Scope: We will see the development of Egypt into a great nation led by a single all-powerful ruler, the king. Here traditions are set that will last for thousands of years: a capital city, separate burial places for the kings, solar boats to make the journey to the next world. It is also the time when the pattern for pharaohs’ behavior is established for future dynasties. We will also see how the transition was made from simple burials to the first pyramid in history.
Outline
I. A capital will be established at Memphis in the north, and it all began with Narmer. Dynasty I (3035-2890 BC) included the earliest kings.
A. Excavations at Abydos, in the south, revealed the tombs of the early kings.
B. Hor-Aha founded Memphis, in the north, as a capital city. (Egypt actually derives from the local name for Memphis.) The location was crucial for strategic reasons: to guard against invasion from the sea, because invasion across the desert was too difficult.
C. The kings of Dynasty I were buried at Abydos, the sacred city where Osiris was buried in the famous myth.
1. These are simple underground mud-brick tombs of King Djer, Den, and others, which have been robbed.
2. Archeologist Flinders Petrie excavated these tombs in the late nineteenth century. To avoid looting, he paid his workers market value for their discoveries. (Other excavators tried to confiscate everything.) At one point, they found a detached mummy’s arm in King Djer’s tomb, wearing the oldest royal jewelry ever discovered. Petrie weighed it and paid for it in gold sovereigns. A curator in Cairo later threw away the arm and kept only the jewelry!
3. Burials for kings were also at Saqqara, named for Sokar, god of the dead. Why two burials? One burial site was a false one, or cenotaph. Thus, the two represented a symbolic way of denoting power over the north and south. We’re not sure, for certain pharaohs, which burial was the real one.
II. Dynasty II (2890-2686 BC) was a period as long as the history of the United States, but little is known of it. It was the succeeding dynasty, however, that established Egypt as a civilization of renown.
III. Dynasty III (2686-2613 BC) was a time of greatness.
A. Zoser (2686-2649 BC) was the first pyramid builder. He elaborated on the older burial practices of Egypt.
1. Sand-pit burials, originally used for the dead, were impermanent by nature, uncovered by wind and jackals in search of decomposing flesh. The Egyptians began removing sand to ground level and cutting into the rock to carve a tomb.
2. They would erect a mastaba, or rectangular shelter, above the tomb. Imhotep, Zoser’s architect, decided to stack mastaba on mastaba, creating a step effect; from the mastaba, the pyramid developed.
3. The Step Pyramid of Saqqara, grand in size and conception, was the first stone building in history, probably three or four times larger than any other building on the planet.
4. Next to the pyramid is a little room where Zoser included a small statue of himself. In case his body was destroyed, his soul could live there until he was resurrected.
5. He also built chapels at the pyramid. The pyramid imitates reed construction techniques, only using stone.
6. Here Zoser planned a complex intended for use as a courtyard for the heb-sed and other rituals. The heb-sed festival celebrated the rejuvenation of the aging pharaoh every thirty years.
7. The tomb of Imhotep, the architect, is still missing. Zoser permitted him to be buried near his own tomb. Professor Walter B. Emery, close on the scent of finding it, died before it was discovered.
8. Zoser also had a southern burial, just a couple of hundred yards away from the Step Pyramid. Tiles on the inside, made of the ceramic called faience, show him running a heb-sed festival.
B. Horus Sekhemkhet, Zoser’s successor, ruled from 2649-2643 BC.
1. Sekhemkhet was going to build a Step Pyramid like Zoser’s, but it was only a few meters high when he died. Its stone walls are still rough, so we know the blocks were not finished by workers until they were on site. The intact pyramid was discovered in 1951.
2. The burial chamber was still sealed. Though a great discovery was expected, Sekhemkhet’s stone sarcophagus turned out to be empty. Gold jewelry was found on the floor of the tomb but no body.
3. Perhaps Sekhemkhet was buried in a second tomb, and the empty one was only a decoy for grave robbers. Unfortunately, the tomb robbers were usually the ones who built the tombs! We still haven’t found the real tomb of Sekhemkhet.
C. Egypt’s rise to greatness will continue.
Essential Reading:
Aidan Dodson, Monarchs of the Nile, Chapters IV and V.
Supplementary Reading:
Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, pp. 32-60.
Questions to Consider:
1. What traditions were established during this early period?
2. How did pyramid building evolve from earlier buildings?