Satinteti’s Offering Table: A Reused Block from Princess Watetkhethor Zeshzeshet’s Chapel in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery, Saqqara

This article analyses the offering table from the chapel of Satinteti, a Memphite Priestess of Hathor, dating to the First Intermediate Period. The false-door and side-pieces are now held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (24.593a–c). The offering table, however, is still in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery and was fashioned from a reused block from the chapel of Princess Watetkhethor Zeshzeshet, the eldest daughter of King Teti of the Sixth Dynasty. The former inscriptions on the offering table are transcribed and the block digitally resituated on the southern wall of room B5 in Watetkhethor’s chapel. The dating for the chapel is assessed from several perspectives, and the technique and motivations for the reuse of the offering table are discussed. It is proposed that Satinteti may have deliberately sought a block from the chapel of this earlier, eminent woman in the completion of her own monument.


Introduction
During the Service des antiquités de l'Égypte excavations in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery between 1920-22, an intact chapel for a priestess named ZA.t-6ti-in(i) ('Daughter of 6ti-in[i]') was discovered near the northern face of Teti's pyramid ( fig. 1a). 1 Satinteti's monument probably dates to the early First Intermediate Period and was established in an area of dense repurposing and reburial that occurred in this cemetery during this period. The false-door and side-pieces for her chapel are now kept in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (24.593a-c), 2 and were probably purchased by George figure of a woman, whom he speculated was Watetkhethor. 5 Subsequent publications that feature the false-door and sidepieces have also mentioned the reused offering table. 6 As yet, 5 Firth and Gunn, TPC I, 38. 6 Such as Strudwick   however, no attempt has been made to resituate the block in Watetkhethor's chapel, nor to contextualize it among other evidence of repurposing among the monuments in the cemetery. This article publishes a line-drawing of the offering table, including a transcription of the traces of its former decoration, and provides a hypothesized reconstruction of the block on the southern wall of room B5 of Watetkhethor's chapel ( fig. 3). This is followed by a discussion of the pragmatics of reuse within the Teti Pyramid Cemetery in the late Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period, during which Satinteti erected her monument.

Description of the offering table and its former inscriptions
The offering table from Satinteti's chapel is a slab of limestone measuring 56.5 cm by 111 cm and 22 cm deep. Its original surface decoration was carefully chiselled away at some point before it was reused, although the shape of a woman holding a lotus bloom to her nose is still visible and portions of hieroglyphic texts in raised-relief on the left side can be distinguished ( fig. 3). A stiff streamer extends from the back of her head, which would have been adorned with a fillet crown. On the far left, facing the image of the erased woman, fragments of legs belonging to striding figures can be made out, and these mark the beginning of a scene of offering bearers. Apart from the offering basin, no further inscriptions were carved into the block; the excavation photographs of the whole chapel in situ are therefore the sole record of this offering table being connected to the falsedoor and side-pieces which name Satinteti.
The offering basin is off-set from the centre of the block, occupying the lower-left corner. The channels of the basin follow the outline of a large and stylized upside-down loaf upon a mat, resembling the hieroglyph (Gardiner R4), and lead to two rectangular sunken troughs with a drainage channel between them. 7 The position of the offering basin is particularly striking when Satinteti's chapel is viewed in situ ( fig. 1a). Plaster and paint may have been applied to the surface of the block as part of its preparation for reuse. 8 Although this can no longer be observed on the offering table, a similar situation was noted by Cecil Firth in the excavation of the offering place of Khenu, established within the forecourt of Mereruka's mastaba at its western end: the former inscriptions had been 'carefully filled in and obliterated with whitewash'. 9 This alone does not explain why the offering basin occupies a relatively small area in the chapel, and it may have been desirable that a visual referent to the block's former owner, Watetkhethor, remained; the motivation for this is considered later. On the left side of the block, what remains of a few hieroglyphic signs can be discerned. This was once an inscription in a column between the image of Watetkhethor and at least three registers of striding figures walking towards her. Reading right to left, beginning from the top: a -t (Gardiner X1), the legs of in[nt] (Gardiner W25), the third person feminine suffix =s (Gardiner S29), and (Gardiner N35). A fuller transcription and translation can be proposed when the reused block is joined with the rest of the scene on the south wall of room B5 ( fig. 4). This is the only location in Watetkhethor's chapel where the block could have originated, based on the direction of the figure of Watetkhethor () and that of the fragmentary feet of offering bearers walking towards her (), as well as the corresponding break at her waist.
