Pyramid of Sahure

The Sahura pyramid is the first pyramid, which was built in the necropolis of Abusir. Its builder Sahura was the second king (Pharaoh) of the 5th Dynasty in ancient Egypt, who reigned 2490-2475 BC. This pyramid is a standard type of pyramids made ​​out, which was changed only slightly until the end of the 6th Dynasty. Of particular relevance Sahura complex by the numerous relief obtained, with which the valley and mortuary temples and the walls of the causeway were decorated. Impressive was the variety of materials used in construction of the temple area: Alabaster and Basalt floors, pedestals of red granite and fine limestone were used.

• 4.1 cult pyramid
• 4.2 mortuary temple
• 4.3 The causeway
• 4.4 The Valley Temple
• 4.5 The sun temple

Research

The first investigations of the pyramid complex of Sahura by John Shae Perring and a little later by the Lepsius expedition were only superficial. Later Jacques de Morgan reopened access to the pyramid inside, but this time was no thorough exploration of the complex.

In the years 1902 to 1908 Ludwig Borchardt explored the complex and led it through extensive excavations. As a result of this work Borchardt published the two-volume work " The grave monument of King Sahurā ", which is considered a standard work Sahura complex today. As part of these excavations are still largely preserved columns and architraves of Tempelhof were recovered and divided between Germany and Egypt in the pyramid temple. The German part came to Berlin in the collection of the Egyptian Museum on the Museum Island, but could not be issued because of lack of space. Only in the 1980s, a portion of the findings was shown in the West - Berlin Museum in Schloss Charlottenburg in an attachment to the royal stables. After the return of the Egyptian Museum on the Museum Island, the findings of the temple controversial fourth wing of the Pergamon Museum to be built in a yet to be shown. Therefore, it is (as of end of 2009 ) does not predict when they are presented to the public.

Early 1960s was a survey by Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi specify the values ​​of Borchardt, however, did not reveal any fundamentally new findings.

As part of the opening of Abusir for tourism in 1994 it came to a surprising discovery. The excavation of the lower part of the causeway, which was not investigated in detail by Borchardt, yielded a series of ornamented with reliefs blocks. This gave a new insight into the pictorial program of the pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom.

Bauumstände

Sahura left for his tomb the already heavily built necropolis of Saqqara, to start a new necropolis at Abusir today. This new necropolis served his four direct successors also as a site for their pyramids, to Djedkare gave it back in favor of Saqqara -South. The site is approximately 400 meters southeast of the start of construction to existing sun sanctuary of his predecessor Userkaf.

In the order of the pyramid Sahura oriented to the slightly smaller Pyramid of his predecessor Userkaf so that the building was much smaller than the giant pyramids of the 4th dynasty. The base dimensions and the structure of the complex of Sahura pyramid set a standard that has been adopted for numerous other royal pyramids of the Old Kingdom. The pyramid complex of Sahura was completed before the death of the king.

The Pyramid

The pyramid had a base dimension of 78.75 m (150 King Sellen ) and reached at a tilt angle of 50 ° 11 ' has a height of 47 m. When measuring the surface area the builders ran a remarkable measurement error: the southeast corner is 1.58 m to the far east, which leads to a distortion of the usually square base. In the base of the offset is on the east side of the pyramid and is concealed by the adjacent mortuary temple. In the area of ​​the distortion is compensated sliding.

In contrast to most other pyramids, this building was not built directly on the rocky ground, but on a two layers thick foundation of limestone blocks. The pyramid originally had a six-stage, consisting of low-grade masonry core. The rough-hewn limestone from local quarries were laid in horizontal layers and cavities between the stones were filled with rubble and mortar. To the ditch of the substructure a T-shaped gap was left open to allow simultaneous work on the substructure and the core. This breach was eventually bricked up, but differs in the masonry and thus is still recognizable today. The pyramid core is covered with fine limestone from the quarries located at today's Ma'asara on the eastern bank of the Nile. A panel pedestal of red granite was not available.

The substructure

The substructure of Sahura pyramid was built in a flat, open ditch. In this case, the trench was so shallow that large parts of the corridor and the grave chamber stuck in the pyramid corpus. The base is heavily damaged by stone robbers and therefore does not allow accurate reconstruction of the dimensions of the room and plan to.

The entrance to the pyramid is located at ground level in the middle of the north side. The subsequent transition had a width of about 1.27 m and a height of about 1.87 m. This about 4.25 m long, with 24 ° 48 ' descending and clad in red granite passage leads to a transition chamber. This was lined with fine limestone. Directly after this chamber, a case lock was to hedge the pyramid against intruders. Both case lock chamber and lock the case itself consisted of hard red granite. After the case, lock the gear over 22.3 m slightly increases with a slope of about 5 °. The last 3 m of the corridor are horizontal again and it opens in a granite -clad door to the central chamber.

