Featuring Mark Lehner, Zahi Hawass, Rick Brown, Gunter Dreyer, Richard Redding, Rainer Stadelman, and Fathi Mohamed.

Riddles of the Sphinx primarily features Dr. Mark Lehner, but we also have significant face time with ancient tools specialist Rick Brown and informative snippets with Gunter Dryer, Richard Redding, Rainer Stadelman, and the obligatory sequences with Zahi Hawass.  It was written and produced by Gary Glassman of Providence Pictures for the PBS series NOVA (Original air date—January 19, 2010).

As the title suggests, the program addresses several timeless riddles of the Great Sphinx, namely, who built it, why, and how?

Who Built the Great Sphinx?

The question of who built the Great Sphinx is tackled by Rainer Stadelman, who makes the case for Pharaoh Khufu, and Mark Lehner, who makes a pretty convincing argument for Khufu’s son, Khafre.  Lehner points to the Sphinx’s location on the Giza Plateau.  Granted, it is located between the pyramids of both Khufu and Khafre, but Lehner explains that at the equinox the sun is aligned with the Sphinx, the Sphinx Temple, and Khafre’s Pyramid, which seems to associate these three monuments together.

Rainer Stadelman makes a much simpler, but nonetheless potent, argument:  the face of the Sphinx looks a lot more like Khufu than Khafre.  Incidentally, Em Hotep looks at this question in the article “The Great Sphinx: What We Know, What We Think We Know, What We Will Never Know”.  I have to admit, I didn’t get any further than Drs. Lehner and Stadelman in settling the question of who built the Sphinx, which isn’t too surprising!  But the face does seem to look an awful lot like Khufu.

One possibility the video does not address is that Khafre built the Sphinx, but may have attached his father’s face to it.  Some see this as a bit of a stretch, and Lehner’s geographic argument is pretty tight.  But there are geographic reasons for associating the Great Sphinx with Khufu as well, which are detailed in the Em Hotep article.

Why Was the Great Sphinx Built?

To explore why the Great Sphinx was built, the video first looks at what it represents.  We start with a trip to Abydos with Dr. Gunter Dreyer of the German Archaeological Institute.  Excavations of the tomb of Aha, the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty, revealed that along with human servants, lions were sacrificed and buried with the king.  This shows that even in the earliest days of Egyptian history, lions were associated with the monarch.

The video states that these leonean sacrifices are the first clue to the meaning of the Sphinx’s form.  The lion was a symbol of pharaonic power, but the Great Sphinx was also a god.  The Egyptians often depicted their gods as human/animal hybrids, but typically with human bodies and animal heads.  But the sphinx has the body of a lion, to represent power and ferocity, and the head of a man, to represent intelligence and good judgment.

Riddles of the Sphinx goes on to explain that by the Eighteenth Dynasty, after a thousand years of obscurity and neglect, the Sphinx was back in style.  After being rescued and restored by Pharaoh Thutmose IV the Sphinx becomes associated with the god Horemakhet (the video says Horus Akhet—same god), who is the personification of “Horus on the Horizon.”  The horizon is the gateway to the afterlife, and thus, the Sphinx is the guardian—and gatekeeper—of the afterlife.

Building on Lehner’s theory of who constructed the Sphinx, the video concludes that the reason for its construction was to assure Khafre’s passage into the afterlife.  Just as the sun aligns on the horizon with the Sphinx, its temple, and Khafre’s Pyramid during the equinox, the time of both rebirth and harvest, so the Sphinx as Horus on the Horizon guides the deceased Pharaoh into the hereafter.

But this is where I think the video glosses over some other possibilities.  A thousand years is a long time.  Egypt experienced a lot of development, along with a couple of Dark Ages, in the gulf between the Fourth Dynasty, when the Sphinx was presumably built, and the Eighteenth Dynasty, when it was clearly associated with Horemakhet. I don’t think the video makes a convincing case for the Eighteenth Dynasty interpretation of the Sphinx being a revival of the original beliefs and practices surrounding the Great Sphinx.