It is clear from this restoration that another section of the wall is missing from above this block, as the initial part of the hieroglyphic inscription is missing. Once the block is resituated, the fuller sense of the caption becomes clearer,  (18063)), and this translation could hypothetically be supported by the scenes of bearers carrying cut plants and vegetables; in either case, the sense seems to be connected to harvested produce of the estate. and 'all good things'. 11 The items being presented by offering bearers in the adjacent registers to the left reinforce this interpretation: they carry trays and vessels containing plants, vegetables, and other foodstuffs towards Watetkhethor and Meryteti, her son, whose name and titles partially remain above his image on the south wall of room B5 ( fig. 4). A corresponding scene occurs at the northern end of the east wall, in which the offering bearers present Watetkhethor and Meryteti with fowl and cattle butchered in the adjacent registers. 12 As this scene is more complete, the restoration of the inscription there aids in proposing a fuller restoration of the inscription on the south wall. 13 The closest parallels to these scenes and their associated captions come from within the same complex, in the chapels for Watetkhethor's husband Mereruka and her son Meryteti. 14 It is notable that in Watetkhethor's reliefs the inscription on the northern wall elides nbt nfrt; 15 this may not have been the case on the south wall. Gunn tentatively restored a nfr sign in his transcription of the reused block, 16 and the lower part of this sign may fit the curved line that occurs to the left of -t in the earlier photograph ( fig. 2). As the -t in this position would not easily match the orthography for any of the other elements in the formula, it seems likely that [nbt nfr]t can thus be restored on the south wall. The carving of the offering basin appears to have obliterated the opening signs of an inscription in two vertical columns naming Watetkhethor's son, Meryteti, the rest of which continues on the remaining south wall of room B5 ( fig. 4).

Dating Satinteti's chapel
Satinteti's chapel probably dates to the early First Intermediate Period (Herakleopolitan Ninth and Tenth Dynasties), and it is one of the rare instances in which a false-door with side-pieces and offering slab table were discovered and recorded with a photograph in situ in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery. 17 It is not possible to establish whether the monument was commissioned by Satinteti herself or by another member of her family. 18 As the offering table itself was not reinscribed, the dating of Satinteti's monument rests on the wider archaeological context of the chapel and the stylistic criteria of the false-door and side-pieces. As the latter have been discussed by Edward Brovarski,19 Khaled Daoud,20 and Nigel Strudwick, 21 the remarks concerning the style of relief in the chapel are summarised, thus focusing on the rarer elements from Satinteti's chapel, and further points concerning archaeological context and onomastics are added.
A pyramid town for Teti's funerary complex 9d-swt-6ti ('Enduring are Teti's places') was probably established in the Sixth Dynasty. Its historicity is obliquely confirmed in the title borne by the vizier Kagemni Memi, who was Overseer of the niwt (town) of Djedsut-teti, 22 and it may 17 Firth and Gunn, TPC I, 203. I adopt a broad classification of this period although more specific remarks are given to date this false-door within the so-called Herakleopolitan Period following, especially, e.g., R. Legros, 'Approche méthodologique pour une datation des tables d'offrandes de la Première Période Intermédiaire', BIFAO 108 (2008), 231-52. Many thanks to Melanie Pitkin for discussing issues in dating criteria of falsedoors from this period and sharing chapters from her forthcoming monograph (M. Pitkin, Egypt in the First Intermediate Period: An Historical and Chronological Examination of its False Doors and Stelae (London)). 18 Compare the offering chapels of Sekwesekhet's family (PM III.2, 548-9), to which offering tables were later added perhaps as late as the Twelfth Dynasty: K. Daoud be the same 'Djedsut' that appears in the later Teaching of Merikare. 23 The precise location of the town is unknown, but Jaromir Malek has proposed that it was to the east of the plateau where the pyramids of Teti and another king were established. 24 The community buried in this cemetery between the late Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom may have been associated with this town, in particular. 