Sechemchet pyramid
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 The ruin of the Sechemchet pyramid
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The Sechemchet pyramid (also Djosierteri pyramid ) is the unfinished step pyramid of the ancient Egyptian king ( pharaoh ) Djos erti , who under his Horus name Sechemchet in the Third Dynasty around 2700 to 2695 BC. Ruled. The building is located a few hundred meters southwest of the step pyramid of Djoser in the necropolis of Saqqara .
The ruins, which are only eight meters high today, were only discovered in 1952 by the Egyptian Egyptologist Zakaria Goneim , who also opened the apparently intact burial chamber. This makes the Sechemchet pyramid the only known king pyramid that was not looted in ancient times.
The above-ground part of the pyramid ruins is accessible to visitors, but not the substructure with the burial chamber.
exploration
The Egyptian archaeologist Zakaria Goneim began in 1951 with the investigation of a complex, which emerged as a rectangle in the desert sand southwest of the Djoser pyramid. His mentor Jean-Philippe Lauer advised starting at the corners in order to first determine the basic dimensions. During the work, a huge surrounding wall was found that had a similar niche architecture as that of the Djoser pyramid. The dimensions were 546 × 185 meters. In the center of the complex, Goneim finally found the remains of a step pyramid with a base length of 120 meters, which, however, did not extend beyond the first step, consisting of two layers. In the north of the pyramid, Goneim discovered the access to the substructure. In the access area, there were initially offerings and papyri from the 26th Dynasty , including a number of objects from the Third Dynasty, such as around 700 stone vessels and ornaments.
On May 31, 1954, the researchers broke through an approximately three meter thick wall in front of the burial chamber. In the roughly worked out chamber there was an apparently still sealed sarcophagus , which Goneim only opened in the presence of state representatives and journalists. But the sarcophagus was empty, which led to disappointment and criticism of Goneim due to the previously stoked expectations of a possibly sensational find. In addition, shortly afterwards Goneim was suspected of theft and smuggling of monuments because a valuable vessel he had found in the Djoser complex had disappeared. The accusations, combined with the public humiliations he had suffered, finally drove Goneim to suicide in 1959, tragically on the same day that Lauer found the supposedly stolen vessel, incorrectly categorized in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. With Goneim's death, the exploration of the Sechemchet complex was interrupted for several years.
It was not until 1963, four years after Goneim's death, that Lauer continued the excavations. In 1967 he discovered the south grave with the body of a two-year-old child buried in it. With interruptions, Lauer dug at the Sechemchet complex until 1973 in order to thoroughly research the pyramid and the area. A full investigation of the area is still pending.
Construction circumstances
Construction of the pyramid
Like his predecessor, Sechemchet had chosen the Saqqara necropolis as the site for his tomb. This necropolis was already heavily built up with a mastaba cemetery from the First Dynasty , several royal tombs from the Second Dynasty , the Djoser pyramid and the large enclosure Gisr el-Mudir (possibly also through several other enclosures), so that on the still vacant place to the southwest of the Djoser complex, terraces up to ten meters high had to be created to level out the steep slope.
The name Imhoteps , who is considered to be the builder of the Djoser pyramid, is contained in a building graffiti inscription on the surrounding wall . Even if his titles are illegible and therefore the identification of the builder Imhotep is not clear, it is generally assumed that he was also responsible for the construction of the Sechemchet pyramid. Thus it can be placed in the immediate temporal proximity of the rule of Djoser .
Demolition of the construction work
With the premature death of the king, the construction work was largely stopped and only those facilities were completed that served cultic purposes. At that time, the pyramid only consisted of the first level and so resembled a large mastaba with a square floor plan, similar to what was later also the Raneferef pyramid . Presumably it was prepared as a tomb in this condition, even if the king's body was possibly not available for burial. The empty, sealed sarcophagus indicates a symbolic burial.
The archaeologist Hanns Stock assumes that the area built according to the principle of the Djoser complex was completely filled in after the demolition of the building work within the surrounding wall and converted into a huge mastaba. Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi advocate a less recognized theory : the building was never planned as a pyramid, but rather as a square mastaba, similar to the early construction phases of the Djoser pyramid. Lauer assumes that in the First Intermediate Period, both the mortal remains of the king and the burial equipment were removed in the course of the sacking of many pyramids. But IES Edwards also considered a looting shortly after the burial to be possible.
