The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt, Saqqara

A big step pyramid complex at Saqqara, known to Egyptians as kbhw - ntrw (libation to the gods), is one of the stars of Egyptian Antiquities, which is almost always terminal of ancient Egypt, and for good reason. A few of the features have a place in human history as far as the importance of this pyramid. One can say without exaggeration that the Step Pyramid complex constitutes a milestone in the evolution of massive stone architecture, both in Egypt and the world as a whole. It's the beginning of an evolutionary period that would eventually see the polished, soft real pyramids in front of the main builders of the 4th Dynasty.
Here limestone was first used widely as a building material, and here the idea of a huge royal tomb in a pyramid, I realized for the first time. In the inscription of 19 strain is in the south of Saqqara, the ancient Egyptians to describe the constructor, as in the first game of the stone, "" could be interpreted to mean that the inventor of stone architecture.
According to tradition, was built for Horus Netjerikhet, known as Zoser, an important base of the 3rd dynasty of Egypt, Imhotep, the architect of the most famous in Egypt, who was later deified in the New Kingdom. Djoser is the name given to this king by visitors to the site than a thousand years after its establishment, but in fact the name of the only ones found on the walls is Netjerykhet. Step pyramid dominates the old one.
While the 17th - century European travelers tried to enter the pyramid, and archaeological research did not begin until Napoleon to Egypt in the early 19th. In 1821 the Prussian General Johann Heinrich Freiherr von Minutoli discovered the tunnel that leads under the pyramid and the arrival in the north. However, it was not until 1837 the English pyramid researcher John PERRING, and find the underground galleries under the main structure. Shortly thereafter, the campaign led by the Prussian Lepsius has some work on the pyramid. It is true that systematic archaeological research in the Djoser complex was only carried out for the first time in the 1920s by the English archaeologist, Cecil Firth. Soon joined by a young French architect Jean-Philippe Lauer, who made the exploration of this complex task throughout his life. Later, others work on the site, but most of our current understanding of this complex structure can be attributed to the ware.
It would be difficult to overstate the significant leap forward in size and level of sophistication displayed in the architecture of the pyramid. Before the complex of King Djoser, the material most commonly used for a large mud - brick buildings. However, it should be noted that this can not be, in essence, the first step of the pyramid. Several small terrace in Abu Sir I think that perhaps there was a nearly three steps, and the date of the second half of the breed 1st. Before expansion, and a complex of Zoser, also went through this stage where there were only four steps.

Resort is surrounded by a wall of limestone fine white Tura, which when built, is about 10.5 meters (34 feet) high was 1645 meters (5,397 feet) long. At home was an area of approximately 15 hectares (37 acres), which will be in the size of a small town in the Old Kingdom. Because it contains a vast complex of functional and we believe that the buildings were fake, including the halls of North and South, and piles of large terraces, carved into the facades, and a piper polygonal columns, stairs, platforms and altars and shrines of the idols of size. There was even a replica of the infrastructure of the pyramid, called the tomb of the South, but the focus was, of course, the Step Pyramid itself, reaching a height of 60 meters (197 feet) in six steps and contains about 330,400 cubic meters (11,668 , 000 cubic meters of mud and stone. many of the structures that contain elements which have become common forms, but here we see for the first time. Of course, there is the pyramid structure itself, but also see the columns in the first place, on the porch columns, first, life-sized statues , Ox, and the shaping of the Corniche. In fact, many of these elements also survived a list of the members of the hieroglyphic sign of the sacred buildings.
Pyramid itself may not have been imagined, in the original construction as a step pyramid, but is a large, square terrace. However, the fact that it is square, while the majority of the graves of each style terrace and are usually rectangular in shape, suggests that builders may have from the beginning, provided the stepped pyramid.
Jean-Philippe Lauer, and excavator of the site, and thought that it took six phases of the structure that eventually reach their final form. When developers began to transform the bench, and began construction of the cornerstone of crude oil with the cover of limestone and a fine layer of packaging in the middle. Although it has used this technique on the terraces, and now there is a profound difference. Left horizontal bed and began to build additions that tend to the inside. They also work in larger blocks and the best sculpture no longer need to be loaded with large quantities of mortars. Instead, the clay used only as a catalyst in the creation of each block in the bed layer, which tends to increase. In the first stage, locked in the King a fine terrace of limestone, and only a few years later covered the entire pyramid.
Not only on building the pyramid itself in the early stages, but also the structures surrounding it. The evidence suggests that the builders of partially buried shell structures, consisting of the flags of north and south, and south bridge tomb chapels, almost immediately after it was built during the first phase. In his book, and the Pyramids in full, and Mark Lehner, said that:
"Half dummy buildings immersion may mean chthonic, the underside of existence after death, and to complete the encircling terrace meets the pastern of the Egyptian antiquities, the first by successive stages to hide. Construction of the grave what appeared to be part of a pattern of celebration, an act of unification and renewal that made it necessary to bury finely crafted structures, and the tendency for the simulation of Egypt to have one of the greatest expression here and stone wall to imitate the brick and stone higher than the input step, and wings and chapels north and south bridge and record the tradition of wood and traces of paint suggest that many of the interfaces and columns of fine limestone were red to imitate wood " .

Therefore, in the beginning architectural form is not exactly coincide with the new materials. Builders severely affected in architecture from the early dynasties, which had been used light and natural materials such as clay, wood, cane and straw mats. Here, the results of their efforts would, therefore, the original, and archaeological sites, in many ways, strangely enough, works well together in harmony without the mentality of the old architecture with a new system for the builders of the stone. In essence, the above was copied in stone architecture.
Ware to distinguish between the structures and functional against the imagination. With some of the elements, was sufficient to form or image that appears in the interface. It can be abbreviated to the interior. The so-called dummy buildings. Buildings served the King Ka in the afterlife. Buildings and functional may be necessary for an effective procedure for the funeral. But what on earth is not only a part of history.
Underground, creating the structure of the Egyptian underground in the range were not previously known, and stone quarries to more than 5.7 kilometers (about 3 1 / 2 mile) of the wells and tunnels, chambers, galleries and magazines. And a central atrium space, and two parallel stretches for 365 meters (1,198 feet), and link 400 rooms. These and other features under the ground and one of the nodes surrounding the complex of tunnels and columns than ever before to create the Egyptians, under the pyramid itself.
It is not just the structure and the complex was new. Compared with the pre-dynastic and early dynastic period, and this complexity is reflected in many ways different mentality. In the context of the struggle for the establishment of the United Kingdom, and the formation of a strong central government has been established. Because of its originality, and a group of buildings that make up the pyramid of Djoser complex is generally seen as an expression of political stability in Egypt in the early era of the Old Kingdom. But beyond that, Egyptologists continue to disagree on the construction and meaning.