25 The cemetery was later reused during the New Kingdom and through to the Graeco-Roman Period. 26 The early Sixth Dynasty represents a complex phase of surface tomb construction, beginning with the construction of Teti's funerary complex. 27 Between the Sixth Dynasty and the end of the Old Kingdom, lesser officials were buried in pit and shaft graves in the area directly north and north-east of the entrance to Teti's pyramid in the spaces and 'streets' between the large mastaba tombs. According to Firth, the whole area became: 'honeycombed with pits of the late Old Kingdom which had been dug through the layer of fine limestone gravel which had been laid down between the Pyramid and the mastabas'. 28 These areas may have also been processional alleys through the cemetery, in which dedicatory stelae and false-doors like Satinteti's were set up and competed for visibility. 29 The variable heights at which stelae were erected were visible in the earliest excavations from the cemetery, including those led by James Quibell between 1905-06 to the east of Teti's pyramid. 30 The form of a small chapel consisting of a false-door enclosed by side-pieces shares several similarities with smaller non-royal cult-offering chapels from the mid-Sixth Dynasty (reign of Pepi II) onwards; as such, Satinteti's chapel cannot date earlier than this. 31 The particular form exemplified by Satinteti's monument appears to be typical of false-door chapels from the Teti Pyramid Cemetery, dating between the end of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period (reign of Merikare); 32 thus, the archaeological context of monuments within the cemetery is an important factor in distinguishing diachronic development among them. Originally, Satinteti's chapel may have been set into the east wall of a small mastaba made of mudbrick covering a burial shaft, although these features did not survive. 33 The orientation of the false-door is difficult to reconstruct from Firth's notes, and it is possible that this was altered in the process of its reuse in the later monument of a man named Ipiankhu, enumerated HMK 26. 34 HMK 26 was located in an area dense with shaft burials between the northern face of Teti's pyramid and the later Middle Kingdom chapels adjoining Kagemni's mastaba. It is from this general area that a large number of false-doors and offering tables of a late Old Kingdom-First Intermediate Period type originated. Unfortunately, while their inscriptions were copied by Gunn, the locations of these monuments were inadequately documented. This complicates a clearer understanding of the archaeological (and perhaps social) relationship between these structures. Only seven false- door chapels discovered during these excavations, including Satinteti's, were given certain locations on the cemetery plan. 35 It seems that by the end of the Old Kingdom, the tombs of Kagemni and Mereruka had fallen into disrepair, and blocks from Mereruka's tomb were reused in at least two monuments in the cemetery, including Satinteti's.
At an indeterminable point at the end of the Old Kingdom or early in the First Intermediate Period, the streets between the large tombs north of Teti's pyramid appear to have been cleared of the accumulated funeral chapels. New monuments were erected that replaced or added to existing chapels and earlier burial shafts were reused, often resulting in two shafts being combined to create a newly enlarged space. 36 Firth argued this was characteristic of burials dating to the Herakleopolitan Tenth Dynasty. 37 The burial shaft that may have been associated with Satinteti's chapel seems to have been reused for Ipiankhu's burial, dated between the late First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom based on his decorated and inscribed coffin, 38 providing a terminus ad quem for the cult-use of Satinteti's chapel. A period of time must have passed before the location was usurped and 'built up in the later superstructure of the tomb of Ipiankhu', 39 and according to Firth's description, it would seem that this later structure completely removed Satinteti's chapel ('serdab recess') from view. 40  the burial shaft underneath Ipiankhu's tomb belonged to Satinteti but no burial was recorded in association with this shaft, and it was noted to have been heavily disturbed. While Satinteti's monument must predate Ipiankhu's, establishing more precisely when the chapel was commissioned and used is more difficult; nevertheless, a tentative date-range can be provided on stylistic and palaeographic grounds.