The oriented from east to west central chamber is badly damaged. Under the assumption that integer units of the ancient Egyptian measures of length were used, this chamber may have had the dimensions 3.15 m (6 King Sellen ) in width and 12.60 m (24 King Sellen ) in length, with the value for the length due to the destruction is speculative. It is also not clear whether this is only one single, large chamber or whether it was divided into a pre-chamber and a real grave chamber.

Huge blocks of fine limestone formed in three layers of the gable roof of the chamber. The blocks of the uppermost layer were almost 10 m long and 4 m thick. Under the weight of the pyramid built above but all gable stones are broken.

Perring found in his study fragments of a sarcophagus made ​​of basalt. Other finds that belonged to the funeral or to the grave goods, however, were not made.

The pyramid complex

The district contains pyramid next to the main pyramid the typical elements of mortuary temple, cult pyramid and surrounding wall. Queens tombs in the form of by pyramids or mastabas are not known. The only known wife Neferethanebti is only known from inscriptions in the pyramid complex. A north chapel at the entrance to the pyramid has not been found. In Borchardt's excavations, however, the existence of North chapels was not yet known, so that any sparse remains can be gone unnoticed. The complex is completed by a causeway and a valley temple at its end.

Cult pyramid

There was a small cult pyramid with the base dimension 15.7 m (30 King Sellen ) At the southeast corner. For an inclination angle of 56 °, it reached originally a height of about 11.55 m. The two-stage core masonry consisted of rough-hewn limestone and had a covering of fine limestone. Today, the structure is largely destroyed.

The substructure of the cult pyramid consisted of a beginning in the north entrance passage and the centrally located, aligned east-west chamber. The base is also largely destroyed. In the remains of the Ganges and the chamber no finds were found from there buried artifacts, but the transition seems to have been originally sealed.

The cult pyramid was located in a private, paved courtyard, which was accessible from the side entrance of the mortuary temple. Places of worship are not detected there.

Mortuary Temple

With the mortuary temple of the prototype of the pyramid temple was created, which should be style icon for the second half of the Old Kingdom. Here the separation of mortuary temples and worship temple was again suspended and both functions in an axial east-west arrangement integrated into a complex. The temple itself was built of limestone and clad externally with fine Tura limestone with fillet statements. The corners had circular rods.

The causeway led initially to the east side of the temple in an elongated entrance hall, which forms a connection between the causeway and the actual mortuary temple. This had a limestone floor and built on a Granitdado ( granite base ) limestone walls with painted relief decoration. The entrance hall had in contemporary inscriptions, the term " per- who" ( "House of the Great"). After Borchardt, she served as the last station of the funeral procession before the funeral.

From there it passed through a Granittor in an open courtyard, which was surrounded by 16 granite columns supporting a Granitarchitrav. These columns were symbolically after stem and crown leaves of a palm tree which was regarded as fertility and eternity symbol. This first form of plant column replaced the previous posts and was with deviations in the illustrated plant standard for the pyramid temple the second half of the Old Kingdom. All the pillars bore the name and title Sahure. The standing in the northern half pillars also bore the inscription of Lower Egypt symbolizing Snake Goddess Wadjet, the pillars of the southern half of the Upper Egypt symbolizing the vulture goddess Nekhbet multiform. The inscribed with titles and name of the king architrave then wore limestone slabs with star decor, covered the outer area of the yard.

The courtyard was paved with irregularly shaped, but flat on the surface of polished basalt blocks. This patch is still a large area available today. In the northwestern area of the courtyard a fabricated alabaster altar, the offering scenes and symbols of unification was wearing.

The walls of the court were of fine limestone and were provided with painted bas-reliefs. The few remaining parts of the reliefs depict scenes of Sahure triumph over its foreign enemies.

To the yard ran a closed transition, which was completed by a cross- corridor to the west. This transition was also decorated with painted reliefs that represented here, among other hunting scenes. Here was a relief that showed a royal retinue, in the Sahure successor and brother of alleged Neferirkare is shown. After his accession Neferirkare let the inscription to the royal titulary complement " King of Lower and Upper Egypt ."

Palm leaf column from the courtyard

Remains of the colonnaded courtyard paved

Scene with captured enemies from the Tempelhof

The western end of the courtyard surrounding the passage formed as the basalt -paved courtyard cross corridor. This separated the public part of the temple from the intimate, from only the priests accessible part. The corridor also offered access to various parts of the inner temple. Similarly as in the courtyard the walls of the cross corridor had a Granitdado and highly ornate limestone walls. The reliefs only fragmentarily preserved today show scenes of naval battles and ships.

