THE EARLY PYRAMIDS: FROM NARMER TO SNOFRU
At the sitesof Umm el Qa'ab at Abydos and Saqqara we find the mastaba tombs of Dynasty I royal kings and officials. The mastaba superstructures are built of mudbrick and are fronted by stelae. Their substructures contain a rock-cut burial chamber. and a storage magazine.
Dreyer's excavation at Umm el Qa'ab uncovered new information about this early period at the dawn of Egyptian kingship. Here he found the earliest evidence of writing in Egypt which dates to the late Naqqada C period, about 500 years before Dynasty I. From Dynasty I contexts he exhumed a human sacrifice - a practice which never occurs in Egypt after this period.
Dreyer's work confirms, without any doubt, that Abydos is the burial ground for Dynasty I kings, while their high officials he buried at Saqqara. In Dynasty II, kings join the high officials at Saqqara with two exceptions: Kings Peribsen and Kh'asekhemwy who return to Abydos for burial. Kh'asekh-emwy, the last king of Dynasty II, looks to the future by inscribing on a tomb wall the name of his son, "Djoser" This inscription proves that the owner of the famous Step Pyramid at Saqqara, King Djoser, is indeed the founder of Dynasty III.
Choosing Saqqara as his eternal home, Djoser built his tomb from a series of six successively smaller mastaba superstructures set one on top of another. The pyramid's four sides soar 60m skyward and span 140m along the east-west axis and 118m along the north-south axis. With such great dimensions, unheard of to this point in Egyptian history, Djoser's pyramid dominates his large funerary complex which is impressive in itself. The complex includes an enclosure wall with an eastern entrance complex, south tomb, Heb-sed area, house of -the North and the South, Heb-sed chapels, upper temples and a serdab. Each of these component has a specific function to serve and maintain the cult of the king.
Djoser's enclosure imitates that of his father at Shunet el Zebib, near Abydos. While the father's monument marks our earliest standing mud-brick wall, the son's marks the first use of limestone for building material.
Djoser's successor, Sekhemkhet, attempted to build a large step pyramid southwest of Djoser. Sekhemkhet could be the Horus name of King Djoserty who ruled for only six years. The former Egyptian Chief Inspector at Saqqara,. Zakaria Goneim, found this pyramid, known as the Buried Pyramid, in 1951. Work continued here under Lauer in the 1960s. Sekhemkhet's enclosure is 545m long and 190-194m wide. Goneim discovered six courses of the outer casing of the enclosure's north wall reserved to a height of 3.10m The masonry is the same as that of Djoser's pyramid suggesting that Sekhemkhet's architect is none other than Imhotep. The pyramid's base is 120m long and presently raises to a height of 7m. Lauer found the south tomb of Sekhemkhet in 1965-67 and the upper temple on the north side of the pyramid.
Within the debris above the tomb's shaft, Goneim found a pit containing layers of bones and horns of dogs, rams, goats and oxen in addition to faience amulets and wooden animal figurines. Beneath all this lay 62 Demotic papyri dating to Dynasty XXVI. He also found several layers of cups, vases and plates made of alabaster, diorite, schist and porphyry; a gold case; 21 gold bracelets; an electrum needle; and 420 gilded faience beads, 32 gold tubes, and 388 gold beads. But the most interesting discovery was a number jars with mud stoppers, six of which had eight serekhs of Sekhemkhet.
Within the burial chamber lay an intact alabaster sarcophagus. Goneim was confused that the burial chamber was intact but the mummy was missing. Lauer believes that the sarcophagus had a wooden coffin inside and that the mummy was stolen. Goneim met a sad end. One day, after department officials had accused him of responsibility for the disappearance of an object from, the storeroom, he sat by the Nile and pushed himself into the waters. One week after his death, officials found the missing artifact.
Sekhemkhet's successor, Khaba, built the Layer Pyramid at Zawyet el-Arian, 7km north of Saqqara. Although described by many scholars, only Reisner and Fisher have excavated here in 1910. The pyramid's superstructure is typical of Dynasty III .and its substance is similar to that of Sekhemkhet. Now 16.17m high, we can estimate that, originally, the pyramid was about 45m high and had five steps. The burial chamber is located under the pyramid's centre. The king's body has not been found inside but he is identified based on stone bowls bearing the Horus name Khaba found in a nearby mastaba. The tomb artifacts and the pyramid's construction support a Dynasty III date, and it is our only example from this period.
