Tomb of Perneb..Egypt, Dynasty 5, reigns of Isesi and Unis (ca. 2381-2323 BC)..From Saqqara, north of King's Djoser's Step Pyramid....Perneb (the name means: My Lord has come forth to me) was a court official who functioned primarily at the robing and crowning of the king.....This open-air courtyard forms the center of Perneb's above ground funeral monument. It was originally furnished with a low platform for the deposition of offerings and two small obelisks, powerful symbols of rebirth dedicated to the sun god as the ultimate source of life.....A central, recessed doorway leads into the main offering chamber of the tomb, while the door on its left gives access to a secondary ritual chamber connected with the so-called serlad (Aribic for" cellar"), a closed room in which Perneb's statue stood.....The partially ruined wall opposite the central, recessed doorway is slightly stepped and inclined. It represents the outside enclosure of another monument: the tomb of the Vizier Shepsesre, who may have been Perneb's father. Perneb's builders attached his tomb to that of Shepsesre.....While all other walls surrounding the courtyard are original, the Shepsesre wall was reconstructed by the Museum, using stone from a quarry located close the the one from which Perneb;building material was extracted. The reconstruction serves to convey to visitors the intimacy of Perneb's court, which was both a private and sacred space.....The False Door and Alter Stone....A flase door is a stylized representation of an actual door. The rectangular slot-like niche in the center equals the opening of the real door. It is topped by an inscription lintel and flanked by inscribed doorjambs. Above an inner lintel if a rectangular slot with two empty recesses at its side a configuration that conveys the impression that a transom window has been partially shuttered....False doors are the focal points ot the ritual performed in a tomb. They express in concrete form the concept that the living can in deed make contact with the dead. Old Kingdom Egyptians believed that the deceased could leave the confines of the burial chambers, come forward through the false door and receive the life force of the offerings that were laid on the alter stone in the front.