In the northern and southern part of the inner temple, two two-story magazine galleries that were accessible from the cross corridor each have a deep niche with a papyrus column were. The northern galleries consisted of ten rooms. The marking as coffers suggests that here the cult objects were housed for the ritual acts in the mortuary temple. The southern galleries included 17 rooms, which probably served the storage of offerings. Each chamber contained a staircase to the second floor, which were carved in part from the massive blocks of masonry wall out.

At the northern corner of the cross corridor you came to some other chambers and a passageway to the Pyramidenhof. In addition, there was a staircase to the roof terrace of the temple. The southern corner of the cross corridor also housed the access to some chambers. Of these chambers also led an access to Pyramidenhof and another to the small courtyard of the cult pyramid. In the external wall was a small portico with two granite columns, which served as a side entrance directly into the pyramid complex.

Centrally located in the middle of the corridor was a small staircase as access to five niche chapel. This chapel had an alabaster floor, a Rosengranitdado for the magnificently decorated limestone walls. The ceiling was marked with a star pattern. The five, provided with a short staircase niches had a rose granite lining and each harbored a statue. The statues themselves are no longer obtain.

From the south side of the chapel, a passage led to two elongated chambers and finally to the dead victims room. This space bordered directly to the pyramid and had on this side facing a false door, through the ancient Egyptian belief in the spirit of Sahura could proceed to feed him the sacrifice offered as a sacrifice feast. The false door was made to roughly worked granite and carried unusually, no inscriptions. It closed Borchardt that the false door was a metal panel on which the important for the cult inscriptions were installed. From the panel itself no traces remain. The dead victims room also had an alabaster floor and a vaulted ceiling with star decoration. A basin for collecting liquids at sacrifice had an outflow of copper tubing. This was connected to an extensive drainage system installed under the pavement copper ears, derived the water from the temple in a central, lined with limestone wastewater channel. Overall, the drainage system of about 380 m copper pipe was. To seal the pool lead plugs were used.

North of the dead victims space were five more chambers, which probably served to prepare the food offerings. In some of these chambers were also pools that were connected to the copper pipe system.

Part of a monolithic granite gate

Column fragment of the side entrance with inscriptions

The ruins of the inner temple area

The causeway

A causeway of 235 m length connected the mortuary temple with the valley temple. This road was perfectly straight without any bends or kinks. He was running and had covered side walls and top slabs of limestone. In the middle of the cover plates, there was a narrow slit, the light allowed to penetrate into the interior. Borchardt unearthed only the upper part, so that the exploration of the rest of the causeway in the 1990s, a surprising number of well-preserved reliefs from the lower portion of the path brought to day. These include representations of the king were as gripping in overcoming his enemies.

The Valley Temple

The Valley Temple had a rectangular floor plan of 32 m length and 24 m wide, was oriented in a north-south direction. He was right on the Abusir Lake. He had geböschte exterior walls with a coved degree at the upper side and round bar trim on the corners. At the Valley Temple two phases are detected: The actual temple and a later cultivation on the south side to a second input.

The main entrance to the valley temple was, as usual, on the east side. A ramp was located directly in front of a portico with two rows of four columns of red granite Palm. Unusual was the second entrance with ramp on the south side of the temple, which was built in a second phase. There enabled a portico with four columns standing side by side the entrance to the temple. Here, the columns were designed as conical columns without capitals. Access to the central hall was knocked out of the existing masonry of the temple.

The transitions from both inputs led to a small central hall with two columns. From there, a staircase led to the roof terrace and to the west was the access to the causeway. The floor was paved with basalt and also the ceilings were decorated with star patterns and provided the limestone walls with painted reliefs of hunting scenes. The bottom portion of the walls had a Rosengranitdado. After Borchardt of Südportikus could have been a separate input for the priesthood.

The valley temple is now in ruins and was covered in the course of time of up to 5 m thick mud deposits. Nevertheless, he is considered by the Valley Temple of the Pyramid of Chephren as the best preserved.

Reconstruction of the valley temple Borchardt no south wing (1910 )

Reconstruction of the valley temple (Metropolitan Museum Collection, 1910)

The sun temple

→ Main article sun temple of Sahura

In addition to the facilities of the cult pyramid was Sahura at the beginning of his reign, a sun temple called " Sekhet Rau " ( " realm of Re" ) establish, as appears from the inscription of Palermosteins and is busy in the tombs of five priests. This is suspected in the area of Abusir, but could not be found so far. Robberies with inscriptions of Sahura sanctuary were found in the complex of Niuserre pyramid, which could be an indication that it was built over this pyramid. In the neighboring Mastaba of Ptahschepses is also found Obelisk fragments that could come from the sun temple.

Subsequent changes

The colonnaded served in the 18th Dynasty as the Temple of Sekhmet cult, probably in a magnificent lion presentation on one of the reliefs of the court had its cause. Here the " Sekhmet the Sahura " was venerated. In early Christian times, the Court served the Copts as a Christian sanctuary.