About 1km to the northwest of the Layer Pyramid is the so-called Unfinished Pyramid. It now resembles a large hole but we can still discern a square room cut from the rock with, a sarcophagus inside the room. The ownership of this pyramid remains unidentified but some Egyptologists believe it belongs to Neferka (Re) Nebka while others believe it belongs to Djedefre of Dynasty IV.
In addition to these Saqqara complexes, there are seven other step pyramids in Egypt. Petrie found one at Sila in 1891, but knowledge of the owner came to light only in 1987-88 when N. Swelim, an Egyptian archaeologist working with Brigham Young University, uncovered two stelae bearing the name of King Snofru. Another step pyramid is located at Zawiet el Amwat at Minya, near the ancient site of Hbnw. Next is the Zenky Pyramid for Ahmose at Abydos, 5km from the great temple of Seti I. Then there is a series of step pyramids far to the south: at El-kola, about 200m southeast of Naga el Miamaria, Aswan; at El-gonamia near Edfu; at Elephantine and at Naqqada. The Zenky pyramid captured Vyse's attention in 1842, Maspero's in 1846, Capart's in 1946 and has been the subject of a modem study from 1962 until 1983. The pyramid of El-gonamia has been studied by Kaiser and Dreyer who also studied the Elephantine pyramid. The Naqqada pyramid, known as Nwit pyramid was first excavated by Petrie in 1896.
All these pyramids have the same construction: a core and two mastabas or, in the case of the Naqqada pyramid, three mastabas. All are made of limestone, and most are cased with it too, except for the Elephantine pyramid with its granite casing and the El-gonamia pyramid with its sandstone casing.
Despite their conventional appearance, these pyramids perplex Egyptologists. None sit within a cemetery and two of them, the Elephantine and Zawiet el Amwat pyramids, are not even built in the western desert. Moreover, these pyramids do not have burial chambers, passages or attached structures. Kaiser and Dreyer believe that they are symbols or towering monuments of the king's power in the province. They also attribute all the pyramids except Sila to Huni, the last king of Dynasty III because they found his name on a granite block at Elephantine. Other scholars believe that the pyramids represent the mounds of Horus, and Seth, which the Pyramid Texts mention as helping the king climb skyward. Other scholars believe that they represent the bebent or the primeval mound. Yet examining the structures themselves we see that the pyramids represent the king's palace or his resthouse which he used for the supervision of tax collection and provincial business.
Although Huni was prolific in pyramid construction, we now consider Snofru, the first ruler of Dynasty TV, as the great builder of the Old Kingdom because he built four great pyramids: one at Sila, one at Meidum, and the Bent and the North pyramids at Dahshur. The Meidum pyramid presents an interesting study. There is doubt that Snofru is its builder based on an inscription inside the mastaba near the pyramid. New Kingdom texts written on the complex indicate this ownership also. Furthermore, Meidum was known as Djed-Snofru, meaning "Snofru Endures." Stadelmann developed a scenario, now adopted by Lehner, that Snofru started the Meidurn pyramid. as a step pyramid and later returned at the end of his reign to transform it into a true pyramid. Thus, the Meidum pyramid represents the start and end of Snofru's reign.
In between these constructions at Meidum, Snofru moved to Dahshur in year 15 of his reign. Here his architect started the first true pyramid of Egypt. Indeed, with sides 183.5m long it would be much larger than any of the stepped pyramids; but during construction the architect faced many structural problems and he had no choice but to change the angle of his 54 degree slope, reducing it to 43degree21' and creating the so-called Bent Pyramid.
Mildelson believes that the Bent Pyramid and the Meidum Pyramid were constructed simultaneously. His theory supposes that the Dahshur architect had learned that the Meidum pyramid was collapsing and so decided to, change the angle at Dahshur. This theory has many factors against it: the Meidum pyramid was considered by Egyptians of the New Kingdom as a glory, and it seems that the collapse happened in the last century when farmers took stones to build modem constructions nearby.
Snofru then built a true large pyramid just 2km. North of the Bent Pyramid. Known as the Red or North Pyramid, its angles also measure 43 degrees. The pyramid's entrance is on the north side about 30m high. Stadelmann found a pyramidion here and remains of the upper temple. South of the Bent Pyramid is the satellite pyramid and the lower temple found by Fakhry.
In Snofru's last 15 years, he sent a crew to finish the Meidum pyramid as a true pyramid. The Meidum. pyramid stands as the only example in Egypt showing the. transition from the step pyramid to the true pyramid. Presently, the Meidum pyramid consists of a mound of debris and above it three step towers. Even in its ruinous state this structure dominates the plateau. I believe that Snofru built the Meidum pyramid as a lasting cenotaph to his reign.
