The tomb of Princess Idut lies on the southern side of the Djoser complex and to the north of the Pyramid of Unas. Many guides love to bring visitors here, partly because of its proximity to Djoser’s Step Pyramid, and also because it is easy to access and decorated with beautiful scenes.
As I mentioned, the tomb is located north of Unas’s pyramid. In fact, it was not originally built for the princess at all—it was constructed for one of King Unas’s viziers, called Ihy. The tomb was discovered by the British Egyptologist in January 1927. Interestingly, the same man had earlier, in 1924, excavated the Serdab of Djoser, where the famous statue of the king was found, now displayed in the Egyptian Museum. He also founded the Aswan Museum in 1912. Sadly, he passed away only four years after discovering Idut’s tomb, at around the age of 50, from severe pneumonia.
The discovery itself was accidental, during cleaning works along the southern enclosure wall of the Djoser complex. Several tombs were revealed, including this one. Old photographs from 1927 show the southern wall of the Djoser complex, separated from the tomb by a corridor about 5.5 meters wide. The entrance we see today shows only the upper structure of the tomb. A staircase once led to the roof, a feature common in tombs of the 6th Dynasty. In front of the tomb entrance are later burials, as Saqqara and the area around the Step Pyramid became a sacred burial ground during the Old and Middle Kingdoms for the elites of Memphis.
Originally, this was not Princess Idut’s tomb—it belonged to Vizier Ihy, who lived during the reign of King Unas, the last ruler of the 5th Dynasty. He was the first to be buried here, but soon after, the princess took over the tomb, perhaps because she died young before her own tomb could be prepared. Her name Idut is written with the sign of a small bird, meaning “little bird.” It was more of a nickname—her true name meant “a small flower or shrub,” as seen in the tomb inscriptions, where she is called “the king’s daughter of his body, the beautiful Idut.”
The tomb’s walls are thick, built with local limestone inside and fine white Tura limestone outside. It contains ten rooms in total, but only five on the western side are decorated—the rest were storage rooms and corridors, including the serdab. The tomb is modest in size, covering about 380 square meters (22m north–south, 14m east–west). Unlike most earlier tombs with eastern entrances, this one has its entrance to the south, a trend that started in the 5th Dynasty where the tomb’s orientation followed the surrounding streets rather than a fixed rule.
The decorated rooms show traditional Old Kingdom scenes, similar to other mastabas of the 6th Dynasty (2345–2181 BCE). The dynasty lasted 164 years, ruled by kings such as Teti, Userkare, Pepi I (Merenre I), Pepi II (Neferkare), and Merenre II. Unfortunately, we cannot identify with certainty which king was Idut’s father, since inscriptions only call her “the king’s daughter of his body,” though many believe it was Pepi I.
Most of the superstructure has disappeared, except for the chamber of the false door, which survived intact. The decorated walls begin above a black-painted dado, with bands of red and yellow separated by a thin black line. All the original scenes belong to Ihy, the vizier: his images, inscriptions in the masculine form, and depictions of his family and servants. When the tomb was adapted for Idut, only a few modifications were made—mainly replacing one scene of the funerary procession with her figure. The difference in artistic quality is clear: Ihy’s original reliefs are finely detailed, while the additions for Idut are much cruder.
The false door inscriptions are in sunk relief, while the other decorated rooms are in raised relief. Many of the scenes were brightly painted, and traces of color still survive after more than 4,000 years.
The burial chamber roof was built of large limestone slabs, painted dark red with white and black specks to imitate granite—a decorative practice seen in several 6th Dynasty tombs, such as those at Teti’s pyramid and in the tomb of Mereruka.
One striking feature in the decorated scenes is that the priests and offering-bearers are always barefoot, with distinctive hairstyles popular at the time.
At the entrance, only part of the figure of Princess Idut survives—her legs remain, welcoming visitors inside. Her name is inscribed nearby, written right-to-left. In the south wall of the antechamber, only fragments of a hunting scene survive: papyrus boats made of bundled reeds, hunters with nets, baskets filled with fish, and depictions of hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and fish in the water, all drawn with great accuracy by Old Kingdom artists.
This is just a general introduction. The tomb of Princess Idut remains a fascinating monument, not only for its artistry but also for the story of how a vizier’s tomb was transformed into the eternal resting place of a royal daughter.
The scenes begin on the right with another fishing scene, but this time from the shore. We see a large net filled with fish being pulled toward the bank by a group of fishermen. The artist cleverly showed their lower bodies turned in different directions to express the effort they are exerting. The net itself is shaped like an isosceles trapezoid, with the longer side on top. At the bottom, heavy weights—probably made of stone or lead—are attached to make the net sink, while small floats keep it at the surface. This shows that the fishing was done from the shore.