In many respects, Satinteti's false-door shares the general appearance of false-doors produced in Memphis from the mid-Sixth Dynasty onwards, 41 but some features indicate a date at the very end of the Old Kingdom and into the First Intermediate Period. Satinteti's false-door and side-pieces include the orthography of imAxt , without a phonetic complement or filling stroke, and they also include the epithet nfr m is=s n xrt-nTr following prt xrw; both of these criteria point to a post-Old Kingdom date. 42 The introduction of a flared central panel to false-doors in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery has been dated narrowly to the Tenth Dynasty by Brovarski. 43 This was seemingly a stylistic evolution from a panel with squared apertures ('T-shape') attested in the late Old Kingdom, 44 although the flared panel occurs among some late Old Kingdom false-doors originating in South Saqqara. 45 The flared central panel is shared among seventeen false-doors in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery, including Satinteti's. 46 Among this group is the false-door of Gemniemhat (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek AEIN 1616), which dates no earlier than the late Tenth Dynasty due to his titles associated with the priesthood of the pyramid of Merikare. 47 Gemniemhat's burial (HMK 30) also appears to have been contemporaneous with Ipiankhu, which was the initial impression of the excavators. 48 This may point to a shared provenance of these false-doors in a local workshop associated with the community of Djedsut, but it does not provide evidence that all false-doors sharing this feature were contemporaneous. This should be called into question especially given the archaeological context of Satinteti's chapel at a lower stratigraphic level than those of Ipiankhu and Gemniemhat, as this would indicate that her chapel predates theirs by some time (perhaps several generations).
Satinteti's false-door and side-pieces include several atypical features that are also noteworthy for dating. Her tabular offering list is substantially longer than most other offering lists on side-pieces that survive from this cemetery, occupying the upper half of both the right and (fragmentary) left side-pieces; the right side-piece includes 97 elements. 49 The offering list is not known to occur on side-pieces in this form before the First Intermediate Period, 50 and this development appears to mark the evolution of the false-door niche at Saqqara into a fully-fledged 'microcosm of the tomb superstructure.' 51 During this period and later there was a trend to reduce the tabular offering list on the side-pieces, as also found on decorated coffins from the mid-Sixth Dynasty onwards, 52 while more space was devoted to visual representations of offerings and burial goods. 53 This is a strong indication that Satinteti's monument dates earlier in the First Intermediate Period and not later. Satinteti is represented on three of the lower jambs as standing and holding a lotiform staff ( fig. 5a). The latter is very rare among representations of non-royal women before the Eighth Dynasty, which is compelling evidence for a dating of the false-door to this period or soon after. 54 As noted by Lubica Hudáková, 55 the lotiform staff was especially associated with the priesthood of Hathor, and as Satinteti's titles include Hm[t]-nTr 1wt-Hr 'Priestess of Hathor', this is the most probable explanation for her representation in this manner. 56 Yvonne Harpur has argued that the lotiform and papyriform staves held by women may have developed out of the representation of women holding a long-stemmed lotus reminiscent of a staff, 57 a motif well-attested among representations of women in Memphis including Watetkhethor.
A further unusual motif is the arched harp on the right side-piece, which has been placed behind Satinteti, who is 54 . 5b). The harp is represented in profile with a human head and leonine foot, and it is supported at its base by an ankh-sign. The shape of the harp is an 'intermediate' between the more commonly attested shovel-shaped harp of the Old Kingdom and the ladleshaped and boat-shaped harps that developed later, a form which was also common in Middle Kingdom representations of harps. 58 While Brovarski has postulated that the inclusion of the harp on Satinteti's monument may be 'a rare instance of the intrusion of the personality and pastimes of the owner', 59 it is more probable that these motifs-the harp and its support by an ankh-signify Hathoric cult items and Satinteti's position as a Priestess of Hathor. 60 This religious title was acquired and not inherited, and its holders were not members of a professional class by virtue of it; 61 therefore, the inclusion of these motifs probably served to underscore Satinteti's role in Hathor's priesthood in Memphis, signalling that this was integral to the display of her status.
