Kagemni Takes Top Honors In Saqarra

The mastaba tomb for Kagemni was my favorite stop in Saqarra.  As impressive as the Step Pyramid of Djoser is, the tomb of Kagemni is mind-blowing.  It features scenes of everyday life, including Nile River fish, fowl, people playing with animals, people stuffing geese for foie gras (so it wasn't invented by the French), milking cows, frogs, catfish, crocodiles eating hippos, and to be fair to the hippos, hippos eating crocodiles. boating, and much, much more.

Kagemni was a vizier to Pharaoh Teti, essentially a Chief of Staff today.  We all know how powerful the Chief of Staff to the President is, imagine being CoS to a Pharaoh?  Kagemni's wife was the daughter of a King, most likely Teti.  

From Wikipedia, it was clear Kagemni was a busy man.  Kagemni had to be cagey to handle that many key roles:

"Kagemni held a great number of titles. He was an overseer of the two houses of gold and an overseer of the two treasuries. He also held several religious positions, including that of High Priest of Re and Stolist of Min. Other duties were related to the royal palace: overseer of the two chambers of the king's adornment, director of the Mansions of the White and Red Crowns and keeper of the head ornaments. As vizier, Kagemni also held the positions of overseer of the scribes of the king's documents, overseer of all the works of the king, and overseer of the six great courts."

(By the way, don't ask -- I have no idea what the "Stolist of Min" did -- or any other Stolist for that matter.)

His mastaba tomb is 105 feet by 105 feet, and is the largest mastaba in the area.  More from Wikipedia:

"Part of the mastaba consists of a chapel with six rooms, a pillared hall, five magazines, two chambers containing boats, a serdab and a staircase which gives access to the roof. The chapel walls are decorated and so are the walls of the burial chamber, which was located at the bottom of a shaft. The burial chamber contained an inscribed stone sarcophagus with a wooden coffin inside it."

We didn't see the staircase, but we went into most of the other rooms.  The decorations (see below) are quite extensive and many still retain their color.  Like other tombs, hieroglyphics, carvings, reliefs and more cover nearly every inch of every wall, or at least that's what I recollect.

My main point about raving about this tomb is if you are going to Saqqara, don't worry about wearing flowers in your hair, but definitely make time for the impressive Tomb of Kagemni, even if you can't pronounce his name. 

Read from the bottom up, my translation is:

"Duck, Duck, Goose"

The color and the detail amazes me.

Early Foie Gras feeding.

Intricate carving of a heron.

Meat on the hoof.

I'm going to milk this picture for all I can.

A farmer playing with his pig.

Early game of the 1980's

arcade sensation, frogger.

A prime example of a Catfish.

No sign of Manti Te'o though

(sorry Kyle).

Hungry, hungry hippo.

Schools of fish.

Dancers high kicking to Sinatra's

classic, "New York, New York"

"I want to wake up, in a tomb

that doesn't sleep, and find I'm

king of the pyramid, top of the

Nile.  Start spreading the

hieroglyphics, Moses said we're

leaving today."

(Sorry, I gotta stop or I will 

rewrite the whole darn song!

That would be sarcophagus 

sacrilege!)

Hippo attacking a crocodile, which would

be both cool and scary to see live.

Look at the detail on this fish.

This time the croc gets the win.

The boat is pretty cool, but the fish

underneath really make the scene.

Look at the lambs, note that the top

lamb is running with the tongue

sticking out.  God is in the details.

Who are you?, who?, who?, who?

It turns out Kagemni's Tomb is the last of the many antiquities we would visit in Egypt.  It was a fabulous way to end our tour of the oldies but goodies.