To the left, there’s a small boat with the legs of three fishermen visible. Beyond it is a larger boat, similar to the one on the south wall. For the sake of symmetry, the same type of boat was drawn here, standing still. But then comes something very strange, something that doesn’t happen in reality but often appears in tomb fishing scenes: the water level rises with the fish to a height above the natural line, so the deceased could see them. At this raised water level, two large fish are depicted.
Further left, there’s a small papyrus skiff with three fishermen. The one on the right sits on a papyrus mat, his left leg folded under him and his right leg stretched forward. In his left hand he holds a line with a hook and bait, and indeed, a catfish has bitten. The depiction is so accurate that you can see the real shape of the species. His line actually carries four hooks. Notice also that in his right hand he holds something like a paddle—used to strike the water and scare the fish so they panic and get caught. As soon as the fish were pulled out, they were struck or killed immediately.
Below the boats is the horizontal band representing water. Egyptian artists always portrayed nature in two dimensions—length and width—so the river is shown as this strip. The fish most often depicted is tilapia. Why? Because it carried deep symbolic meaning.
Although fish were considered ritually impure and were never offered as real sacrifices to kings or deified dead priests—in fact, offering fish as sacrifice was a crime in ancient Egypt since fish were believed to have devoured Osiris’s phallus in the Isis-Osiris myth—fish were still a staple food. Ordinary Egyptians ate it daily, and it was even part of workers’ rations, like a daily wage. Almost every tomb has a fishing scene.
Tilapia especially held symbolic power. Its round shape represented the sun, and Egyptians noticed how the fish incubates its young in its mouth until they hatch, then releases them alive—so they connected it to rebirth and renewal. That’s why tombs, especially in the New Kingdom, often show tilapia alongside the lotus flower, both being symbols of regeneration. By depicting the deceased fishing, they ensured his soul would be reborn and renewed.
Now let’s move to the west wall of the same hall (map no. 3). Contrary to common belief, the scene here is not about paying taxes. Instead, it records the income from the fields owned by the tomb owner. The people bowing before the scribes are not taxpayers but overseers of the estates—like modern-day farm managers. That’s why we don’t see punishment scenes here, unlike in the tomb of Mereruka, who was vizier and responsible for collecting taxes.
From left to right, we see two scribes recording the produce from the farms. Each sits cross-legged, holding a reed pen while two extra pens are tucked behind his ear. In front of them is a small table, like a desk, with papyrus scrolls and a writing board containing two holes—one for black ink and one for red. A water pot sits nearby to wash away mistakes. Above the man on the left is an inscription saying he is a servant of the priest’s household (though his name is not written), while above the man on the right is written: “scribe of Pharaoh Teti-ankh.” Notice here the use of the word “Pharaoh” (Per-aa).
This is important because some modern scholars insist we shouldn’t use the word “Pharaoh,” claiming it’s unscientific and should be replaced with “king.” They argue against the term because the Qur’an mentions “Pharaoh” more than 70 times as a symbol of tyranny. But great Egyptologists like Dr. Ahmed Fakhry used the term freely—he even wrote a book titled Pharaonic Egypt. To me, “Pharaonic Egypt” is actually the most precise term, since it refers specifically to the dynastic period, while “Ancient Egypt” is too broad, stretching from prehistoric times all the way to Islamic Egypt. The ancient Egyptians themselves called their ruler Per-aa (“Great House”), which evolved into “Pharaoh.” Both terms—Ancient Egypt and Pharaonic Egypt—are correct.
Now, back to the scene. The five men entering while bowing are estate overseers. Their posture—bowed with one arm extended or resting on their shoulders—shows deep respect, perhaps even a formal greeting gesture. Following them are palace servants, acting as ushers. Each carries a staff in his right hand and extends his left arm over the man in front of him. The inscription above them reads: “Let them be brought quickly.”
And that’s where we leave this wall.
Now we move on to the second chamber. The east wall here is undecorated, so we enter through a doorway (marked “B” on the map, no. 5). The doorway is 2.08 meters high. On its eastern jamb (marked 5B on the map), there are two registers.
In the first register, two men are shown pulling a sledge carrying a statue. In front of them, a servant pours water from a jar onto the ground—this was to reduce friction so the wooden sledge wouldn’t catch fire from rubbing against the earth. Above him is an inscription meaning “pouring water.” A fourth man, named in the text as Iri, burns incense before the statue. Above this whole register is a line of hieroglyphs reading: “the king’s son of his body, whom he loves.”
The second register shows four men carrying offerings, though without inscriptions.