On onomastic grounds, Satinteti's name alludes distantly to the post-mortem veneration of the deceased King Teti, which also suggests a late Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period date for this chapel. 62 Satinteti's name 58 Hudáková, Representations of Women, 592. At least 20 representations of women harpists occur in Old Kingdom tombs analysed by Harpur (OEE 12.3.4). 59   deictically expresses filiation to a man named 6ti-in [i] ('The one brought by Teti'), who was probably her father. In its fullest form, the internal orthography of the name places Teti's cartouche in honorific transposition before the lexeme in(i). This writing occurs on the inner jambs closest to the emblematic entrance on the false-door, and once on the left side-piece in a caption narrating the preparation of a bull for slaughter. The shortened form of the name is attested in all other places on the false-door, with the cartouche and phonetic complement -n omitted. The orthography of the name on the upper right side-piece is notable as a gap occurs after the lexeme in(i), and here the phonetic complement -n is included. In this example, other elements of the name were composed at a smaller scale to accommodate several group-writings. It can be speculated that this was a mistake if the intention was to include the cartouche of Teti, which would ordinarily occur in the initial position and not at the end where the gap falls. The attention to these orthographic variations of Satinteti's name demonstrates that the decorum surrounding basilophoric names in their hieroglyphic form persisted long after the death of the king whom they honoured. 63 Very few names of this type (ZA/.t-N) are known among women before the reign of Pepi I, and they seem to occur more towards the end of the Old Kingdom. 64  Gmn(i)-Htp ('Gemni is satisfied'), whose own anthroponym honoured the vizier Kagemni. This phenomenon in onomastics concerning the lexeme Gmn(i) is particularly local to the community buried in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery between the end of the Old Kingdom and the early Twelfth Dynasty. 68 These names are similar in a sense to an earlier name, N(y)-s(i)-nzwt ('She belongs to the king'), 69 but the desired closeness is expressed in more literal and bodily terms. Decorum surrounding expressions of filiation to the king in titles and personal names appears to have relaxed towards the end of the Old Kingdom. 70 This demonstrable growth of vocabularies of filiation (in names and titles) may indicate the lifting or shifting of restrictions around how one could express closeness to deities and the king. While earlier in the Old Kingdom the honorific use of such titles appears to have been actively discouraged, 71 towards the end of the Old Kingdom and in the First Intermediate Period this practice may have prominently marked local networks of professional connectedness and kinship. 72 The sum of the evidence points to a dating for Satinteti's chapel between the end of the Old Kingdom (Eighth Dynasty and later) and the early First Intermediate Period, some time before the chapels of Gemniemhat and Ipiankhu were built. In particular, the archaeological association between Satinteti's chapel and Ipiankhu's burial monument, specifically the incorporation of her chapel in this later structure, is the clearest evidence of a passage of time between the establishment of Satinteti's chapel and the usurpation of its location for a new monument. The reuse of a decorated block from Watetkhethor's chapel for Satinteti's offering table also obliquely indexes the depth of time between the cultic use of the chapel and the reuse of its fallen blocks, which probably did not occur during the Sixth Dynasty. 73

Why reuse a block from Watetkhethor Zeshzeshet's chapel?
Leire Olabarria has made a compelling case that funerary stelae are active participants in the networks of people and monuments that converge in a funerary landscape: they are 'not simply an addition to pre-existing landscapes, but an integral component of them.' 74 Olabarria focuses especially on Middle Kingdom Abydos for her discussion, but this perspective is equally informative when applied to the religious landscape of the Teti Pyramid Cemetery in the late Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. While the falsedoor and side-pieces of Satinteti's chapel carry inscriptions that offer the most information about Satinteti's profession and status to Egyptologists, core elements of the monument have been disassociated from it during the history of its excavation. These hint at how she-and her monumentarticulated relatedness to her community. The offering table was an integral part of the chapel's intended function for the performance of cult and provision of offerings. It also 73 Another measure of this is the lack of graffiti within this part of Watetkhethor's chapel, as noted by the author (January-February 2019), which is otherwise well attested in the first room of her chapel. The names in graffiti found in the first room are sometimes accompanied by the title Hm kA (kA-servant), so it can be hypothesized that these graffiti were made during the Sixth Dynasty. This, combined with the evidence for doors to the more sacred parts of the chapel, may be suggestive of respect afforded to the cultic focus of the false-door room during the period of its use for funerary rituals. For graffiti in this chapel, see also: G. Pieke, '"Lass deinen Namen hervorkommen": zur Appropriation von Einzelmotiven der Grabdekoration in Sakkara', in B. reflects the practice of adapting and repurposing earlier monuments to meet contemporary needs. 