htp is marked as sn without any suffix pronoun, while two female figures are designated as snt Ppj and snt %mt. It is interesting to note that one of the brothers of vp- m-onX is labeled as sn.f,363 and his sister-in-law has the designation sn(t).s. It is not clear why some designations in this tomb are written without any suffix pronoun, while others are with suffix possessive pronouns.
Unlike the designation sn or snt, the majority of sn-Dt or snt-Dt do not have a suffix pronoun. The suffix pronoun .f or .s can follow sn or Dt, or both. sn-Dt occurs 41 times in the dataset, while sn.f Dt occurs four times.364 All of the following occur once: sn-Dt.f,365 sn-Dt.s,366sn.s Dt,367 sn.f Dt.f368 and sn.f n Dt.f.369 snt-Dt occurs five times in the dataset, while snt-Dt.f occurs once.370 Examples of the tomb owner being a sn-Dt occur in
two cases. In the tomb of Omt-Roat Saqqara, a man named Vsmwappears on a stela
dedicated to him and his wife, and the inscription identifies him as PtH-Htp sn-Dt.f. 371 It means that he is the brother of the funerary estate of a certain PtH-Htp though he may have been interred in the tomb of Omt-Ro. In the tomb of Nj-M#ot-Ro, the tomb owner himself is the sn-Dt of a woman named Nfr.s-rs who owns a chapel in his mastaba.372 The
363 For this brother, see discussion in Silverman, “Pectorals, Seals, and Seal Cases(?),” 352.
364 In the tombs of Wt# at Giza, Mrw-k#(.j)at Giza, PH.n-wj-k#(D 70) at Saqqara, and Nj-onX-cXmt(D 12) at Saqqara. 365 On the steala of Vsmwat Saqqara.
366 In the tomb of K#-Xr-PtH(G 7721) at Giza.
367 In the tomb of Nj-M#ot-Roat Giza, the tomb owner himself is a sn-Dt of a woman named Nfr.s-rs who owns a chapel
in his tomb.
368 In the tomb of %o.f-Ro-onX (G 7948) at Giza. 369 In the tomb of #ḫtj-mrw-nswt (G 2185) at Giza.
370 In the tomb of Nfr-Htp at Giza. An example of snt.f Dt is on the base of the statue of K#-pw-PtH(Cairo JE 37716), but
there is not representation of the snt-Dt.
371 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza III, 9, fig. 4. 372 Hassan, Excavations at Gîza II, 205, fig. 226.
following charts show the number of tombs containing the depiction of sn-Dt / snt-Dt and their occurrences in each location.
Table 6. Number of tombs containing the depiction ofsn-Dt and snt-Dt
Total Giza Saqqara Provincial Sites
26 15 11 1
Figure 126. Number of tombs containing the depiction of sn-Dt and snt-Dt
Table 7. Number of occurrences of sn-Dt and snt-Dt
Giza Saqqara Provincial Sites
Total 27 29 1 sn-Dt 23 27 0 snt-Dt 4 2 1 Giza, 15, 55% Saqqara, 11, 41% Provincial Sites, 1, 4%
Figure 127. Number of occurrences of sn-Dt and snt-Dt
As a kinship designation, sn (or snt) indicates the status of an individual within the familial framework, while the suffix pronoun attached to it specifies the relationship between its bearer and the tomb owner. In most cases, sn / snt occurs with a suffix
pronoun to clarify a kinship hierarchy centered on the tomb owner. The designation sn-Dt without any suffix pronoun refers to the sn-Dtof the tomb owner. Similarly, the title Hm- k# “ka-priests” is never attached with any suffix pronoun, while those depicted in the tomb chapel are supposed to serve the tomb owner for his or her funerary cult. The absence of suffix pronouns of the designation sn-Dt / snt-Dt may point to an emphasis on the function of the individual outside the family rather than his or her kinship to a specific person. Moreover, the societal nature of sn-Dt / snt-Dt is embedded in a familial network by using kinship designation sn / snt to define a status as an equivalent to that of the sibling of the tomb owner. Therefore, the term sn-Dt / snt-Dt explains the standing of an
2 7 23 4 2 9 2 7 2 1 0 1 T O T A L S N - D T S N T - D T
individual in two demensions: his or her status as a sibling and his or her responsibility in connection with the Dt.373Additionally, the application of this term may have been an attempt to incorporate an individual’s social role into the domestic realm or, conversely, to endow a family member with social responsibilities outside the domestic realm.