On the western jamb (5A on the map), we see almost the same arrangement: again, one man pours water in front of the sledge and another burns incense before the statue. From the Old Kingdom onward, these two rituals—pouring water and burning incense—always appear together, whether for purification or to reduce friction. You’ll notice this same pairing again and again in temples. Above, the second register again shows bearers of offerings, just like on the opposite jamb.
The chamber itself (room B) is 3.45 meters high. On its east side there are two doors: one leading to chamber C, the other to chamber D.
On the south wall (no. 6 on the map), we see three herdsmen driving cattle with long lyre-shaped horns. These belong to a North African species known by the Latin name Bos taurus primigenius mauretanicus. In the registers above, up to the fourth register, the same scenes of herdsmen with cattle continue.
On the north wall (no. 8 on the map), only a single register survives, showing estate overseers arriving to present accounts—similar to what we saw on the west wall of chamber A.
On the east wall (no. 9 on the map), which contains the two doors, the blocks were badly damaged when the tomb was discovered and had to be rebuilt. Only the middle section of its five registers survives. From drawings, we can reconstruct the scenes:
- First register: a procession of offering bearers, each carrying a tray of offerings balanced on his head, supporting it with his right hand while holding something else in the left. Between each bearer, inscriptions were deliberately erased. These originally named the first tomb owner, the vizier Ihy.
- Second register: a funerary procession with boats transporting the mummy to the necropolis. These boat scenes are standard in Egyptian tombs. One shows five rowers; another boat’s stern is visible; a third boat with a papyrus-flower prow is being towed by rope. The thick towing rope runs across two poles. At the stern, the helmsman and his assistant steer with a steering oar—a feature always found when more than four men were in a boat. In larger boats, there were two steering oars. This steering action later became symbolic, depicted with the king before the gods, holding the oar like a captain of the ship of state. In front of the prow, two men touch their left shoulders with their right hands, a gesture of salutation. The leader also holds a crook scepter, the heka.
Interestingly, the rowers in the second boat paddle opposite to those in the third boat, ensuring the funeral flotilla moved steadily. The erased inscription above originally read: “the revered one, close to Anubis, lord of the necropolis, the chief justice and vizier, Ihy. May Ptah grant him a beautiful burial.” In front of the first boat’s prow, a kneeling woman places her right hand on her knee, shown mourning. - Third register: five men pull the boat carrying the mummy ashore with a thick rope. To the right, offerings and furniture are piled on what looks like a table, beneath which parts of a sacrificial bull are shown—evidence of the custom of slaughtering an animal at the tomb entrance, a tradition that still survives in parts of Egypt today.
- Fourth register: here appears the vizier Ihy himself, holding a long staff in his left hand and the crook scepter in his right, wearing a heavy wig and false beard. Before him stands a lector priest, dressed in a sash, reading from a papyrus scroll. The caption identifies him as a “lector priest.” Behind Ihy, five men pull a rope (its object unclear), followed by four servants in various respectful poses. Above them is something like a canopy decorated with lotus leaves.
- Fifth register: only the feet of some attendants remain.
Now to the west wall (no. 7 on the map), the most important. Here is the famous image of Princess Idut.
She stands on a light papyrus skiff, wearing a sheer, body-hugging dress reaching her ankles, fastened with straps beneath the bust. She wears a broad collar and bracelets. On her head is a close-fitting brown cap, with a braid of hair emerging through an opening and ending in a small disc. Similar headpieces appear in other tombs, and one surviving example (Cairo Museum, no. 377,756) shows it was a “disk ornament,” perhaps made of wood, metal, or dried Nile mud, often worn by dancers and musicians in the Old Kingdom. Even today, some Bedouin women in the Western Desert and Nubia wear similar hair ornaments called safah.
Idut holds a lotus flower to her nose with her right hand, while her left arm hangs at her side. The lotus was a powerful symbol of rebirth. Egyptians observed how the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) opened its petals by day and submerged at night, while the white lotus did the opposite. This daily cycle symbolized death and rebirth. The lotus’s fragrance was believed to have magical power to revive the soul. That’s why it is often shown in the hands of the deceased. The ancient Egyptian word for lotus was seshen, which evolved into soson and eventually into the name Susan.
Above Idut are five columns of text: “Honored by Osiris, revered by Anubis, praised by the great god, honored by the king, Idut.” Another column reads: “King’s daughter of his body, her great name: Idut.”
At her feet, a servant reaches out toward her, while behind her legs is a woman with her right hand over her chest and left arm extended—this is her nurse, named Nebt, written above her as “the nurse Nebt.”Here’s your text translated into clear English while keeping the same archaeological/explanatory tone:
A little further up we find another wall, also divided into five registers.