The pyramid
The structure
The pyramid of the Sechemchet was planned from the beginning with a square floor plan as a step pyramid. With basic dimensions of 120 × 120 meters (230 Königsellen ) it would have been completed with six or seven steps, each consisting of two stone layers each 5 ells thick, which, according to the reconstructions by Goeim and Lauer, indicates a final height of around 70 meters.
Like the Djoser pyramid, the masonry - placed directly on the bedrock - consisted of smaller-sized limestone and was built up in layers. 14 of these layers, inclined inward by 10 to 15 degrees, formed the core of the first stage. The local limestone core masonry was supposed to have a fine limestone cladding, but this does not appear to have been installed as no remains have been found.
When the ruler died, the building had only reached a height of about eight meters, as only the first stage of the structure, consisting of two layers, was completed. The pyramid thus had the character of a huge, square mastaba.
The substructure
The entire substructure is carved out of the rock underground. A large open shaft for the burial chamber, as with the Djoser pyramid, was not created there.
The entrance to the substructure is located in the north of the pyramid and is formed by an initially open, sloping passage that is completely carved into the bedrock. After about 31 meters a vertical shaft opens into the passage. This shaft leads through the rock underground and the masonry of the pyramid and would have its opening in the second stage when the pyramid is completed. It probably served for better ventilation during the construction work and could later have been provided with a locking stone. Similar shafts with locking stones are also located in the entrance to the large contemporary mastaba K1 in Bait Challaf .
At the mouth of the shaft, a small, 1.42 meter wide door is let into the west wall at a height of about one meter. It leads to a 5.30 meter long, low side corridor, which then bends to the north and opens into a huge magazine gallery that surrounds the pyramid in a U-shape. Goneim dug 120 comb-shaped magazine chambers in this gallery that branched off alternately to the left and right; When the excavations resumed, Lauer found 16 more, so that today 136 chambers are known.
Right and left in front of the entrance to the burial chamber branch off side galleries, which surround the chamber in a U-shape. The number of chambers in the side galleries is significantly fewer than that of the Djoser pyramid, but this was possibly due to the early demolition of the building. There were no decorations in these corridors.
The burial chamber itself, located at a depth of 32 meters, with dimensions of 8.9 × 5.2 and a height of 4.5 meters, remained unfinished and is only roughly hewn, without interior cladding. It differed significantly in its design from the burial chamber of the Djoser pyramid, which was built in a vertical shaft from blocks of rose granite . Another corridor starts from the southern wall and ends blindly. In the center of the burial chamber is an unusual sarcophagus made from a single block of finely worked alabaster . Alabaster was a rarely used material for this purpose, and was only used in two other known cases to make a sarcophagus. It is also unusual that it had a sliding lock on the narrow side that was still sealed with mortar when it was found. On the sarcophagus there were remains of organic material, which were initially mistaken for the remains of a flower arrangement, but later turned out to be decomposed wood and bark, which were probably the remains of a wooden crowbar. The sarcophagus was completely empty, and no grave goods were found in the burial chamber.
The pyramid complex
The pyramid complex, like the Djoser complex, had a north-south orientation, but was less precisely oriented with a deviation of eleven degrees to the west. The complex was apparently built in two phases. Initially, dimensions of 262 × 185 meters (500 × 348 Königsellen) were planned and the surrounding walls were largely completed. In a second phase, this complex was supplemented with a larger extension in the north and a smaller one in the south, so that the final, north-south length was 546 meters (1040 Königsellen). During the expansion, the older, northern wall was buried. Rainer Stadelmann suspects that the large dimensions may have been originally planned, but were reduced in a second phase.
The perimeter wall
The excavations of the north wall of the first phase show clear simplifications of the wall technology compared to the previous building of the Djoser. Larger limestone blocks were used and the space in between was lined with simple infill masonry. The wall had a niche structure, similar to the wall of the Djoser pyramid, and was clad with tura limestone , which was preserved in the first north wall, as it had been filled in during the expansion. The walls were about ten meters high. The extension walls either did not get beyond the first construction phases, or the tura limestone cladding was completely stolen. As with the Djoser complex, there are several false gates in the wall. The actual entrance to the pyramid complex has not yet been found.