The Fourth Dynasty is silent with regard to the Great Sphinx.  There are no textual or graphic representations of what it meant or how it was revered within the Sphinx Temple, the pyramids, or on the Sphinx itself.  What we know comes from the time of Amenhotep IV, and may be more of a contemporary interpretation than an ancient revival. After all, everything Amenhotep IV knew of the Sphinx he learned in a mystical vision.

As with who built the Sphinx, the video does not really settle the question of why it was built either.

How Was the Great Sphinx Built?

The question of how the Great Sphinx was built takes up a generous portion of the video and is some of the most enjoyable viewing.  Operating on the philosophy that experience is the best teacher, the subjects of the video divide into two teams who attempt to reproduce various aspects of the building process. 

On one team we have Egyptologist Dr. Richard Redding of the University of Michigan working with local sculptor and stonemason, Fathi Mohamed.  Team One sets about sculpting a miniature sphinx from the same limestone that was used to construct the head of the original, which happens to also be the hardest layer of the strata from which the Sphinx was carved.  Redding and Mohamed use modern steel hand tools in their project.

On the other team, Mark Lehner joins Rick Brown, a specialist in ancient tools, who reproduces the pounders and copper chisels that would have been used by the original stonecutters.  For their project, Lehner decides to attempt to reproduce a scaled-down model of the Great Sphinx’s missing nose using only the tools employed by the Fourth Dynasty builders.  This idea turned out to be better on the strategic level than on the tactical level.  Implementation had… mixed results.

Right off the bat Mohamed and Redding discover that the hard limestone is bending their steel tools.  As for Lehner and Brown, their copper chisels are faring much more badly.  They find they can only get a few dozen strikes out of each chisel before it is fouled beyond use.  They discover very quickly that the process of reheating and reshaping the chisels back at the forge is at least as labor intensive as the actual stonecutting itself.

One of the unexpected joys of watching Riddles of the Sphinx was how surprisingly musical the hammering and pounding were.  Not the chisels so much, but the sound of the harder stone pounders striking the limestone was actually very resonate and pleasing to the ear.  Striking varying densities of stone would produce different tones, so one can only imagine what a symphony the workers must have produced.  It is something you have to hear to understand, and is one of the several reasons I recommend you check out this video for yourself.

The effects of the limestone on the tools themselves, however, was decidedly less pleasant, and by the end of the video Lehner and Brown are forced to resort to a pneumatic chisel and a circular saw designed to cut stone.  But even using modern power tools they find that the methods for cutting the stone are the same.  Parallel cuts are made in the stone, and then a chisel is used to remove the material between the cuts.

This method of carving away the limestone by making cuts and then chiseling away the material between is actually very similar to how the layers of surrounding strata were cleared from the Sphinx enclosure.  The video explains that the ancient workers started out by cutting a horseshoe-shaped trench around what would become the Sphinx enclosure.  Then parallel lines were cut into the plateau and blocks were cut away from the material between.

In working this way the stonecutters carved through the strata, downward and inward, until a large central block was isolated, from which the Great Sphinx itself was then carved.  The blocks that were removed in the process were carted off for other projects such as temple and pyramid building.  In fact, by matching layers of strata, Lehner seems to have demonstrated that the blocks which make up the Sphinx Temple were quarried from around the Sphinx itself.

Although we may not know who made the Sphinx or why, we have a pretty good idea of how.  And even though Lehner and Brown had to abandon their ancient-style tools, they were able to complete enough work with them to calculate how long the project would have taken.

They counted an average of about 200 strikes with the stone pounders per five minutes, and given a constant supply of replacement chisels, a worker could remove one cubic foot of stone in about 40 hours.  Lehner projects that it thus took about 1 million man-hours to carve the Great Sphinx, or three years for 100 men.  But that is only counting the stonecutters.  There were also the smiths who reworked the spent chisels, the people who gathered fire wood for the forges, the runners carrying tools, etc.  As we shall see in the in-progress Pyramid City series, entire towns emerged around these construction projects.

Redding and Mohamed were also successful in completing their miniature sphinx, but given that Lehner and Brown also ended up resorting to modern tools, I am not really sure of what Redding and Mohamed contributed to the program. 

