Non-standart position of the false door in Giza tombs - a builing mistake or a least-evil solution?

Abstract

In the chapels of a number of tombs in the Giza necropolis, both rock-cut and stone (mastaba), the false door – the main place of worship of the tomb – is sometimes not located on the west wall. Given that the tradition of placing the false door precisely on the western wall had deep roots for centuries, these cases raise a legitimate question about the reasons for such an anomaly. But the paucity of examples, both in Giza and in other necropolises, made it difficult to conduct a broad analysis of this phenomenon. This question has been repeatedly raised in the literature, but it is still debatable. And after the discovery of new examples at the site of the Russian Archaeological Mission at Giza of the Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS (RAMG), it became necessary to return to this problem to analyze it, to structure and summarize the early information, to try to understand the nature of the occurrence of such cases. A total of nine such cases are known in the Giza necropolis; all of them date from the time of the V–VI dynasties, when the necropolis is drastically compacted – and the tombs are occupied by any vacant space. It was not always possible to place false doors on the western wall of the chapels for each individual burial. As a result, sometimes the builders deliberately placed a false door not on the western wall but in the immediate vicinity of the burial to emphasise the connection between them.