> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Funerary chapel of Ikhetnefer, wife of high priest Sabu, found at Saqqara, about 4,000 years old
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-sakkare-obnaruzhili-zhertvennuiu-chasovniu-ikhetnefer-zheny-verkhovnogo-zhretsa-sabu/
- Published: 2026-10-30T09:02:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T09:20:15.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: The East, Archaeology, People

An offering chapel belonging to Ikhetnefer, wife of the high priest Sabu, has been discovered at Saqqara. Saqqara is the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, situated some 30 kilometres south of modern Cairo. The chapel is about 4,000 years old.

An offering chapel was the place where relatives and priests brought food, drink and other gifts for the deceased. The Egyptians believed that these offerings sustained the existence of the soul in the afterlife.

The researchers also studied the tomb of Ptahshepses, son of Sabu and Ikhetnefer. Ptahshepses was an official of the Fifth Dynasty, which ruled Egypt from roughly 2494 to 2345 BC, in the age of the Old Kingdom. Ptahshepses served four kings of the Fifth Dynasty and married an Egyptian princess.

This part of the necropolis was first explored in the nineteenth century by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Mariette uncovered some 160 tombs of the Old Kingdom here, but never completed work on the tombs of this family, and the chapel of Ikhetnefer he did not excavate at all.

The new excavations showed that the tomb of Sabu was more than 53 metres long and about 27 metres wide, and once rose to a height of about 5 metres. The outer walls of the tomb were adorned with elaborate decoration. Inside the chapel of Ikhetnefer, well-preserved reliefs depicting Sabu and Ptahshepses were found. The chapel also contains a false door bearing images of Ikhetnefer, her husband and their two sons, Ptahshepses and Raneferef. The Egyptians believed that through such doors the soul of the deceased emerged from the world of the dead and received offerings.

In the neighbouring tomb of Ptahshepses there is likewise an offering chamber with reliefs of processions and offerings. Robbers had broken into the burial chamber as long ago as antiquity, but the archaeologists found there a limestone sarcophagus containing human remains. Study of the remains suggests that Ptahshepses lived to be more than 60 years old.