Mastaba of Hesy-Re

The Mastaba of Hesy-re is an Ancient Egyptian tomb complex in the great necropolis of Saqqara in Egypt. It is the final resting place of the high official Hesy-re, who served in office during the Third Dynasty under King Djoser (Netjerikhet). His large mastaba is renowned for its well-preserved wall paintings and relief panels made from imported Lebanese cedar, which are today considered masterpieces of Old Kingdom wood carving. The mastaba itself is the earliest example of a painted tomb from the Old Kingdom and the only known example from the Third Dynasty. The tomb was excavated by the Egyptologists Auguste Mariette and James Edward Quibell.

The mastaba of Hesy-re was originally excavated in 1861 by Auguste Mariette and Jacques de Morgan. Mariette quickly discovered the famous niched gallery with its wooden panels and had these valuable artefacts brought to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He found the grave shafts empty. In his journal, Mariette records his amazement at the wall paintings and wooden panels. However he erroneously described the mudbrick from which the tomb is built as "yellowish" when it is actually black. In the opinion of the later excavator James Edward Quibell, he had not worked very carefully and after the removal of the objects, the Hesy-re mastaba was covered over and again and abandoned. He completely neglected to have the mastaba included in the plans of de Morgan or to note its location himself.

The excavations of James Edward Quibell began in 1910 and ended in 1911. A second season ran from 1911 until 1912. Quibell initially had trouble finding Hesy-re's tomb on account of the poor account left by Mariette. However, a former excavation assistant remembered the tomb's location and led Quibell there. The first thing which Quibell's team located was the niched gallery decorated with wall paintings. The passage was filled in and roofed over with reeds, wood planks and some rubble on the same day, since the paint had begun to peel immediately on exposure to the sun. Additionally, Quibell claimed that the corridor was so narrow that visitors and excavators were at risk of rubbing the paint off the walls with their shoulders as they walked through it. Thus it was decided to fill the passage in again after a complete survey, illustrations and photographs had been carried out. Quibell reported also that he had to employ security personnel in exceptional quantity, to keep watch over the tomb day and night, in order to prevent theft and damage by graverobbers and vandals seeking either treasure or controversy.

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