Riddles Upon Riddles

There are other riddles addressed in the video as well.  For example, Dr. Zahi Hawass addresses another question people often ask about the Sphinx—If it was carved from one massive block, straight out of the living stone of the Giza Plateau, then why are there so many smaller blocks visible?  The answer is simple:  thousands of years of repair work by various cultures.  In addition to the original project by Thutmose IV, the Sphinx has undergone renovations right up to modern days.

Part of the problem in modern times is the pollution and vibrations caused by tourists, traffic, and near-by construction.  But the main destructive force, and one which has been in progress since the Sphinx was first built, is the process of rising ground water forcing residual salt up into the limestone.  The salt then dries and crystallizes, which is literally pushing the grains of limestone apart from within.

The effect is devastating.  In one particularly wince-worthy scene, Mark Lehner pulls a flake of limestone the size of his hand from the surface of the Sphinx and literally crumbles it to dust.  The effect of viewing this is akin to hearing fingernails on a chalkboard, but Lehner gets his point across—the Great Sphinx is in great peril.

(Author’s Rant:  If Albert Zink and Carsten Pusch can drill holes into royal mummies, and Mark Lehner can tear chunks from the Great Sphinx and crush them in his bare hands, then why is Jean-Pierre Houdin not allowed to, in effect, take high tech photographs of the Great Pyramid?  Is someone afraid that Houdin’s work might drill holes in, or crumble to dust, something more personal?  Hmmmm?)  

Riddles of the Sphinx, which I had the privilege of viewing in high definition, is beautifully filmed and edited.  In addition to the above-mentioned musical stones, there are many scenes which make its viewing well worth your time.  In one scene, for instance, we see Zahi Hawass walking down the back of the Sphinx toward its head.  This is an angle of the Sphinx we normally do not see, and it drives home how long and narrow the structure is.  The odd shape of the Sphinx—its long body and disproportionately small head—has spawned its own series of queries and riddles.

I highly encourage you, Gentle Reader, to check out Riddles of the Sphinx for yourself.  I am not convinced with all of the answers it proposes, but sometimes the fun is in not yet knowing.  I tend to enjoy journeys more than arrivals, myself.

Transcripts of the video are available here.

See Also

• The Great Sphinx: What We Know, What We Think We Know, What We Will Never Know

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Drawing “Stone-cutters finishing the dressing of limestone blocks” Drawn by Faucher-Gudin (Maspero, Gaston. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria. Vol. II, Part A. London: Grolier Society) courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

Dr. Hawass’ statement that “These tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves” (source) was widely repeated in the press under headlines announcing that the belief that slaves had built the pyramids could now be retired.  But Egyptologists have long known that the Slave Hypothesis was pure Hollywood. 

Along with Hawass, Egyptologist Mark Lehner began uncovering the truth of the pyramid builders more than 20 years ago.  Lehner was consumed with the question of where such a large workforce could have lived.  After conducting the first detailed “to scale” survey of the Giza Plateau, he narrowed his focus to the area around the enigmatic Wall of the Crow, a colossal wall with no apparent related structures.

Lehner hit pay dirt, and his dogged pursuit of these ancient builders led to the excavation of the very city where they lived and worked—a large complex of barracks and permanent housing, distribution centers, industrial sites, and scribal workshops.  The recently discovered tombs tell us something of the status of the workers, but the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders gives us the everyday details of their lives.

Most of Em Hotep’s readers will be familiar with Dr. Lehner and his work.  But if you are not, then his total absence from the recent news stories may have left you with an incomplete picture of just how strong the case against the Slavery Hypothesis really is.  In this three-part series we will take a look at what Lehner discovered about the pyramid builders.  We will examine the evidence that the workforce had a surprisingly modern division of labor, followed by a tour of the city itself.

The headlines said it all

“Egyptian Tomb Find Suggests Pyramid Builders Weren’t Slaves” (Bloomberg).  “Egypt tombs suggest free men built pyramids, not slaves” (BBC).  The Times Live snarkily distinguished that “Great pyramid builders were wage slaves.” And speaking with sonorous authority, Al-Ahram Weekly declared “Building on facts:  A new discovery at Giza plateau has finally debunked Herodotus’ assertion that the Pyramids were built by slaves.”