It is not clear whether siblings depicted in tomb chapels are older or younger than the tomb owner, because words expressing order in age, such as smsw or Sry, are not found in a compound with sn / snt in inscriptions in the Old Kingdom tomb chapels. The only example of an elder brother comes from the tomb of Sn-ms at Qubbet el-Hawa, where a brother of the tomb owner is labeled as sn.f smsw “his elder brother.”374
Although the absence of inscriptional evidence hampers the identification of an elder and a younger sibling, some iconographic features may hint at different ages, such as the order of siblings in a sequence and the scales of their figures. In the joint tomb of Nj-onX-
$nmwand $nmw-Htp, three men and three women stand in a sequence behind their
parents, presumably in order of age.375 Although no kinship designations are associated with their figures, their positions—in a sequence following the parents of the tomb owner and before both tomb owners—suggest their status as siblings. In some cases, siblings of the tomb owner may be designated as z#.f or z#t.f when they appear with the parents of the tomb owner, especially when the parents are major figures in the scene. In the tomb of Jnpw-Htp at Giza, for instance, the parents of the tomb owner appear with three brothers and four sisters on the eastern jamb of the false door, in contrast to the tomb owner
373 The term Dt (or pr-Dt) refers to the personal estate of the tomb owner. For a detailed discussion of this term, see
Chauvet, “The Conception of Private Tombs in the Late Old Kingdom,” 82-90.
374 de Morgan, Catalogue des Monuments et Inscriptions de l’egypte Antique I, 177-179. 375 Moussa and Altenmüller, Das Grab des Nianchchnum und Chnumhotep, Abb.11.
himself and his wife on the western jamb with their own children depicted below.376 In most cases, their position below or near the parents of the tomb owner may account for the use of filial instead of sibling designations to emphasize the older generation. In the tomb of Cpss-k#.f-onX at Giza, the parents appear at a large scale, accompanied by the tomb owner and his siblings at much smaller scales. The three brothers all have the designation z#.f, while the sisters are labeled z#t.s.377 In the tomb of K#-H#.j and his son
Nfr at Saqqara, Nfr’s three brothers appear on the west wall near his false door without any kinship designation.378 Their designations as sons near a figure of K#-H#.j in the same tomb nevertheless help identify them as siblings. It is worth noting that the kinship determination depends only on inscriptions when siblings appear in a long sequence of offering bearers and when no family unit can help to locate the individuals within a kinship hierarchy.
The expression mry.f / mrt.f “his beloved one” is sometimes used in a compound with sibling designations.379 The dataset has 13 examples of this expression, including seven examples of sn.f mry.f,380 three of snt.f mrt.f,381 and three of sn-Dt mry.f.382 Compared with filial designations, sibling designations with mry.f / mrt.f are less
common. Their infrequent occurrence may hint at a less intimate relationship between the tomb owner and the siblings. However, it may have simply been the decorum that ancient
376 Junker, GîzaIX, 145-169, Abb. 73.
377 Hassan, Excavations at GîzaII, 15-31, figs. 20.
378 Miral Lashien, The Chapel of Kahai and His Family, Australian Centre for Egyptology: Reports 33 (Oxford: Aris
and Phillips, 2013), pls. 84, 85.
379 No mry.s / mrt.s has been attested in the dataset.
380 In the tombs of Mry-Ro-mry-Ptḥ-onḫ / Nḫbw (G 2381 with shft G 2382A), Ḏ#ty (G 2337-X, dependent of Snḏm-jb ), onḫ-m-o-Ḥr / Zzj, H̱nmw-nḏm(w) (at Kom el Akhdar), Jbj (Deir el-Gabrawi No. S8), and K#-ḥp / Ṯtj-jqr (El-Hawawish H26).
381 The two sisters of Mry-Ro-nfr / Q#r (G 7101) and the sister of Jttj / Šdw (Deshasha). 382 One example is in the tomb of #ḫt-ḥtp (D 64), while the other two in Ptḥ-ḥtp II / Ṯfj (D 64).
Egyptians simply did not apply mry.f / mrt.f to sibling designations, just as they never used it with parental designations.383