Mastaba Tombs

A tomb had two jobs, as you saw in Beliefs About the Afterlife: protect the body and let the living bring offerings. The earliest great tombs did both in a simple shape, the mastaba.

Key idea

Early elite tombs were mastabas: low, flat-topped buildings over a burial shaft, with a chapel for offerings. Mastabas came first; the first pyramid began as one.

The parts of an Old Kingdom mastaba.
Part	What it was for
Superstructure	the flat-topped building above ground, of mud brick or stone
Shaft and burial chamber	deep below, holding the body; filled in after the burial
Chapel	a room open to visitors, with the false door and the offering table
Serdab	a closed room for the statue of the dead, with a slit to "see" the offerings

Why it works

The shape follows the two jobs. The body needed safety, so it went deep underground and the shaft was blocked. The ka needed food, so the chapel stayed open above. The word mastaba is Arabic for "bench": the low tombs with sloping sides look like the mud-brick benches outside village houses.

From mastaba to pyramid

Kings and nobles of the Early Dynastic Period had tombs of this kind at Abydos and Saqqara. In the 3rd Dynasty, Djoser’s architect Imhotep built a square stone mastaba at Saqqara and then enlarged it in stages, stacking smaller layers on top, until it became the Step Pyramid of six steps. Officials went on building mastabas around the royal pyramids; the decorated chapels of Ti and Mereruka at Saqqara are among the finest.

Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara: six stone steps, grown from a mastaba.

Worked example: Where is the body?

Visitors walked into a mastaba’s chapel. Did they see the coffin?

The coffin lay in a burial chamber at the bottom of a shaft.
The shaft was filled in after the burial.
The chapel above was for offerings, not for the body.

Answer: No: the body was far below, sealed away.

Worked example: Which came first?

A friend says the Egyptians built pyramids first and mastabas later, as a cheaper copy. How do you answer?

Early Dynastic tombs were mastaba-like.
The first pyramid, Djoser’s, began as a mastaba in the 3rd Dynasty.
Officials kept building mastabas alongside the pyramids.

Answer: Mastabas came first.

Common mistake

Thinking pyramids came first. Mastabas came first, and the first pyramid began as a mastaba. Quick check: the Step Pyramid is a stack of mastaba-like layers.

Mastaba Tombs

From mastaba to pyramid

Practice

Builds on

Leads to

Sources and further reading