In the first register, four figures are depicted. The first one has both arms hanging straight down, and above him is written: “ḥm-kȝ”, meaning “priest of the ka of Pharaoh.” Notice here the word Pharaoh—it appears again, proving it is an authentic and original Egyptian term used for the king even in the Old Kingdom. The issue is not with the word itself, but with those who argue otherwise. The name of this ka-priest is also written beside him.
The second figure has his left arm placed across his chest—he is identified as the chief of scribes. The other two figures each hold writing palettes in their left hands.
In the third register, three men are shown, each in a distinctive gesture. The first places his right arm across his left shoulder while the left arm touches his right elbow. The second adopts the reverse pose. The third grips the upper part of his left arm with his right hand. Without doubt, each posture had a precise symbolic meaning, though scholars have not yet fully understood them. Each of the three men has his name inscribed above.
The fourth register shows four figures. The first, third, and fourth carry boxes on their shoulders—inscriptions state these contain linen. The first and third also hold staffs in their right hands. The second man carries a staff in his right hand and a small basket of papyrus fibers in his left. Each figure is labeled “supervisor of linen,” confirming that the chests were filled with textile rolls.
The fifth register preserves only the lower parts of four men. The first holds a pair of sandals in his left hand. Notice how, in all the tomb scenes, everyone is depicted barefoot when standing before Princess Idut.
Above these registers, covering the entire wall height, is a remarkable scene of marsh life—with its birds, plants, and animals.
At the bottom, a servant is shown in a small boat hunting a hippopotamus. He grips ropes with iron hooks embedded in the animal’s mouth with his left hand while preparing to hurl a large spear with his right. The hunt for hippos appears in nearly every Old Kingdom tomb, not simply as decoration but with deep symbolic meaning.
To the ancient Egyptian, the male hippopotamus represented chaos and danger: a threat to boats, a destroyer of crops, a symbol of disorder—opposite to Maat (cosmic order). From Predynastic times, hunting the hippo became a ritualized act of restoring order against the forces of chaos. By the Late Period, the hippopotamus was even identified with the god Seth, the embodiment of evil.
However, the female hippopotamus was treated differently. Egyptians admired the way she protected and nurtured her young, seeing her as a model of motherhood. Thus, goddesses like Isis, Hathor, and Taweret (protector of childbirth) were often represented in the form of a female hippopotamus. In tombs, such imagery implied that the deceased would be cared for and protected in the afterlife, just as the hippopotamus mother cared for her calf.
In this scene, the hooks dig into the suffering hippo’s mouth, while nearby a female hippo also strains—but here due to childbirth, emphasizing maternal symbolism. A crocodile lurks, waiting to snatch the newborn calf—highlighting the eternal struggle of motherhood against forces of chaos.
The scene also depicts birds nesting in papyrus thickets: some sitting on eggs, others with chicks already hatched. A mongoose climbs a stem to snatch a fledgling; three parent birds dive to attack it in defense of their brood. Such imagery reinforces the theme of parental care.
The mongoose itself carried religious symbolism. Observed as one of the few animals able to kill snakes, it was later linked with the sun-god Ra, who transformed into a giant mongoose to defeat the serpent Apophis in the underworld. Small statuettes of sacred mongooses, sometimes crowned with the solar disk, were found in New Kingdom temples. Egyptians encouraged mongooses to thrive as natural snake-killers.
Other animals appear too—such as the Egyptian goose, once abundant but now nearly extinct, and the ibis, sacred to Thoth, god of wisdom and the moon.
Above, the marsh is depicted with papyrus stems and birds in flight, while the upper parts of the wall are badly damaged.
The rest of the wall is divided into six more registers.
- In the first, twelve oxen and one cow wade across a canal, driven by herdsmen in boats. A calf is hung from the stern of a boat, bleating toward its mother who follows the herd—an ancient herding trick. An inscription warns: “O herdsman, beware of the crocodile hidden in the water, unseen.”
- The second and third registers show boats returning from the Delta marshes, loaded with birds and offerings.
- The fourth register depicts the making of papyrus boats. Workers tie reeds together, haul ropes, and shout commands—snippets of dialogue are even written above them, a rare glimpse of spoken language.
- The fifth register shows a cow in labor, assisted by two herdsmen.
- The sixth register preserves faint traces of small boats.
Thus, we see not only daily life, but also scenes full of ritual meaning—order versus chaos, fertility, and protection—all essential to ensure Princess Idut’s rebirth in the afterlife.
To the right is a smaller papyrus skiff, though cut off. In it, two fishermen appear: one holds a net tied to two poles, the other fishes with a line, one leg extended, the other bent, a basket of fish beside him, striking the catch with a stick. This scene directly mirrors the fishing scene from the north wall of chamber A.
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