Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In the funereal architecture of ancient Egypt, the secret cell of the mastaba (the most ancient and archæologically important form of monumental tomb), in which were preserved statues and other representations of the defunct, to serve as “supports” to the soul, in order to assure its continued existence in the event of the crumbling of the mummified body.
Examples
“The final connection to Weni came from a rectangular serdab, or hidden chamber, in the southeast corner.”
“The remainder of the day, so far as family life is concerned, is spent in the _serdab_, a cellar sunk somewhat below the level of the courtyard, damp from frequent wettings, with its half windows covered with hurdles thatched with camel thorn and kept dripping with water.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy"
“Once the statue was made a stone-house (the _serdab_) was provided for it above ground [37].”
“But the real features of the Egyptian _serdab_, which was the essential part, the nucleus so to speak, of the _mastaba_, are best preserved in the so-called "holed dolmens" of the Levant, the Caucasus, and India.”
“As the dolmen is a crude copy of the _serdab_ [38] it can be claimed as one of the ultimate results of the practice of mummification.”
“Matthews wondered whether it were because the acoustic properties of a _serdab_ in Dizful differ from those of a galley on the Karun, or whether there really were something new about him.”
The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“Matthews 'gate, to follow Matthews' servant into the house without waiting to hear whether Matthews would receive him, to present himself at the door of the dim underground _serdab_ where Matthews lounged in his pajamas till it should be cool enough to go out, to make Matthews the most ceremonious of bows, and to give that young man a half-amused, half-annoyed consciousness of being put at his ease.”
The Best Short Stories of 1917 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“This tomb, as we have seen, consists of a portico, a courtyard, two chambers, and a sepulchral vault; but it also contains a secret passage of the kind known as a "serdab.”
“Twenty statues of Ti were here found immured in the serdab of his tomb, all broken save one – a spirited figure in limestone, standing about seven feet high, and now in the museum at”
“They uniformly face the east, and are internally divided into three parts; the chamber or chapel, the _serdab_, and the well.”
A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘serdab’.
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Brochettes of Random Palavery
Another of my random palavery lists for words or phrases that haven't yet found a place in one or more of my other lists.
nonexclusivity, adaptationist, paxillin, adduct, unblushingly cribbed, ptomaïne, microsievert, millisievert, too big to jail, tastemaker, tinsmithing, Nimzo-Indian and 1616 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for serdab.
hernesheir Also sirdab. Nov 24, 2012