Gisr el-Mudir

Referred Gisr el- Mudir (Arabic residence of the head ), also with the English Description Great Enclosure ( " Great fence " ), is the oldest known of hewn stone masonry building in Egypt and is located in Saqqara few hundred meters west of Djoser pyramid and the Sekhemkhet pyramid. The function of the complex is not yet clear.

Construction details

The structure consists of an oriented in a north - south wall rectangle with dimensions of approximately 650 m × 350 m. The wall consists of two outer walls of rough- hewn limestone at a distance of 15 m, the space between them is filled with rubble stone, gravel and sand. In the northwest corner of the wall about 15 layers of stone is preserved to a height of 4.5 to 5m. The type of masonry indicates an original height of about 10 m. In the south, the degree of conservation of walls is significantly worse than in the north. On the south side was probably an overlap of the walls, the so formed an entrance as the western wall of the structure is 30 meters shorter than the eastern. This form is also repeated in the great ditch the Djoser pyramid.

The wall was probably completed, and in the enclosed area no remains of buildings have been found, making a pyramid or mastaba can be excluded as the center, because these buildings before the completion of enclosing walls had to be built. A smaller building could have existed on the northwest corner of the grounds, because there numerous stone fragments of limestone, red granite and basalt were found. An originally registered in the middle hills proved to be an excavation rubble of a tomb from the Greek period by Perring.

The recorded many monuments to stone robbery involved the Gisr el- Mudir to a much lesser extent than other buildings, which is probably due to the low quality of the stones used.

To the north and north-east of Gisr el- Mudir conceal the remains of similar structures.

Research

Already in the study by John Shae Perring Sakkaras in 1837 the outlines of the enclosure were discovered. It was also noted by Karl Richard Lepsius ( 1842-46 ) and Jacques de Morgan ( 1897), but there was no exploration instead.

The first archaeological excavations in 1947-48 under then- director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Abdel Salam Hussein instead. Its nickname " el- Mudir " ( = owner) was named for the current name Gisr el- Mudir. Results of these excavations were not disclosed.

Systematic studies were carried out only in the 1990s by archaeologists from the National Museum of Scotland, which also techniques such as magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar were used. Before the excavations, the structure was considered to be an unfinished pyramid district of the 3rd Dynasty. Pottery sherds from the wall filling are the 2nd dynasty assigned and let the end of the classification of the complex at the end of the second dynasty (late 28th century BC) to. This Gisr el- Mudir is so far the oldest known building in Egypt, were used for the exclusively carved stones as building material.

A builder of the structure could be detected from the finds have not yet. Rainer Stadelmann sees a relation of these structures to two south of Djoser complex situated gallery graves of the second dynasty, the Hetepsechemui or Raneb and Ninetjer be attributed. In his opinion, the empty rectangular structures to the tombs at Abydos behave similarly to the Talbezirke to the graves. Other researchers have reported the structure on the basis of similarities to to its enclosure at Abydos Khasekhemwy because this is attributed to the Palermostein the establishment of a stone building called Men - Netjeret and the temporal classification of Gisr el- Mudir is due. Probably put the rectangular structures, a transition element of the enclosures at Abydos dar. for enclosure of Djoser 's pyramid complex