The south grave
On the south side of the pyramid, slightly offset to the west from the center, are the remains of the south grave , which Lauer discovered in 1963. It is noteworthy that the south tomb was no longer at the southern end of the pyramid area, as with Djoser, but was moved closer to the pyramid. Like the main pyramid, this building was also unfinished. Only the foundation, the substructure and parts of a mastaba-like structure have been preserved. This mastaba was oriented east-west and had basic dimensions of 32 × 16 meters (60 × 30 royal cells). Remnants of a disguise could not be found.
At the end of the access corridor of the substructure, which begins in the west and is only interrupted by a vertical shaft, there is a widening. There, the excavators found a wooden sarcophagus with the remains of a two-year-old child who has not yet been identified. What is certain is that it was not about Sechemchet, who had reigned for six years and was depicted as a youth on images. Animal bones, stone vessels and gold jewelry from the Third Dynasty as well as traces of robbery of the grave were also found there.
Cult buildings
Because of the unfinished state of the complex, it is difficult to make any statements about which cult buildings were planned. It can be considered certain that a mortuary temple was planned in the pyramid complex. As with the Djoser pyramid, this would presumably have been built in the north of the building, but no evidence has yet been found that construction of this temple had started.
It is obvious that, analogous to the situation in the Djoser pyramid complex, a larger number of symbolic cult buildings such as the Sed-Fest chapels or the north and south houses were planned on the large area within the enclosure walls , but so far no remains have been found be found by them. Either these structures had not yet been started when the Sechemchet complex was abandoned, or they were already out of date and were no longer needed for the cult.
Open questions
Various questions remain unsolved so far. For example, there is no known cause for the existence of the empty and sealed sarcophagus. Even if speculations about the loss of the king's corpse through an accident or an attack and a sham burial are used to explain this, there is neither archaeological nor traditional evidence. It is also not clear whether the pyramid was actually pristine.
literature
General
- MZ Goneim, The Lost Pyramid , Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1995.
- Zakaria Goneim : The Lost Pyramid. 1955; New edition: Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2006, ISBN 3-8334-6137-3 .
- Jean-Philippe Lauer : The royal tombs of Memphis. Excavations in Saqqara. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1988, ISBN 3-7857-0528-X .
- Mark Lehner : Secret of the Pyramids. Econ, Düsseldorf 1997, ISBN 3-572-01039-X , pp. 94-94.
- Frank Müller-Römer : The construction of the pyramids in ancient Egypt , Utz 2001, ISBN 978-3-8316-4069-0 , p. 90/91 and p. 148/49.
- Rainer Stadelmann : The Egyptian pyramids. From brick construction to the wonder of the world (= cultural history of the ancient world . Volume 30). 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-8053-1142-7 , pp. 71-75.
- Miroslav Verner : The pyramids (= rororo non-fiction book. Volume 60890). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-60890-1 , pp. 165–174 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet.
Excavation publications
- Mohammed Zakaria Goneim: Horus Sekhem-Khet, The Unfinished Step Pyramid at Sakkara I. In: Excavations at Sakara. 23, Cairo 1957.
- Jean-Philippe Lauer: Découverte du tombeau sud de l'Horus Sekhemkhet dans son complexe funéraire à Saqqarah. In: Revue de l'égyptologie (RdE) 20, 1968.
Web links
- Alan Winston & Jimmy Dunn: King Sekhemkhet and his Pyramid at Saqqara
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thomas Schneider: Lexicon of the Pharaohs . P. 315.
- ↑ a b Mark Lehner: Mystery of the Pyramids , pp. 94–95 The short life of the step pyramids - The buried pyramid of Sechemchets
- ↑ Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , pp. 165-174 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b c d e Rainer Stadelmann: The Egyptian pyramids. From brick construction to the wonder of the world , pp. 71–75
- ↑ Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden , pp. 165–171 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , p. 171 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , pp. 166–167 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ Zakaria Goneim: Horus Sekhem-Khet, The Unfinished Step Pyramid at Sakkara I , Excavations at Sakara 23, pl.13
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , p. 174 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , p. 172 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b c Miroslav Verner: The pyramids , p. 172-173 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ MZ Goneim, Die verschollene Pyramid , Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1995, p. 64
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden , p. 167–168 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden , p. 168 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden , p. 169 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
- ^ Alan Winston & Jimmy Dunn: King Sekhemkhet and his Pyramid at Saqqara
- ↑ a b Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden , p. 167 The step pyramid of the Sechemchet
Coordinates: 29 ° 51 ′ 59 ″ N , 31 ° 12 ′ 47 ″ E
