Here’s what you’ll learn as you read this story:
-
A large relief has been stolen from the tomb of Khentika, the royal vizier of the Old Kingdom, in the necropolis of Saqqara.
-
The relief depicts a rare scene of a vizier depicting the three Egyptian seasons of flood, planting and harvest.
-
It is one of the few tombs of the period that bears a curse threatening divine punishment to trespassers.
Rising from Egypt’s vast ocean of sand, Saqqara is the country’s largest necropolis. Among the Old Kingdom monuments in this city of the dead is Pharaoh Djoser’s famous step pyramid. There are also several mastabas (rectangular tombs made of mud brick, or limestone), the oldest of which is a remnant of the First Dynasty, from the reign of Hor Aha.
But there has been chaos. Some of these funerary buildings are missing.
In October 2025, another artifact disappeared from Egypt, less than a month after a 3,000-year-old bracelet once belonging to the pharaoh Amenemope was stolen from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, sold on the black market and melted down for its gold. This time, during the last years of the reign of the sixth dynasty pharaoh Teti, between 2700 BC and 2200 BC, a limestone relief from the mastaba of the royal vizier at Khentika – disappeared.
“All necessary legal action has been taken and the case has been referred to the public prosecutor for investigation,” Egypt’s antiquities ministry said in an official statement, reinforcing its determination to ensure “that Egypt’s archaeological heritage is protected and protected from any violations or illegal practices”.
This particular relief is an especially rare find, as it is one of only two known reliefs that depict an illustration of the seasons. Khentika is shown on an easel, brush in hand, depicting the three seasons in the Egyptian calendar that follow the course of the Nile. Akhet was a season of inundation, when the Nile River flooded and restored nutrients to the soil in its floodplains. Planting time was Peret (when the Nile receded), and Shemu began to harvest.
Viziers (most famously Imhotep) often came close to their pharaohs in prestige. Khentika’s titles include “Priest of the Goddess Mat” and “Overseer of the Royal Palace” and her tomb (and its rare relief) was originally discovered by British Egyptologist TBH James in 1952. Room I—where the relief was located—is considered the entrance hall of the mastaba. A relief covers a large monolith on the south wall of this room, blocking a door that would have led to Room V.
James noticed some differences between the reliefs of Khentika and Mereruka, a fellow vizier and husband of one of Teti’s daughters, whose tomb had been built only a few years earlier. While both reliefs are at the entrance to their respective tombs, the personified versions of the seasons in Khentika’s relief are kneeling as opposed to sitting in chairs, and are not even marked with their respective hieroglyphs. The Khentika also does not have a second easel behind the shoulder, or an ink palette over the shoulder like the Mereruka.
While both she and Mereruka have water pots in front of them, Khentika only has one object that seems to stand for a pot. Khentika also has three attendants—his son JD-Teti, his official Messi, and an unidentified third attendant bringing him writing materials.
“The tomb is distinguished by remarkable reliefs depicting scenes of daily life in ancient Egypt,” archaeologist Ali Abu Deshis told CBS News, declaring the theft “a disaster by all standards” and declaring that Egyptian antiquities “are not for sale. They are all the heritage of humanity.”
The thief of this relief may not know that it is one of the few to be inscribed on the Khentika Mastaba Curse. Divine punishment threatens intruders, so enter at your own peril.
You might like it too
