A mastaba is an ancient Egyptian tomb built as a rectangular block with slightly inward sloping side walls and a flat roof, beneath which lies the burial chamber itself. The name is Arabic for bench: the shape reminded nineteenth century workmen of the mud benches outside Egyptian houses.
How it is built
A mastaba has two parts, functionally kept strictly apart:
- The superstructure — a solid block of mudbrick (adobe) or, in later and grander tombs, of dressed stone. Inside are one or more offering chapels. The false door in the west wall formed the symbolic link between the world of the living and that of the dead
- The substructure — a vertical shaft down to the actual burial chamber, cut deep into the rock or the ground. After the burial the shaft was filled with rubble and sealed
Why it matters in building history
The mastaba is the direct ancestor of the pyramid. At the tomb complex of the pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara — attributed to Imhotep — a stone mastaba was enlarged step by step by placing progressively smaller mastabas on top of it. The result is the Step Pyramid: the first great work of stone construction in history, and the moment when mudbrick gave way to dressed stone as a structural material.
The technique repays a closer look:
- Batter. The inward sloping walls are not an aesthetic whim but structure: a face leaning inwards is far more stable in a stacked massive wall than a vertical one
- Mudbrick. The early mastabas are built of sun dried mud bricks, the same material known worldwide as adobe. Strong in compression, vulnerable to water
- Order. Mastabas stand in rows around the royal tombs, in a geometrically laid out city of the dead — one of the earliest examples of planned urban layout
Related terms
- Adobe
- Mudbrick
- Burial chapel
- Monolith
- Batter
- Building history
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