75 The ancient use of the cemetery by the community of Djedsut, especially during the period of the late Old Kingdom through the First Intermediate Period during which Satinteti lived and was buried, is only distantly echoed in the cemetery's current state as an archaeological site. The photographs of the chapel in situ, and the in-progress excavations of this part of the cemetery between 1920-22, reveal clear competition for space to display in the cemetery. The reuse and usurpation of earlier burials and monuments must be viewed through this lens. It is unlikely that erasing the image of Watetkhethor was connected to damnatio memoriae, like that found in other parts of the Teti Pyramid Cemetery during the mid-Sixth Dynasty. 76 René van Walsem has discussed the opposition between discourse and practice evident in this obliteration and borrowing from other monuments, which was relatively widespread in ancient Egyptian cemeteries. 77 Egyptian ethics condemned such actions, as found in the Teaching of Merikare (l. 78-9): 78 'do not destroy the monument of another… do not build your tomb out of the demolition of what has been made'; yet, such practices clearly occurred. Arguably, they may have been condemned in ethical texts precisely because they were common. This situation is exemplified on a massive scale in the reuse of earlier royal monuments in the construction projects of later kings. 79 The dismantling of earlier tombs in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery appears to be attested from its conception as a royal cemetery site. For example, a fragment of a decorated block carved in shallow raised-relief, featuring the lower half of a scene of antelopes and possibly a scimitar oryx being driven by two men, is found set into the floor of Mereruka's chapel in room A9, under the join with the west wall. 80 This almost certainly originates from a Fifth Dynasty non-royal monument, although it is impossible to determine which one. The reuse of Sixth Dynasty monuments in later chapels is also attested in the Teti Pyramid Cemetery, and in addition to Satinteti's offering table the excavators noted that a fragment of a stela belonging to an individual named Nesuserti bore a part of a relief from the mastaba of Mereruka. 81 This monument, which was not published in the volume, may be related to the owner of a false-door now in the Cairo Museum (CG 57186). 82 Rather than evincing a negative act towards the memory of Watetkhethor, the reuse of a block from her chapel for Satinteti's offering table could hypothetically be attributed to admiration and active imitation of this earlier, very eminent woman who was also a Priestess of Hathor. Watetkhethor's role was prominently displayed in Mereruka's complex, 83 and on her own false-door; 84 she is also depicted playing the harp before her husband in a particularly rare scene in Mereruka's complex. 85 Direct evidence for such a relationship or intentional mimicry is lacking; 86 however, it is important to recall that the recarving of the offering basin avoids mostly further cutting into Watetkhethor's image, even though the erasure of the images and signs results in the 'deactivation' of their reference to her. If this was done out of respect to the specific woman from whose monument the relief block originated, at the very least it indicates a respectful gesture to the previous life of the block bearing a human image in a sacred space, from the cultic heart of Watetkhethor's chapel. Other explanations should not be excluded. Satinteti's chapel was established close to Mereruka's complex in an area of dense burial activity between the late Old Kingdom and early First Intermediate Period, and practical reasons may have governed the choice of the block, as it could be sourced from close-by. Yet, even if this were the case, the choice of location may nonetheless have been guided by a desire to be close to celebrated occupants of the Teti Pyramid Cemetery-not only King Teti himself, but also Mereruka, Watetkhethor, and Kagemni.

Conclusion
Satinteti's chapel reflects the complex social and architectural history of the Teti Pyramid Cemetery between the end of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period. The reuse of an earlier monument is not exceptional in and of itself and Satinteti's own chapel was later subsumed into that of Ipiankhu; however, the meaning inherent to this action is bound up with the locality in which it occurred. Recontextualizing the offering table with the rest of Satinteti's chapel provides a fuller record of the site at which her memory was celebrated; similarly, attention to the offering table's provenance within the wider cemetery enriches the life-history of both Satinteti's and Watetkhethor's monuments. Such reuse materializes the entanglement of the lives and afterlives of two women through the production of monuments to honour their names and images in perpetuity.