Cult and Pyramid Construction after Cheops

Cult and Pyramid Construction after Cheops

Never before or afterward in Egyptian history are the claims of divine kingship so powerfully expressed. That this could be completed in the twenty-three to twenty-six, or more likely thirty, years of his reign, is the result of the remarkable training of the managers, architects, and workers engaged in undertakings that had continued for half a century. This enabled the participants to accomplish astonishing achievements: the hollowing-out of rock beds to distances of 100 m; the preparation and storage of incredibly heavy stones to provide a constant supply for the teams of workers; the design of ramps and transport routes that cost a minimum in time and materials and which still did not hinder the continuing process of surveying as the pyramids rose upwards. The details of how this was done are still largely unknown, although recent research into pyramid building using models by the German Archeological Institute in Cairo (DAT) has resulted in small initial ramps that could later be adapted. Although mention is still made of hundreds of thousands of workers, slaves, and bonded laborers, it is clear that the narrow building sites did not leave sufficient room for such large numbers of people. Our calculations suggest a number of workers not exceeding 20,000—25,000: quarrymen and stonemasons, sappers and carriers, bricklayers and plasterers, suppliers and servers of food, and then many engineers and architects. With the estimated total population of Egypt at around two million people, their numbers would have lain just below one percent of people who spent the whole year round building the pyramids. The main population of the country was hardly affected by the pyramid-building program. Even the costs and material assets for the building and its teams of workers remain within reason with this percentage.

A new class of men and their families, professional members of the court, administrators, and craftsmen, occupied the towns that surrounded the palace and pyramids. They were employed as priests and officers of the mortuary temple. It is these people who shaped the state, and enabled it to achieve ever greater accomplishments.

For a better understanding of the pyramids we must distance ourselves once and for all from the positivist viewpoint of the nineteenth century, and remember that the construction of the pyramids, the layout of the tomb chambers and the form and size of the mortuary temple were determined by religious ceremonies and the needs of the cult and by nothing else. The burial chamber system inside the pyramid and the form of the mortuary temple outside are interrelated. A complicated arrangement of the burial chambers corresponds to simple architecture in the mortuary temple and vice versa. The size of a pyramid is in no way a measure of the power and position of its builder. So for example, Djedefre, the son and successor of Cheops, began building his pyramid on a much smaller scale, but in such a commanding position at Abu Roash (north of Giza) that it dominates the landscape because of its location in just the same way that Cheops’ pyramid does at Giza. Although unfinished, the mortuary temple of Djedefre was nevertheless adorned with many statues of the king of the highest quality.
This can be demonstrated more clearly by example of the complexes of Chephren and Mycerinus. Chephren was one of Cheops’ younger sons, and he came to the throne unexpectedly early after the death of his brother Djedefre. His pyramid was intended to equal the height of that of his father, which he achieved in fact through the choice of a slightly higher site and a steeper angle of slope. The system of chambers is so unusually simple that in the 1960s serious (but unsuccessful) attempts were made using the most modern scientific equipment to locate additional rooms. On the other hand, his pyramid temple and valley temple were very lavishly constructed.

In contrast, the burial chamber system in the considerably smaller pyramid of his son Mycerinus is characterized by an extraordinary succession of rooms that can only be compared with those in the Pyramid of Cheops. The chambers in the Mycerinus pyramid lead down into the solid rock, unlike those in the Cheops pyramid. But the mortuary temple of Mycerinus resembles that of Cheops in being dominated by a wide open court closed to the west by a chapel for offerings to the dead. Between Chephren and Mycerinus fits the four-year reign of Baka (Bikheris), one of Djedefre’s sons, who planned and started work on a large pyramid in Zawiyet el-Aryan.

The Pyramid of Cheops -Wonder of the Ancient World

The Pyramid of Cheops — Wonder of the Ancient World

Snefru’s son and successor thus benefited from the best examples he could have in order to plan an even more ambitious pyramid for his own tomb. In order to avoid another ruined building he settled on a solid rock foundation, which he found in a commanding position on the ridge above what is now Giza. The new royal palace was erected to the east.

The perfection of the proportions and construction of the superstructure exactly matches the planning of the system of corridors and chambers inside. To the present day, scholars have tried in a broadly positive spirit to attribute the pyramid’s three chambers to three successive changes in the design. But it does not do justice to the architects who designed and executed this unique building so perfectly to suggest that, in the essential element of the pyramid’s construction, that is the system of tomb chambers, they had proceeded without concept or design. Against this view is a conclusive argument in that the exterior construction and the layout of the chamber system work in perfect accord, and that neither inside nor out is there any suggestion of a change of plan. Recent research has shown that since the Thinite era royal tombs have had not just a single burial chamber but a series of three rooms or spaces, whose function has so far been only partially understood. Recently this realization has also provided evidence against pyramid mysticism, an epidemic of which is breaking out again, which suggests that hidden secrets, or even further treasure chambers, the “chambers of knowledge,” were built into the chamber system of the pyramid of Cheops.

The upper granite burial chamber stands more or less isolated in the interior of the pyramid. Five relief chambers with granite beams weighing up to forty tons served to relieve the pressure. The uppermost has a gabled roof of magnificent limestone blocks that rest on the stones of the core construction. In the relief chambers are to be found various pieces of graffiti by construction workers that name Cheops, the only authentic evidence of the builder found in this pyramid. From the middle of the south and north walls of the burial chamber — and in the same way from the middle chamber — mock corridors lead toward the southern and northern skies. They provide a direct route up to heaven for the deceased king’s soul. Previously these had been seen as ventilation shafts or telescopes for observing the skies. But it is certain that these corridors were originally sealed off and could only have served for the flight to heaven of the deceased king’s soul.

It is characteristic of the conservative beliefs of the ancient Egyptians that alongside the predominant theology centered on worship of the sun, older ideas about an underworld afterlife in the depths of the earth were tolerated. This “chthonic” (underworldly) aspect is manifested in the rock chamber cut 30 m deep into the solid ground underneath. The corridor on the east side of the rock chamber, which would have led to a southern tomb underneath the pyramid, was never completed, which is why Cheops later built a small southern pyramid on the southeast corner of his pyramid enclosure, only discovered and excavated a few years ago. The middle chamber has a statue niche on the east side for a ka statue of the king and, like the granite chamber has mock corridors leading to heaven. This chamber cannot ever have served as an actual burial chamber since it was not provided with a stone sarcophagus or a magical sealing by portcullises (stone plugs released from above in the entrance corridors). Through the inclusion of a closed cult area in the body of the pyramid, the precinct outside was reduced to the mortuary temple, of which today only the basalt paving remains. From the pattern of markings in the paving it can be seen that the temple once consisted of a broad court surrounded by columns and a chapel for mortuary offerings. Also added late, and only after the south tomb in the rock beneath the pyramid had been abandoned, was a small cult pyramid in the southeast corner of the complex. Fragments of statues of limestone and other stones are evidence of its rich decoration. The necropolis was planned just as precisely and carefully as the pyramid complex itself. Five shafts in the rock to the east and south of the pyramid once contained funerary barques — not solar barques — for Cheops. Both of the shafts to the south were originally found sealed. The eastern shaft contained a royal ship complete with rudder and rigging, broken into over 1,200 pieces. Now reassembled, it measures 43.40 m long. The other barque burial has not yet been opened, although recently video images were taken through a bore hole that show that the ship it contains has been badly damaged by conditions underground. Undoubtedly both ships provided transport for the king while he was alive and were to be at his disposal in the afterlife. These are not the only ships found in this way. As early as the First and Second Dynasties, kings were provided with ships for the afterlife. To the east also lie three small pyramids, one to the king’s mother Hetepheres, main consort of Snefru, who outlived him and died in her son’s palace at Giza and was buried there; and the others to the two main queens, Meretites and Henutsen, mothers of Cheops’ sons and successors, Djedefre and Chephren. The illegitimate sons and daughters of the king were given huge, solid double mastabas to the east of the queens’ pyramids. High court officials, the architects and even prince Hemiunu, the influential building manager of the pyramids, were given tombs in the west cemetery.

The king himself was involved in the form of the tomb chapels and their decoration, which is limited to scenes of the most important offerings. These form a unique representation in monumental form of state and society, in the strict hierarchies of the royal court and in the imaginary world of the king’s afterlife, in order that they might forever serve him. They are also recipients of royal largesse and offerings from the central royal mortuary temple.

We know as little about the person of Cheops as we do of other kings of the Old Kingdom. The critique of his reign and achievements handed down by Herodotus is a purely Greek reaction to architecture that towers above everything on a human scale, and which for a Greek could only signal mortal hubris. That he was Snefru’s son, we know only from the chance find of tomb equipment of his mother Hetepheres in a shaft burial at Giza. When she died, the queen was initially buried in this shaft tomb, while her pyramid, the northernmost of the queens’ pyramids, was being completed to the east of the pyramid of Cheops. Cheops is one of the younger generation of Snefru’s sons and was probably born when Dahshur was in the middle of its building program, which would mean that he came to the throne when he was about 25—30 years old. By this time, his older brothers the princes Nefermaat and Rahotep, who were the architects of the pyramids at Meidum and Dahshur, were already dead.

The Reign of Snefru

The Reign of Snefru

The Pyramid Age begins around 2640 BC, with the long reign of Snefru, first king of the Fourth Dynasty; this was the most magnificent and magical period of Egyptian culture. In addition to architecture, the arts of relief sculpture and painting reach their absolute high points. Moreover, in the natural sciences and medicine, the foundations of
knowledge and practice were laid that would remain valid for centuries, right into the Greek era. The belief in the sun god Re, creator of all things, dominated Egyptian religion, ethics, state, and society, which became open and receptive to those with the skills to work on great projects. These individuals formed the new class of “scribes” who were
trained in the practical and theoretical management of the state. This group admitted princes alongside those who had risen by their merits. As guarantor of this system, the sun god Re gives power to the king, whose divinity consisted not in himself; but in his role as ruler. He is the “benign God,” the god of the necropolis that it is his task to construct. Snefru’s Horus name means “Lord of the world order,” a title that later applies only to the sun god Re. Snefru’s son Cheops identified himself with the sun god to such an extent in his pyramid complex and tomb that his sons and successors referred to themselves by the new royal title, “Son of Re.”

Contemporary sources for Snefru’s ancestry and character are rare. His mother Meresankh was probably a secondary queen of Huni, last king of the Third Dynasty, but the male ancestors of kings of the Old Kingdom are never mentioned directly because the king is by nature of divine parentage.
Besides his large pyramid structures, the principal achievements of the reign of Snefru were the campaigns in Nubia and Libya that brought substantial booty in both cattle and men. These were settled in thirty-five new royal estates in the Faiyum and in the Delta. Additional achievements that can be linked to this period include the construction of a new royal palace, possibly near Dahshur, with tall gateways of cedar wood, intensive ship building, the manufacture of life-sized royal statues in copper and gold, and an extremely large wooden harp.
Astonishingly, the building of the pyramids is not mentioned in contemporary documents, although it must have been the main event that took place during a king’s reign. The building of a pyramid, along with the temple ceremonies, the performance of daily rituals that guaranteed the rising and setting of the sun, the passage of the seasons and the arrival of the Nile floods, is such a fundamental part of the king’s natural lifetime task that it hardly needed mentioning. Besides, Snefru was without doubt the most impressive builder of the ancient world, constructing three large and two smaller pyramids in his long reign, using more than 3.6 million cubic metres of stone: one million more than his son Cheops used in his Great Pyramid at Giza. Nonetheless he is known in Egyptian tradition as a good, indeed excellent king, who addressed his subordinates, according to folk tales, as “friend” or even “brother.”

The shape of the pyramid complex changed, under the influence of sun worship, from being a north—south-oriented rectangle into a square east—west complex, directed towards the rising sun. The east- west siting emphasizes a new element in the layout of the pyramid complex: the long causeway. It leads from the east, the land of the living, up to the pyramid tomb, ending at the mortuary temple that from this time onwards lies to the east of the pyramid. The entrance gate to the causeway develops into a valley temple, cult center of the pyramid town, in which the goddess Hathor and the king were worshipped as local deities.


The Pyramids of Snefru

Snefru built his first two pyramids, still in the form of step pyramids, at Meidum. A small, solid step pyramid formed a towering landmark above his palace at Seila, on the eastern edge of the Faiyum. His first full pyramid complex, 10 km to the east, includes a huge step pyramid, which was enlarged in a second building phase to the tremendous height of 85 m, and still dominates the view of the Nile Valley. Toward the end of his long reign Snefru “modernized” this pyramid, changing its form into that of a true pyramid.
Just as the form of the step pyramid had its roots in the preceding Third Dynasty, there were other innovations influenced by the orientation of the pyramid complex toward the sun’s course, mentioned above, and in the system of tomb chambers. Among the cult buildings of the new pyramid complex the only reminders of the Djoser complex are the mortuary temple and the south tomb, which was constructed like the king’s tomb as a small step pyramid directly to the south of the main pyramid. Certainly there is no true mortuary temple in Meidum, since the king was not to be buried there, but to the east of the pyramid lies a stela shrine with two stelae, which replace and physically represent the king. The tomb chamber system in the pyramid also differs from those of the Third Dynasty. The tomb chamber is no longer sunk deep into the subterranean shaft, but lies raised above the rock in the body of the pyramid. The entrance, or exit, on the other hand lies on the north side from now on, and remains in this position throughout the Old Kingdom. Through the tomb corridor leading up from the rock deep underground, the king would ascend to the everlasting stars in the northern sky, in order to meet the sun god in his barque there. The beginnings of a three-chamber system can be seen in the tombs of the First Dynasty: a tomb chamber proper, as well as two subsidiary chambers, which initially served to store the most important offerings for the deceased king. In the tomb of Djoser, the ante- and side-chambers were already conceived as having a religious function. Thus the ascent to the stars begins from the antechamber, and it is for this reason that the portcullis stones are decorated with stars. The eastern galleries of the “blue chambers” are the model palace for the afterlife. In the Fourth Dynasty the horizontal arrangement of the chambers is replaced by a vertical system, of which the Pyramid of Cheops provides the ultimate example.

At Meidum a trend was set by laying out a royal cemetery in regular rows to the northeast of the pyramids with the double mastabas of Snefru’s Sons and their wives. A huge single mastaba stands right by the northeast corner of the pyramid complex and thus in an important position. This was apparently built in a hurry and contains the burial of a nameless prince, probably the crown prince who died young in the early years of Snefru’s reign. We can only speculate as to the reasons why in the fifteenth year of his reign Snefru should have abandoned his palace and the nearly complete pyramid at Meidum, and begun again nearly 50 km north, building a palace and a pyramid near Dahshur. Possibly it proved difficult to control the colonization of the Nile Delta and the trade routes from far away Middle Egypt. The new site near Dahshur, on the other hand, was very convenient. A natural basin for the harbor ensured the development of the region. To the east a trade route led to Sinai, and a wadi led to the western oases, and to the Faiyum. Conveniently sited limestone quarries for building material lay on both sides of the Nile.

A new opportunity was found for the now-idle workers and specialists in a bold undertaking that was to build a towering pyramid without steps, and with a gradient almost as steep as that of the stepped pyramid, to the extraordinary height of about 150 m.

It needs emphasizing here that the development from a step pyramid to the pure geometrical form of the pyramid proper is absolutely not inevitable. None of the other ancient cultures that built step pyramids made this advance. The progression from assembling step- shaped masses to form an artificial hill to the abstract geometrical form of the pyramid is a remarkable intellectual achievement that was the result of an extraordinary and unique gamble in the time of Snefru. Bold improvements were also made in the tomb chambers in the new pyramid, which because of its present form is known as the “Bent Pyramid.” These were to have corbelled vaults, conceived at Meidum and perfected here, up to a height of 15 m. The ensuing alterations necessitated by subsidence and damage during construction resulted in a chamber system in this pyramid that is extraordinarily complicated and difficult to follow.

According to earlier religious descriptions of the king’s afterlife, this took place deep in the underworld. For this reason the lowest of the three tomb chambers had to lie deep into the rock, as in the tomb of Djoser. The upward slope of the tomb corridor is also determined by the requirement for an undeviating passage up to the circumpolar stars. It therefore needed to begin deep in the rock below ground in order to lead to the desired exit, a short distance up the north face of the pyramid. The middle chamber is connected with the king’s ascent to heaven, which is in turn represented by the tomb chamber above, although the ascent also actually lies in the direction followed by the tomb corridor.

In order to facilitate the excavation of a shaft of about 7 by 7 m and
22.5 m deep, a layer of marl and slate was put down first as at Saqqara.
However, this was not adequate to support the weight of the stones.
As the pyramid grew upward sizeable cracks appeared in the three
chambers and in the corridor, and initially it was felt sufficient to repair these by filling. It became clear very quickly, however, that both the lower chambers and the entrance corridor were seriously damaged and could not be saved by any further alterations. Eventually all attempts at repair — even giving up the lower chamber and reducing the pyramid’s angle of slope—proved useless. After fifteen years of building work the boldest of all pyramid projects had to be abandoned. Snefru began work on building a third pyramid.

The step pyramid at Meidum was modernized at the same time, and altered into a true pyramid. For the third of Snefru’s great pyramids, the “Red Pyramid” at north Dahshur, the ground underneath was probably first tested, and the area increased to 220 m along the sides, and it was decided to employ a flatter angle of slope (45 The method of building in layers, which in the construction of a true pyramid brought no economy of labor, was rejected and replaced by horizontal courses of stone. After the pyramids of Cheops and Chephren, the “Red Pyramid” is still the third largest, reaching 105 m in height. Everything about this building contributes to a harmonious, reserved and majestic effect. The system of chambers is also harmonious and easy to follow because they are laid out one behind the other. They are set only just below ground, and reached by an exit in the north wall nearly 30 m above ground, something that must have greatly inconvenienced the introduction of the funeral ceremony and the final blocking off of the corridor.

The foundations of a hastily completed mortuary temple in front of the east side of the pyramid, and the sad remains of a mummified corpse that were found in the tomb chamber, suggest that Snefru was eventually buried in this pyramid. The princes and princesses of the last years of Snefru’s reign are buried in great stone mastabas in the eastern area in front of the two pyramids at Dahshur. These are massive rectangles of stone with smooth exterior walls. Only the east side seems originally to have had two niches, the more southerly of which bore the names of the deceased and perhaps a false door panel. In a small court to the front were possibly displayed two stelae with names and titles. Even the principal queen of this period, probably queen Hetepheres, had only a modest undecorated mastaba. She was, however, not buried in Dahshur but later in Giza, in her son Cheops’
cemetery.

Under Snefru a period of construction lasting nearly fifty years brought remarkable advances in building techniques: in masonry, tunneling, the transport of stone and in structural engineering. The bitter experience of catastrophic collapse due to unstable ground led to extreme caution in the choice of sites. The organization and logistics of a building site profited from the experience of twice relocating the pyramid-building towns. The need for building materials, special types of stone, wood and copper for tools and equipment stimulated expeditions and trade with countries to the north. This brought greater awareness of the surrounding area. The civil service also grew in experience through its varied tasks and became an efficient instrument of central government.

Royal Tombs from the Age of the Pyramids

Royal Tombs from the Age of the Pyramids

Until recently the transition from the Thinite era to the Old Kingdom seemed to have been marked by distinct political changes, and to have been a cultural turning point. However, new research into the tombs in the cemeteries of Abydos and Saqqara shows us that there was neither a dynastic change nor a cultural breakthrough. It appears from seal impressions that Djoser, first king of the Third Dynasty, brought provisions for and sealed up the tomb in Abydos of Khasekhemui, the last king of the Second Dynasty. Several kings from the beginning of the Second Dynasty had already sited their tombs — spacious galleried complexes with massive superstructures in the central area of Saqqara, the royal cemetery of the Third Dynasty. Khasekhemui — Djoser’s father or father-in-law — seems to have had both a large tomb at Abydos and an enormous gallery tomb in the form of a “Buto-type” mastaba in Saqqara. The troubling tendency for single rulers to have two or more tombs is encountered frequently in Egyptian history, and it cannot be satisfactorily explained by interpretations of some of these structures as cenotaphs, or memorials.

For the ancient Egyptians the preservation of the entire body was undoubtedly an essential and fundamental condition for life after death. Besides this there were, early on, other ritual totems for preserving the deceased king’s physical presence and spirituality. These are, in order of importance: the portrait statue, the royal stela, and the royal tomb. These various images and different homes for the deceased king — mummy, statue, stela, pyramid, and tomb — were first brought together in monumental architectural form in about 2680 BC in the tomb precinct ofDjoser, constructed in view of the royal palace.

To this extent the reign of Djoser marks an important watershed, the start of a magical period, in which Egypt emerges from its dark early history, and the brilliance of the Old Kingdom begins: the Age of the Pyramids. This is how the Egyptians themselves saw it, and in Pjoser’s reign they recognized a real beginning, a new era, although the ancient Egyptian view of life was in fact cyclical rather than historical. It was seen as a succession of recurring events, as in nature, structured by annual festivals and the royal jubilees.

In one of the few pseudo-historical documents from ancient Egypt, known as the “Turin Royal Papyrus,” from the beginning of the Nine-teenth Dynasty — a list of kings with their dates — the name of Djoser is given special emphasis by the addition of a brief summary. That Djoser should be valued and honored in this way thousands of years later stems not, interestingly enough, from the political union or pacification of the country, or from foreign conquests, but from the fact that he was regarded as the initiator of monumental stone architecture, a role that historically he shares with his son and chief architect Imhotep.

Rough blocks of stone were occasionally employed in and on tombs of the Archaic Period, but Djoser and Imhotep discovered worked stone as a building material and with it created the first monumental architecture, buildings whose forms and symbols gave shape to the state of Egypt. In the stone buildings and courts, which were now “everlasting” thanks to the material, the idea was that the deified king should continue to celebrate, as was his lifetime role as ruler, the rituals and cult practices that ensured the preservation of the world order established by the gods. With death and deification this became his eternal task. Each king therefore had to construct his own tomb precinct and his own pyramid as palace for the next world, and as representation of the eternal Egypt of the afterlife.

This remarkable representation in stone of a state philosophy did not come about suddenly or arise out of nothing. By the reign of Djoser, Egypt had existed as a single country for several hundred years. With unification the old nomadic ways of the leading Upper Egyptian tribes of the First Dynasty were intermingled with the more settled, architectural culture of the peoples of the Delta region.

The different cultural traditions and contrasting geographical realities found their expression in funerary architecture. In the relatively narrow river valley of Upper Egypt the tombs lie mainly on the edge of the desert on either side of the Nile, protected from the annual floods. The earliest are shallow grave pits with a sand tumulus that rises just above the level of the desert. By contrast, the tombs of the earliest ruling class of the more urban state of Lower Egypt could only be built on the higher ground of inhabited sand banks, and deep shafts were ruled out due to the level of groundwater. The tomb was protected by its superstructure. From this feature developed a form of house-tomb with exterior walls decorated with niches, the “Buto-type” mastaba.

It can be shown that this type of tomb first appeared in a princely burial in Naqada and in the large niche mastabas at Saqqara from the beginning of the First Dynasty, which appear there suddenly in the reign of Hor Aha. These are refined tomb buildings of the Lower Egyptian house-tomb type, with massive, virtually solid superstructures, up to 50 m or 100 Egyptian cubits long, 15—20 m or 30—40 cubits wide, and over 5 m or 10 cubits high. Their whitewashed facades, punctuated by niches, were a magnificent display of royal presence above the northern cliffs of Saqqara. If they were not royal tombs or cenotaphs, then they were surely the tomb buildings of queens and the highest princes, impressive power architecture of the ruling dynasty.


The Mortuary Complex of Djoser

Before Djoser’s mortuary complex there were differences in use of space between the Upper Egyptian royal tombs of Abydos and those in the Lower Egyptian royal cemetery. Djoser took forms that had developed in the separate regions through geographical and cultural differences, and combined them harmoniously in one complex and in a single tomb building. Superficially, it was dominated by the form and arrangement of palace tombs of the “Buto-type” mastaba. Thus far, scholars have sought to explain the origins of the Djoser precinct by a very abstract concept, namely as a construction that combines the two types that had existed alongside one another in Abydos for generations: the valley complex and the so-called tumuli of Abydos. However, since it became known that the Abydos royal tombs were not in fact burial mounds of any substantial height, but were covered by no more than a rather unattractive sand bank barely rising above the desert, this theory has become distinctly questionable. Far more likely is that in the construction of the Djoser complex, nearby tomb buildings in the royal cemetery of Saqqara, the “Buto-type” mastabas of the First and Second Dynasties, were used as a model. Although we know little about the character of Djoser from contemporary sources — the only reliable information we possess are his buildings, his statue, and the reliefs depicting him — it seems nevertheless possible that he was responsible for the innovative concept of royal palace for the afterlife. He would have been supported by his kindred spirit, the architect Imhotep.

Recent experimental research into the layout of the building has shown that the tomb precinct was not originally conceived on such a gigantic and all-encompassing scale, but that it grew over a period of more than twenty years in several building phases, with alterations to the layout. At first the complex was to have been about half its size, extending 300 m from north to south, and 113 m east to west, but with the actual architectural elements already laid out and partially completed. The elements built in the first stage of construction included the 10.5 m-high stone enclosure wall with niched panels, the royal tomb with a mortuary temple to the north, the south tomb above the southern enclosure wall with a chapel, the facade of which has a distinctive frieze of uraeus cobras, the great ceremonial court between these two tomb buildings and the small ceremonial court in the eastern part. An important distinction between this and earlier royal tombs is the relatively precise orientation of the whole site to the four cardinals (the four compass points); the variation from the north—south axis, as it was then, was no more than 3°. The boundaries were marked by tall stelae bearing the names of Djoser and his queens, with the protective figure of the mortuary god Anubis. The superstructure of the king’s tomb was planned from the very beginning as a three-tiered step mastaba that, like the south tomb, was oriented east—west; this had the effect of enclosing the great ceremonial courts to the south and north between the high buildings. Only in a second construction phase, when the three-tiered mastaba with the king’s tomb and the south tomb were already nearly complete, was the superstructure of the mastaba converted into a stepped pyramid. In one of the earliest phases this was to consist of four tiers. This plan, as one can see on the east side where the structure lies open, did not develop beyond the first two tiers of the mastaba, at which point it was decided to extend the structure in breadth and height into a six-tiered pyramid 62.5 m in height.

The alteration of the step mastaba into a stepped pyramid gave the king’s tomb its exceptional prominence within the entire tomb complex. In contrast, the shape of the south tomb remained as an elongated east—west-oriented mastaba, only just rising above the south perimeter wall. The presence of two tombs in one precinct with largely identical underground structures is one of the unexplained peculiarities of the Djoser complex. The fact that this double pattern carries on in the southern pyramids of later pyramid precincts does not simplify interpretation. Both burial chambers are built from large granite blocks at the bottom of a 28 m-deep shaft. Because of its internal dimensions, only the granite chamber under the north tomb can have served as a burial place. Various objects were discovered there in the last century including the gilded skullcap of Djoser. The tomb chamber of the south tomb, on the other hand, was too small; it was empty and without trace of a burial. Most likely that chamber contained a transportable, gilded wooden statue that was regarded as equivalent in importance to the body of the deceased king. Nevertheless, the south tomb, which was found empty, was sealed in a similar manner to the tomb underneath the pyramid where the king’s body was buried. The entrance to the granite chamber was through a round opening, which was sealed from above by a granite plug weighing several tons, and which must have been suspended in the antechamber up until the burial. The burial chambers are connected by a system of underground galleries that served to store the enormous quantities of provisions for the afterlife. On the east side of the shafts of both tombs a second system of galleries branches off to form a rectangular gallery around a section of solid rock. The walls of the galleries were decorated with blue-green glazed tiles.

A series of eleven shafts on the east side of the step mastaba led 30 m deep into galleries underneath the king’s tomb. The royal family would have been interred in these, although only the five northernmost galleries were found to have been lined with stone or wood; several alabaster sarcophaguses were found for the burial of children, but no queen. The six southern galleries, on the other hand, were filled with incredible numbers (approximately 40,000) of stone vessels of varying shapes and containing a variety of different materials, among which were a number of vases bearing the names of kings of the First and Second Dynasties.

The raising up and widening of the original step mastaba into a six-tiered pyramid meant increasing the size of the ground plan and building over the mortuary temple to the north of the pyramid, and over the passageway into the tomb. To build a new mortuary temple in appropriate proportions, the complex had to be extended to the north and a court was needed for the delivery of offerings and provisions. A monumental altar, on which the offerings were brought each day to be consecrated, dominates the new north court. The entrance to the mortuary temple and the offerings place was guarded by a small chapel, leaning against the north side of the pyramid, known as the serdcth. In this building was found the only surviving life-size statue of Djoser, which is an impressive image of the inaccessibility and divine dignity of the king in his afterlife.

When the complex was enlarged it took in on the west side an elongated structure that was hitherto regarded as a magazine, though this is very probably the Lower Egyptian tomb of Khasekhemui, last king of the Second Dynasty. The inclusion of this structure demonstrates the idiosyncrasies of Djoser and Imhotep in their design. The Djoser complex is not merely a model of the royal palace, as was previously assumed, but a representation in stone of Egypt in the afterlife. The south and north tombs are symbols for the royal cemetery of Abydos as well as of the Lower Egyptian palace. They are the religious centers of the royal cult. The south court that they enclose and the chapels of the small ceremonial court in the eastern section represent the land of Egypt and its shrines, the world of the living, which is the setting for the eternal cult ceremonies of the king. The north court symbolizes the wealthy marshes of the Delta, standing metaphorically for the offering place of the northern heaven; the western area with the elongated niche tomb symbolizes the “holy realm,” the world of the dead. This stone image of Egypt in the afterlife is surrounded by a tall enclosure wall, which protects it from the chaos of the unordered world. This wall has as many as 15 gateways, yet only one functions as an entrance. Through its precise orientation to the north, following the course of the Nile, the complex is linked to the axis of the world, whose pole is the pyramid with the royal tomb, the palace of eternity.

This impressive invention of an everlasting Egypt in the afterlife developed gradually over a long period of construction. For the time being it must remain an open question whether the mere nineteen years given as the reign of Djoser in the “Turin Royal Papyrus” would have been sufficient to achieve this, or whether we need to double his years, which would be quite consistent with Old Kingdom ways of counting.

Djoser ‘s Successors

None of Djoser’s successors from the Third Dynasty completed his own tomb. Yet they made advances in construction techniques and brought clarity to the division of the underground magazines. The number of the courts was reduced, and they attempted to construct higher step pyramids. The mortuary complex of Djoser’s son or grandson, Sekhemket, was first discovered in the 1950s at Saqqara, to the southwest of the Djoser complex. The tomb chamber contained a coffin that was apparently closed though empty, and which had probably been robbed in antiquity. Another, very much eroded step pyramid from the Third Dynasty stands 10 km further north, in Zawiyet el-Aryan. Huni, the last king of the dynasty, built a series of small, solid, step pyramids from Elephantine in the south to Athribis in the Delta; not pyramids with tombs, but royal monuments, as if they were towers for his palaces. His actual burial place has not yet been found. It is sometimes claimed that Huni began the step pyramid of Meidum, and that Snefru, first king of the Fourth Dynasty, completed it for him, although this thesis is no longer tenable. Huni’s presence is not documented there. His tomb must have been in the region of Saqqara, where high officials of his time were buried. Besides this we can tell from graffiti on buildings and from inscriptions that during the Old and Middle Kingdoms no king finished a pyramid for his predecessor or took it over for himself.

The Political History of the Third to Eighth Dynasties

The Political History of the Third to Eighth Dynasties

At the end of the Thinite Period (the First and Second Dynasties),
which concluded the early history of Egypt, the country’s political and economic center was finally fixed in the Memphis area. The distinguishing outward mark of the Old Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties) consists of the gigantic pyramid tombs of its kings, appearing to defy time and decay. With some justice, the Old Kingdom may be called the age of the pyramids. However, behind the monumental stature of the pyramids themselves, suggesting the idea of huge power apparently concentrated solely on the person of the king, stands the will of an elite surrounding him. The prevailing economic system of the Old Kingdom was expressed in these buildings and the necropolises and pyramid towns attached to them. The striving for continued existence in the afterlife made provision for all members of the state community in this life and the next a necessity, and the king was at the center of this system of provision. He had power over the country, its inhabitants and its produce. He delegated that power to his officials, who in their turn were responsible for the people and property entrusted
to their care. In the form of so-called “endowments to the dead,” the
powers thus delegated made provision in the immaterial world for the
deceased official, and material provision for those to whom his funerary cult was entrusted. At the same time, all subjects had a part in the provision made by the royal funerary cult. Step by step, and parallel to the growing number of institutionalized cults in the country, such provision, at first limited to the capital, came to include the inhabitants of distant provinces. Extensive economic and religious developments lie behind the volume of building and the changes in the planning and location of the pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom.

The Person of the Pharaoh in the Old Kingdom

The few available written sources for the early Old Kingdom do not
enable us to draw any conclusions about the individual characteristics
of the various kings. Later tradition portrayed some rulers, like Snefru, as good and others, like Cheops, as bad and cruel. These attributions need be taken no more seriously than similar evaluations in our own time. The queens were initially members of the royal house them- selves; only in the later Old Kingdom were wives taken from the class of officials. Some of them assumed the responsibility for rule, since they ensured the succession.
The Development of Internal Policy in the Old Kingdom

The concentration of officials around the king was connected with the
extension of the royal funerary complex. Provincial chieftains were
replaced by civil servants sent out from the capital and controlled by
it. Royal domains set up in the provinces — small economic units such as craft workshops, farming settlements, and fishing villages — delivered their products directly to the capital. The administrative regions were systematically organized. At the end of the Third Dynasty, under Pharaoh Huni, and the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Snefru, the construction throughout the country of small cult pyramids, not divided into chambers, was connected with these new royal domains: this is how the cult presence of the ruler was transferred to the provinces. The first provincial temples were dedicated under Mycerinus, and an increasing number of royal endowments was made available to the sacred complexes there.

During the Fourth Dynasty the army was commanded by royal princes. They led quarrying expeditions and supervised garrisons posted in the south (Elephantine) and the east (Heliopolis, Bubastis, the “Gate of Imhotep” where the trade route to Palestine began). Initially, the viziers who dispensed justice at this period were also drawn from their ranks. The kings of the Fifth Dynasty, descended from a family living north of Giza, concentrated on building temples to the sun, and the volume of complexes devoted to the cult of the dead at Abusir was considerably reduced. These building complexes were now economically supported by the sun temples. Decentralization of the administration increased; even the viziers no longer had to be of princely rank. With Pharaoh Unas (ca. 2360 BC), a new family, perhaps from the Delta, came to power in unknown circumstances. The building of sun temples abruptly ceased, and the pyramid complex of Abusir was abandoned in favor of Saqqara. Now that the new god of the dead, Osiris, guaranteed religious transfiguration and provision for humanity, it was possible for an official to be interred outside the capital, in the provinces. Provincial administrative centres flourished. Abydos, the main center of the cult of Osiris, became the seat of the governor of Upper Egypt; the royal temple of Osiris—Khontamenti was fortified by royal decree.

Crucial reforms were carried out during the extremely long reign of Pepi II. The seat of the governor of Upper Egypt changed several times. Coptos, with its temple of Min, gained importance, and Thebes became the administrative center of the south. However, internal power struggles and murder at court (briefly placing one Nitocris, sister of Pepi II, on the throne in 2218 BC) destroyed the infrastructure of the country and its supply network. The rulers who succeeded each other in Memphis in a series of brief reigns faced chaos in Upper Egypt: the region was splintering into several small, warring principalities. It was only with difficulty that the rulers in Memphis succeeded in restoring an administrative system that was generally acceptable to all parties. Nonetheless, the Memphite rulers were soon replaced by princes from Herakleopolis at the point of entrance to the Faiyum.
The Development of Foreign Policy in the Old Kingdom
Egypt had no external threats to fear during the Old Kingdom. However; n was well aware of the activities of the princes of the Nubian and south Palestinian regions, and kept a close watch on them. The annual festival rite in which the pharaoh repeated the ritual conquest of his enemies from all four quarters of the earth was a metaphorical way of asserting the superiority of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. Potential enemies were magically destroyed by the ritual smashing of clay figurines. The purpose of foreign relations was to secure the trade routes and the necessary imports of raw materials. The increase in the building activities of the kings led to greater exploitation of sources of raw materials both at home and abroad, for instance the quarrying of calcite alabaster in Central Egypt, graywacke in the eastern desert at Wadi Hammamat, and basalt at Gebel Qatrani north of Lake Qarun in the Faiyum.

At the beginning of the Old Kingdom, probably under Djoser, copper mining was resumed in Wadi Maghara in the Sinai. The mining of its byproduct, turquoise, at Serabit el-Khadim must have begun not long after this time. Military control of the bedouin of the Sinai was a prerequisite of the industry.

Traditionally, timber for building was brought to Egypt from the harbors of the Levant, particularly Byblos. The construction of the necessary transport ships is repeatedly mentioned in the Egyptian annals. Numerous Egyptian items inscribed with royal names and donated to the temple of the Near Eastern goddess Baalat at Bvblos,
linked here with the Egyptian goddess Hathor, indicate peaceful trade
relations with that city. Egyptian objects have also been found at the
trading center of Ebla (Tell Mardikh). Representations of stags and
bears in royal mortuary temples of the Fifth Dynasty suggest gifts from foreign countries. A delivery of incense from Punt, somewhere in present-day Somalia or Eritrea, is mentioned for the first time in the reign of Sahura (ca. 2490 BC). Military actions were also frequently undertaken to secure trade interests.

Toward the end of the Fifth Dynasty, tomb decoration begins to
show scenes depicting the conquest of Asiatic cities, seagoing vessels
with Asiatic crews, and nomads of emaciated appearance. It is difficult to imagine that actual events such as battles in southern Palestine lay behind these subjects. Under Pepi I, however, at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty, an attempt was made to extend Egyptian control to that area. Egyptian armies conducted several campaigns against bedouin “sand dwellers,” and went as far as a mountain they called “Nose of the Gazelle,” probably Mount Carmel in Palestine.

There was a campaign on a smaller scale against Libyan tribes in
the reign of Snefru (ca. 2620 BC), in which 1,100 prisoners were taken. The trade routes in the south and in the western oasis were again threatened by armed Libyan raiders around 400 years later. As a result, an Egyptian “controller of oases” was specially stationed in Dakhla.

Also in Snefru’s reign, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, the
records mention Egyptian campaigns in the south. Some 20,000 soldiers invaded Lower Nubia, stealing cattle and allegedly taking 17,000 prisoners in one campaign, and 7,000 more in another; the captives were put to work as laborers or auxiliary police. However, the large number of soldiers deployed casts light on the Egyptian plan to keep soldiers permanently stationed in the south and to build new fortresses, for instance at Buhen. This policy meant that the trade routes, the stone quarries and gold supplies from Wadi Allaqi in the eastern desert, and the quarries of hard stone in the west, could all be supervised.

Under Pharaoh Izezi (ca. 2405—2367 BC) there is evidence for the
first time of an expedition going even farther south. Bartered trade products such as skins, ivory, and incense — and a dancing dwarf for the royal residence — probably came from the land of Yam in the Dongola basin. Caravan leaders from Elephantine ventured on this dangerous journey through the desert with the aid of native bedouin, interpreters, and soldiers. The route that could be traveled by donkey was known as the Oasis Road. By way of Bahriya, Dakhla and the small oases of Kurkur, Selima, and Dungul, it led to the region south of the third cataract.

The princes of Lower Nubia, themselves threatened by bedouin
raids, basically supported Egyptian policy, and even supplied contingents of men for the campaigns in Asia at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. The threat to the trade routes increased only toward the end of the Sixth Dynasty. Under Pepi II, there was further fighting against intruders in Lower Nubia, and three expeditions to Yam were undertaken. A series of reports gives a clear idea of these eventful journeys. One expedition leader had to bring home to Elephantine the body of his father, who had died in southern Egypt, and the bedouin killed another expedition leader who was building ships by the Red Sea. As a result, trade with the interior of Africa soon ceased entirely.

The Culture of the Elite at the Capital

The Culture of the Elite at the Capital

The lavish nature of the grave goods preserved at Saqqara casts light on this group’s lifestyle, a way of life very different indeed from that of the majority of Egyptians. They include furnishings and utensils of ivory and fine woods, ornamented with delicate carving, stone vessels in ornate forms, items sometimes elaborately constructed from parts consisting of various different materials. Large numbers of ceramic storage vessels to hold food suggest a life of luxury. These items bring to light for the first time the living conditions of the elite at the capital, and it was from those conditions that the culture of the Old Kingdom would spring.

Even more important in the context of funerary architecture is the development of major art forms. The thematic patterns and iconographic conventions of canonical art had already taken broad shape in the period of the unification of the two lands. At the time, as in the prehistoric period, pictorial design featured on everyday utensils, although some works already approached monumental form. The temple statues of Coptos pointed the way to the major artistic genres of a later date, and the process was greatly accelerated in the Early Dynastic period. Freestanding tomb stelae and stelae on false doors, as well as funerary statues, not only gave rise to important genres in the visual arts but defined their function and the situations in which they would be employed.

The Internal Structure of the State

The social structure of the early period, first perceptible in the tombs of the elite, and the elite culture expressing itself in those tombs, was based on an advanced state organization evident chiefly in the activities of the administration.

The first factor to be mentioned here is the development of the
hieroglyphic script. We now know that markings incised and inscribed in ink on vessels go back at least to the Naqada III Period, and related labeling systems would continue in dynastic times side by side with hieroglyphic script. Independent in its origin, the form of its signs, and its systematic structure, Egyptian hieroglyphic script must be recognized as standing apart from other early scripts. The oldest sphere in which it and its earlier forms were used was the administration. Names of goods, information about their quality, dimensions, and quantity, names of institutions, the names and titles of officials, and so on could all be set down in writing, creating documentary records of economic circumstances and institutional structures. Through the new medium, information could be stored and passed on, so that economic transactions were no longer restricted by the limitations of personal memory and direct communication.

At about the same time, however, the possibilities of the script were also being employed in art. Here it was used to identify people, places and situations, and again, consequently, only a few nouns were noted down, the great majority of them names. Consecutive narrative texts describing events or complex circumstances were not written down until the time of the Old Kingdom.

The oldest papyrus roll dates from the First Dynasty, so even then there was nothing to prevent the composition of long documents. Unfortunately no one wrote on this roll. All we have are notes made by the officials themselves on labels, inscriptions, and seal impressions. A description of the nature and origin of the goods was inadequate for labeling foodstuffs: the date had to be recorded as well, and it is here that we find the first evidence of dating years. At first they were not counted but named individually by reference to particular events, especially rituals and festivals.

Among these rituals the so-called Followers of Horus, a ceremony held every other year, is particularly important. It was soon linked with a “count,” and sometimes the subject of such a count is more precisely defined, being described as the “count of gold and fields” or the “count of cattle and small creatures.” It is therefore assumed that this was a countrywide census for tax purposes. These counting periods were renumbered within each king’s reign, beginning with the number one. During the period of the Old Kingdom this led to the usual later method of dating by the years of the royal reigns. The impressions on vessel seals and the clay seals on bags, boxes, and doors are another important source for our knowledge of the organization of the early state economy. They name the institutions concerned, the royal central estate with its sub-sections, storehouses and workshops, and the administrative officials responsible. From such data we can reconstruct the picture of a palace economy built up around the royal court, organizing agriculture, crafts, and trade. There does not seem to have been an administrative system covering the entire country at this time.

We can only form a very tentative idea of the officials of this period, but the available evidence indicates that the holders of the highest positions were indeed to be found within the palace administration.

Foreign Policy

It becomes particularly clear in the field of foreign relations that the First Dynasty had ushered in a new period. Extensive and frequent exchanges with neighboring countries, particularly Nubia and Pales-tine, can be traced far back into prehistory, when contact areas were created in border regions where Egyptian and non-Egyptian settlements overlapped. We can conclude that there was an open trading system from the distribution of imported and exported goods, particularly as it can be studied in the Nubian area.

The First Dynasty brought with it fundamental change. Monuments dating from the unification of the two lands already record warlike confrontations with neighboring peoples, and the year names of the First Dynasty, as they have come down to us in the annals and on labels, repeatedly mention such conflicts. A First Dynasty Egyptian rock carving far to the south, near the second cataract, shows that they were more than merely border disputes. The issue was not the conquest of foreign territory, but the assertion of Egypt’s economic interests and trade, and the plundering of the resources of neighboring countries.

The formation of the state had given Egypt new opportunities and a new radius of political action. The Egyptians could equip expeditions in the grand style, could engage in expensive intermediary trade, and could promote their interests within a wide geographical area. They were in a position to assert themselves in armed conflict against attacks by local groups. In addition, Egyptian policies now emanated from an area within clearly defined territorial boundaries. The addition of a fortress to Elephantine, the island settlement at Aswan by the first cataract, made it Egypt’s southernmost border town.

These developments had unwelcome consequences for the peoples of the neighboring countries. In Lower Nubia, exchange with Egypt had been an important factor of cultural ecology. The native settlement system of Lower Nubia collapsed with the advent of the First Dynasty, and the local population was forced into a nomadic existence. As a result, the development of Nubian chieftainships, which had run parallel to the rise of the Egyptian state up to this time, was nipped in the bud.

Egypt had thus risen to a unique position of dominance above the peoples surrounding it. As a great power surrounded by tribes, it was always easily able to claim unrestricted preeminence, and there is no doubt that this is where the roots of the calm self-assurance of pharaonic culture lay.

The Second Dynasty

The First Dynasty lasted about 175 years. Almost another 150 years were to pass before the Old Kingdom began. This Second Dynasty period saw the far-reaching transition from the oldest form of the archaic state to the structures of the first flowering of the pharaonic kingdom. Unfortunately, we have very little clear knowledge about these processes.

The tombs of the first three kings of the Second Dynasty were built in Saqqara. The first ruler, Hetepsekhemui, founded a royal cemetery there south of the later pyramid complex of Djoser, and therefore also some distance south of the necropolis contaihing the great niche tombs of the First Dynasty. The shortage of space in the necropolis made such a move essential.

Only the subterranean portion of Hetepsekhemui’s tomb complex has been preserved, but even so it is impressive. A number of long storage galleries branch off from a long central corridor which is entered by way of a ramp from the north and eventually leads past a number of barriers in the form of stone slabs to the king’s burial chamber. This is a new design. Its purpose was to provide room for an extensive quantity of grave goods including furniture, tableware, and provisions, in fact a complete household that was buried with the deceased. The old concept of the grave as the home of the dead has never been taken so literally. The same concept, although not on such a grand scale, is echoed in the tombs of the highest social class, but the idea is clearly fading in the Third Dynasty. We do not know what the superstructure erected over this tomb looked like, but everything suggests that it would have been a huge mastaba, possibly ornamented with niches. And we have a name stela of the king’s successor, similar to those erected at the royal tombs of Abydos. The tomb to which this particular stela refers has not been discovered, but another gallery tomb, next to Hetepsekhemui’s, was built for the third ruler, Nynetjer.

During the reign of this early Second Dynasty ruler, the royal necropolis in Abydos was abandoned, significantly indicating that the kings were part of the upper stratum of the aristocracy of the capital, and the connection with the origins of kingship in distant Upper Egypt, now becoming more and more of a provincial backwatei was losing its importance. Subsequently, however, two kings, Peribsen and Khasekhemui, once again favored the old Upper Egyptian sites for their monuments. In his titulatory on the palace facade in the “Horus name,” King Peribsen also replaced the Horus falcon by the animal appropriate to the god Seth, whose cult was based in Ombos (also known as Naqada), the central settlement of prehistoric Upper Egypt. Other kings are known only from their names in inscriptions on stone vessels from Lower Egyptian sites, or simply from the later King Lists. Here we face the difficult question of how to allot the different names making up ancient Egyptian royal titularies to the individual rulers. The evidence as a whole has led to the conclusion that the kingdom split into Upper and Lower Egyptian parts again during the second half of the Second Dynasty period. This may be so, but it has to be admitted that the political circumstances of the situation remain entirely unknown.

Both kings, Peribsen and Khasekhemui, built their tomb complexes at Abydos. By situating their tombs in the old royal cemetery of the First Dynasty, and laying out huge walled ritual precincts (“valley precincts” or “forts,” as they were called because of their appearance, still massive today although the term itself is inaccurate), they emphasized a direct link with the old tradition of Abydos.

The ground plan of the tomb complexes, however, makes it clear that they were structurally influenced by the gallery tombs of Saqqara. They too surround the king’s burial chamber with storage areas branching off from a corridor, although in the loose desert soil here the entire complex had to be built of brick inside a single sunken pit, while at Saqqara the corridors and galleries could be cut directly out of the local schist stone. A crucial factor in this formal relationship is the fact that the “Upper Egyptian” kings of the Second Dynasty were from the upper classes of Memphis, and by no means represent the revival of an unbroken local Thinite tradition. Khasekhemui is also represented by important monuments in Hierakonpolis. He had monumental buildings erected in the temple of Horus there, and blocks from a gateway bearing relief work that is stylistically very much attuned to the canonical art of the Old Kingdom have been preserved. A number of valuable votive offerings also demonstrates the importance ascribed to the shrine by this ruler who originally also called himself Khasekhem. Khasekhemui had another ritual precinct constructed outside the town of Hierakonpolis, in the style of the valley precincts of Abydos, and they too had stone blocks decorated with relief work. Besides this king’s monuments, there are other indications that the main features of the art of the Old Kingdom were taking shape during the Second Dynasty. Two blocks with relief work from the Temple of Hathor at Gebelein (between Hierakonpolis and Thebes) are notable monuments of this period, and it was a long time before anything equivalent appears in Upper Egypt. In the aristocratic cemeteries of the Memphite area, relief work slabs showing the deceased seated at the funerary repast also make their first appearance. These slabs were set in the masonry “false doors” in the cult areas of the tombs, with inscriptions identifying the names and titles of the owner of the tomb and the ritual situation it was to serve. They were the germ from which the profuse pictorial ornamentation of the tomb complexes of great men in the Old Kingdom were to develop.

The relationship between Upper and Lower Egypt in the second half of the Second Dynasty is unclear. We do know that King Peribsen was also honored by a funerary cult in Saqqara (although the date of the establishment of this cult is not known for certain), and the existence of a tomb in Saqqara for Khasekhemui has also been postulated. It was in his reign at the latest that the relationship between the two parts of the country was troubled by disputes and led to war. His votive offerings in the temple at Hierakonpolis include large stone vases with inscriptions describing a year as “Battle, defeat of Lower Egypt,” and then the symbol for the “Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Even clearer is the evidence provided by the statues of Khasekhemui from the same temple. Paradoxically, the phase of Upper Egypt’s dominance came irrevocably to an end with the victory of Upper Egypt over its Lower Egyptian enemies, as recorded in the friezes on the statuary plinths. The royal cemetery of Abydos was abandoned; however, the withdrawal of the kings from their ancestral place of origin in this brought the establishment of an administrative center for Upper Egypt whose special position can be traced throughout the entire Old Kingdom period. As with the founding of the First Dynasty, and as would be the case many times in the future, the impetus for the creation of a unified Egyptian state came from Upper Egypt, but structurally the north always had the upper hand. And although the origin of the Egyptian state lay in the policies of the Thinite dynasties, the development and evolution of that state was to be shaped by Memphite influence.

The Royal Cemetery of Abydos

The Royal Cemetery of Abydos

With the founding of the unified Egyptian state, the monarchy had also acquired a new dimension, and a new character in its socio-political role. These are most closely reflected in the development of royal tomb architecture, which can be traced in the Abydos cemetery until the end of the First Dynasty. The necropolis lies in the desert area, some 1.5 km away from the strip of fertile land. Its tombs are rectangular chambers sunk into the desert soil and shored up on the outside by brick walls. The first stage of development came with Horus Aha.

His tomb, instead of having two chambers sunk side by side, as in the case of three previous tombs from “Dynasty 0,” comprised three considerably larger chambers. In addition, his tomb shows the first evidence of a custom that flourished intensively for a short time, and then fell into disuse at the end of the First Dynasty: the custom of burying members of the royal household in neighboring tombs. The finds on the site as a whole make it hard to avoid concluding that the people buried here were in fact killed on the occasion of the royal funeral. Stelae referring to such tombs mention servants, including people of small stature (“dwarfs”), who were popular as part of a royal household, and women and dogs. In the case of Aha, thirty-six secondary tombs were laid out in three parallel rows. Investigation of bones cast aside by earlier excavators as worthless recently produced some results as surprising as they were revealing. King Aha had also taken a group of young lions into the next world with him as a symbol of royalty. Judging by the state of their bones, the animals had lived and were probably even born in captivity; in other words, the royal court kept lions.

In the next large tomb complex, that of King Djer, the new structural organization is completed and was the point of departure for gradual further development in following generations. Instead of several small chambers, there is only one rectangular burial chamber laid out in a deep pit in the desert sand, but it is a very much larger one. The traces still show that a wooden coffin was set against its back wall, and the king was buried in this coffin. The burial chamber was covered by a massive timber ceiling, above which, still within the top of the pit, a low tumulus of sand was piled up and enclosed by brick walls. It is not at all certain what these tombs looked like from the outside: new excavations have left no room for illusion on that topic. Since there are no remains of buildings, and indeed architectural factors would categorically prohibit it, the tombs can have had no monumental super O structures. The most that can be assumed is the presence of a low heap of sand contained within brick walls above the tomb. The pairs of stelae sometimes found in front of the tombs would have indicated a place of sacrifice; their inscriptions give the names of the kings and thus identify the owners of the tombs.

While at first the roofing of the pit and the erection of the burial mound could have been carried out only after the funeral rites were completed, later on, from the time of King Den in the middle of the First Dynasty, a stairway closed by stone slabs led down to the burial chamber.

The subsidiary tombs were arranged in a rectangle around the royal tombs themselves, first in large and then in swiftly dwindling numbers. Access was regularly left free to the southwest. In the tomb of Den, a stairway led from this opening down to an underground statue chapel adjoining the outside of the royal burial chamber: a place where the king could be ritually addressed, and where he could be imagined stepping out of his tomb.

The royal tombs of the First Dynasty thus acquired a new complexity, and were rich in symbolism, but they cannot be described as monumental even in the context of contemporary comparisons. However, there was yet another component to the royal tomb complex from the time of King Djer at the latest. Additional huge, rectangular precincts were laid out some 1.5 km north of the cemetery, on the borders of the fertile land near the town and the temple of the local god Khontamenti, who was also god of the necropolis. Djer’s precinct consists of a rectangle 100 x 55 m in size, surrounded by a brick wall over 3 m broad and at one time about 8 m high, ornamented on the outside by a regular niche pattern. Access to the precinct was through monumental gates at the southeast and northeast corners.

As yet we have very little idea of any buildings inside the precinct. Remains of a number of structures have been identified in later complexes, but it is to be supposed that the only ones erected at this date for certain ritual celebrations consisted of light materials (wood and matting) and have left no traces. These “valley precincts” are also surrounded by rows of subsidiary tombs. There is no doubt that such precincts are connected with the royal tomb complex: a direct line leads from their design to the entire pyramid complex of King Djoser at the beginning of the Third Dynasty at Saqqara. In its turn, this connection enables us to conclude with great probability that the valley precincts of Abydos served for the ritual of great festivals, celebrating the sacred role of kingship and the renewal of the king’s dominion in the next world on the occasion of his funeral.

Memphis
The kings of the first two dynasties gave high priority to the traditions of the past by having themselves interred in the ancient cemetery at Abydos, in the territory of their town of origin This (the name of the town is the reason that the two first dynasties are described in classical antiquity as Thinite, from This).

However, it had been clear for some time that the true cultural center of the country was moving farther and farther north, to the area between the beginning of the Faiyum and the southern extremity of the Delta. This was a central location between the large cultivated areas of Middle Egypt and the Delta, and closer to the routes communicating with the culturally very important Near Eastern areas. Once the kingdom had been unified, Memphis was laid out here as the new capital and the king’s royal residence, and archaeological evidence confirms the information provided by the later tradition of classical antiquity, naming King Menes as its founder. Only recently have traces of the early settlement been found under later strata of fertile land. Once again, however, it is principally the evidence of the burial grounds that allows us to draw conclusions about the importance of the site: these burial grounds comprise the extended cemetery of Helwan and the necropolis of the kingdom’s elite in Saqqara.

The Great Niche Mastaba Tombs at Saqqara
The largest of the tombs standing here in a long line on the desert
plateau that rose above the old settlement are of truly royal dimensions, but in design they are very different from the complexes of Abydos. These monuments are large, rectangular buildings, known as mastaba tombs, their exteriors decorated with a complex niche pattern that was even more striking in its original condition because of the colored paint on the plaster. Such niche tombs are found not only in Saqqara but also at certain burial sites between Tarkhan, north of the exit route from the Faiyum, and Abu Roash at the southern end of the Delta. Only a single example of this genre is known in Upper Egypt, but it is one of the oldest.

It cannot be supposed that such a complex type of building,
appearing here so suddenly during the rule of King Aha, had no
models. In Egypt, one would expect to find these models in urban
temple and palace architecture, and indeed there is such an example in the Early Dynastic complex of Hierakonpolis, although unfortunately the function of the building concerned is not clear. In terms of architectural history, however, the trail leads to the Near East, where the development of niche architecture from the pilasters required for structural reasons to the complex type of decoration for official buildings found in Egypt can be followed step by step. The niche facades in the tombs at Saqqara were mostly built on a low base course, where the heads of cattle modeled in clay were frequently placed. A slab stela was found outside one niche at the southern end of the east wall of one particular mastaba, showing the occupant of the tomb seated, and giving his title in an inscription. It was probably originally set at the back of the niche, as frequently seen later in the false doors of the early Old Kingdom.

Inside the tombs, the burial chambers were dug out of the desert ground and, like the complexes ofAbydos, were roofed with timber and covered with a tumulus above which stood the superstructure. Here again a stairway was introduced during the First Dynasty, giving access to the burial chamber and allowing construction on the tomb to be completed before the funeral.

Since the discovery of the great niche mastabas in Saqqara, there has been dispute as to whether these were the real tombs of the First Dynasty kings, in which case the complexes of Abydos would be cenotaphs or “false tombs,” merely a remnant of tradition. In view of the number of tombs at Saqqara, which exceeds the number of kings of the First Dynasty, only some of the largest complexes could in fact be royal. Nonetheless, it would be surprising to find the tombs of kings and officials promiscuously mingled and only gradually coming to differ in terms of size. Later on, the royal burial place was always distinct in quality from the tombs of even the highest administrative officials, just as Pharaoh himself was not primus inter pares, but by virtue of his royal office stood closer to the divine creator himself than to humanity.

However this difficult question may finally be decided, for all their differences the close connection between the large niche tombs and the royal tombs at Abydos must not be overlooked. They are linked by the development of the shape of the burial chamber and the covered tumulus above its roof. At Saqqara the tumulus is even sometimes found with a stepped exterior, which naturally calls the later Step Pyramid to mind. Subordinate tombs surrounding the main tomb were built at Saqqara too. Moreover, elements of later royal funerary architecture are anticipated in the large niche tombs.

This is particularly clear where a funerary temple actually adjoins the mastaba tomb on its north side, just as a temple does later in King Djoser’s funerary precinct at the beginning of the Third Dynasty. This site is not an isolated find. One of the oldest mastabas had a complex of enclosed courtyards, with walled benches probably used for sacrificial purposes, on the north of the tomb precinct. A cult area north of the tomb therefore seems typical of the design of such precincts. Boats as grave goods, known from the pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom, also seem to appear for the first time in the great niche tombs of the First Dynasty.

The royal tomb architecture of the Old Kingdom, then, is certainly based on a synthesis of elements from the entire spectrum of the funerary architecture of the elite. Nor is this surprising, for although the kings set great ideological store by their exclusive status, in sociological terms they were also members of the kingdom’s elite. Their family members and the highest functionaries of their courts may be sought in the niche mastaba complexes of other cemeteries too.

From the beginning of the First Dynasty, these tombs provide us with our first view of not just the kings but the other leading figures of the kingdom, a clearly defined sociological group concentrated in the region of the capital, and this is almost the most distinctive cultural contrast between the period of the unification of the two lands and the Predynastic Period.