Can Tomb Terminology Be Used as a Criterion for Dating the Pyramid Texts?

Scholars have long recognized that some Pyramid Text utterances display signs of age that indicate a pre-monumental history of use. Two utterances in particular, PT 355 and PT 662, have been dated by scholars as early as the Pre- or Early Dynastic, based on lines interpreted as describing a pre-pyramidal royal tomb-form (a mudbrick mastaba or a sand grave). This article evaluates the assumptions upon which these claims are based and uses this question to examine the complex interaction between lexical semantics, religious beliefs, and material culture. This article will show that tomb terminology is not a definitive indicator of an early date of composition of Pyramid Text utterances, as the association of lexemes with specific archaeological building-types is problematized by innovations in language, religion, and architecture that occurred in the early Old Kingdom, as well as changes in modern scholarship’s understanding of the context and use of the Pyramid Texts.