A Chronological Study of the False Door Concept

Abstract

In Ancient Egypt, the false door was thought to be a threshold between the world of mortals and that of deities; where spirits lived. The deity could interact with the world of the living either by passing through the false door or receiving offerings through. False doors are often one of the striking elements within tomb complexes; they were usually located on the western wall of the chapel ‟s offering room; known as an offering chamber. This was usually the rear wall of the chapel or the mortuary temple. False door was frequently of limestone; however, ones of the elite with close connections to the king were of pink granite. Sometimes pink granite was imitated by painting a limestone false-door stela a mottled pink. This paper aims to discussing the non-royal false door concept, and compares its role from the old Kingdom and till the end of the New Kingdom. It analyzes three non-royal false doors; chronologically dating from the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom.