The great pyramid of Saqqara, known for its stepped shape, is testimony to the amazing work of Pharaoh Djeser (Djoser, or Zoser) and his architect Imhotep, who however remain practically unknown. A series of buildings and patios were articulated around it to form a vast complex intended for the king's funerary cult. It was the first monument built entirely in stone, and with it inaugurated what has been called “the age of the pyramids.”
It took Jean-Philippe Lauer a lifetime to understand how Egypt's first pyramid was built. Since he began his excavations in 1926, this French archaeologist, a trained architect, dedicated more than seventy years to the work of in situ reconstruction of the complex.
The facts take us back to the dawn of the Pharaonic civilization, in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. By then Egypt had already transformed into a strong and centralized state after the unification of the north and the south, thanks to the unifying action of the monarchy. The country was immersed in a period of maturation in all aspects.
Becoming the sole spokesperson before the gods, the figure of the pharaoh decided to claim monumental architecture for himself as a means of expressing his absolute power. Djeser, founder of the Third Dynasty, was the first monarch to exploit the new royal ideology on a large scale, and Imhotep was in charge of capturing his symbolism in unique architectural forms.
The pyramid complex of Djeser dominates the desert esplanade of Saqqara. The place is located a few kilometers southwest of the city of Memphis, the ancient and long-lived capital, not far from modern Cairo. With this construction, the royal cemetery of Saqqara definitively took over from that of Abydos, in the south of the country, where many of the kings had been buried since the first dynasty.
However, the move did not represent a radical break. Imhotep seeks inspiration in these primitive Abydos models. The great novelty lay in the decision to use stone, obtained at will from the limestone quarries of the Memphite region.
Until then, adobe brick and materials such as wood had basically been used, a cheap system that allowed a rapid development of civil and religious architecture. But from the reign of Djeser onwards, temples and tombs began to be built in stone, which gave them a much more symbolic dimension: their eternal character, as was the goal they pursued. It is not surprising that the extraction and use of the stone was a royal monopoly and was used only with his authorization.
But Imhotep's work was not only the first made in stone, but also the largest. None of the previous kings had dared to embark on a state enterprise of such caliber, which required, in addition to a heavy investment, a significant workforce. This came mainly from the population, forced to provide certain services to the State.
The rectangular enclosure covered 545 x 277 meters and, like any sacred space, was delimited by a wall, which here reached 10.5 meters in height.
The enclosure was entered through a single door, although fourteen other false ones were carved along the wall. The tomb of the pharaoh was built in the center. The great pyramid, nearly 60 meters high, is nothing more than an enormous superstructure designed to hide the sarcophagus chamber excavated beneath it. A 28 meter deep well gave direct access to a room where the king's body was deposited. The granite slabs were lowered through it to assemble the enormous rectangular coffin in situ.
As is common with most ancient Egyptian tombs, the pyramid was looted and reused during Antiquity, so the scattered bones found are actually those of several men buried between the 8th and 3rd centuries BC. c.
From here there was access to an impressive staircase of more than 50 meters that crossed the basement to lead to an entrance located on the outside of the north face.
Saqqara's soil type worked in Imhotep's favor, allowing him to drill into it as he pleased. Numerous galleries were opened in which private and ceremonial rooms were built, some exquisitely decorated, in imitation of those that could be found in the real palace that the king had in Memphis. Others served as enormous warehouses for the provisions and grave goods that the pharaoh would use in the afterlife.
But Djeser was not buried alone. To the surprise of archaeologists, eleven new rectangular galleries were excavated to a deeper level. In several, human bones and fragments of coffins belonging to children and women, probably relatives, were found.
On the outside, thousands of not very large carved stones, like adobe bricks, make up the pyramid. Its majestic vision, solid and massive, thanks to its six steps, reserved other mysteries. Jean-Philippe Lauer demonstrated that its pyramidal shape was the result of at least six extensions, and not a single design.
Imhotep started from the basic structure of the tomb of Abydos, a type of trunk-pyramidal mound with a rectangular base known as a mastaba. Once finished, it was slightly widened several times on the sides. But the architect changed his plans again and decided to also enlarge it in height.
Some specialists believe that it was the only solution, since it would have been completely hidden from the outside due to the height of the wall. He first raised it by adding three more steps, like an overlay of mastabas. At a later time he increased it considerably in size with two more steps, which gave it its current gigantic appearance. The final base reached 121 by 109 meters.
In this way, the step pyramid stood alone on the horizon like a mountain. Its association with the Primeval Hill, from which the world was created according to Egyptian mythology, is immediate. A place of regeneration and life. But the symbology of the pyramid is much more complex. The oldest religious texts, the so-called “Pyramid texts”, dated to the 5th dynasty, describe it as a place from where the king ascends to heaven to join the stars and enjoy eternity together with the solar god.
The pyramid thus took its first steps to become the most visible expression of the power of the Egyptian monarchy. Since the unification of the country, achieved around 3150 BC. C., the pharaoh assumed the role of warrior, political and religious leader. The very existence of Egypt depended on his actions, which gradually brought him closer to divine status. However, the architectural achievements of these first sovereigns have proven to be as ephemeral as the adobe with which they were built.
Although mystery also surrounds Djeser, the first images of official life have been preserved from his reign thanks to an unprecedented development of writing, relief decoration and stone sculpture. And Djeser reigned with a vocation as an ideologue, with the pyramid complex of Saqqara as his crowning work. In it, real conceptions were synthesized, transferred to an enormously symbolic architectural language.
The space is occupied by buildings and courtyards with a precise purpose, but, since the recipient no longer belongs to this world, Imhotep played the game of distraction. Many of them are fake and their interior is empty, reproducing only in appearance the original models. Some constructions remain an enigma today.
Djeser ascended the throne around 2650 BC. C. and only nineteen years of reign are attributed to him. The Djeser-Imhotep pairing was forever engraved in the memory of the Egyptians, who revered them as gods. Their stories were lost, but their names, inexorably associated with the invention of stone architecture, were not forgotten.
The esplanade of Saqqara became a privileged place where successive generations placed their hopes for eternity until the end of the pharaonic era. Kings and court officials built their tombs and funerary complexes here along several kilometers from north to south, in which the pyramids are piled up. Known as “the plain of mummies” because of the ease of encountering one of them, Saqqara still hides countless secrets.
This text is part of an article published in number 492 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
