Mehu’s tomb has five decorated areas, a large courtyard, and a serdab. Its design has echoes of the earlier mastaba of Ti at Saqqara with its narrow corridors and pillared courtyard. Subsequently, the tombs of Mehu and Ti influenced the slightly later tombs built around the Teti pyramid – those belonging to Mereruka, Kagemni and Ankhmahor (see Geoffrey’s tour of that tomb in AE102).

The entrance to Mehu’s tomb (above) faces east, so the rising sun would light up the figures of the deceased carved on each side of the doorway. An inscription above the entrance states that Mehu’s tomb was granted to him by one Shepsipuptah, possibly an earlier name for the future Pepy I (above, left).

ABOVE LEFT A life-sized copper statue of Pepy I in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Photo: RBP

ABOVE RIGHT The entrance to the Tomb of Mehu. BELOW A Google Earth view of Saqqara showing Mehu’s tomb relative to the pyramids of Unas and Djoser and the Old Kingdom tombs of Ti, Mereruka, Kagemni and Ankhmahor.

ANCIENT EGYPT April/May 2019

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