Some sources at least acknowledged that this news wasn’t so new after all.  Discover Magazine announced “Egypt Finds Tombs of Pyramid Builders, And More Evidence They Were Free Men.”  The Canadian Press stated “Egypt says newly discovered tombs provide more evidence slaves did not build pyramids” [article no longer online].  JWeekly.com summarized “Egypt unveils more proof that Jews did not build pyramids.”

The headlines said it all, but the articles, unfortunately, did not.    

Egyptologist Dr. Mark Lehner (Courtesy of PBS, from the documentary “This Old Pyramid”)

Thanks to an oversight, Mark Lehner’s name was excluded from the original press release and official blog report by Zahi Hawass regarding the recent discovery.  To be clear, Dr. Lehner was not directly involved in the discovery of the new tombs.  But to leave him out of any discussion of the debunking of the Slave Hypothesis is like a history of the Theory of Evolution that fails to mention Charles Darwin.

Tombs of the workers overlooking Pyramid City (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Fortunately Dr. Hawass has amended his blog entry to mention Dr. Lehner by name, but the presses have rolled on to new headlines.  Again to be clear, the importance of the tombs of the overseers cannot be overstated.  They provide corroborative evidence of how the labor was organized, and their proximity to the king’s final resting place removes any question of their status—they were not slaves.

But this discovery is hardly the straw that broke the Slave Hypothesis’ back, as suggested by the media coverage.  It could be argued that while the overseers themselves were not slaves, the laborers were.  After all, not all of the workers who toiled on the pyramids were buried in cemeteries surrounding the pharaohs.  A feasible alternative hypothesis is that this privilege was reserved for freemen, while the rest of the laborers were slaves.

To really know about the pyramid builders we have to look beyond where they were buried to where they lived.  Does the archaeological record point to the presence of a large slave population on the Giza Plateau? 

First let’s set the parameters of the discussion:  what constitutes slave labor and what does not?

The Slave Hypothesis

The Slave Hypothesis is actually pretty simple:  the pyramids and other structures were built by slaves, usually depicted as being Semitic.  This latter part is easily dismissed.  Semitic people do not begin to appear in Egypt in great numbers until the Middle Kingdom Period, particularly during the Twelfth Dynasty. Of this much we can be certain—whether the pyramids were built by slaves or freemen, they were not built by Israelites, or proto-Israelites, or anyone else connected with the Moses of the Bible.  It just didn’t happen.

We owe this myth in part to a loose reading of the Book of Exodus, which gives the account of Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage.  Although there have been Semitic slaves and kings alike in Egypt (see the Hyksos Dynasty), there is no actual archaeological or historical evidence for the Exodus accounts, even when stripped of its more supernatural elements.

Charlton Heston as Moses

But the Exodus account doesn’t even name the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and makes no mention of the pyramids.  For this we can blame Hollywood.  Movies such as Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” burned the image of Hebrew slaves into the pop culture psyche.  In large part, the Slave Hypothesis is based on a Hollywood fiction.

So what about the first part of the Slave Hypothesis?  Could the pyramids have been built by slaves if we toss out the Moses part?

Slaves in Egypt

There were many forms of servitude in ancient Egypt, and to a certain extent everyone was owned by the Pharaoh.  As we shall see below, there was also a type of feudalism which bound all Egyptians to a debt of labor to their superiors.  But what about an army of whip-driven state-owned slaves, as often depicted dragging blocks up the pyramid ramps?

To be sure, there were slaves in ancient Egypt.  Most slaves were a product of warfare, with victorious Egyptian armies returning from foreign campaigns with hundreds, or even thousands, of slaves in tow.  Such human booty became the property of the pharaoh to use and distribute as he saw fit.

Some of the slaves would serve directly as a part of the king’s estate, while others would be distributed to temples and work camps.  The king might also grant slaves to individuals as rewards for service or loyalty.  Slave labor was considered to be a resource which, like any other, was sent where it was needed.

Nubian Slaves at Abu Simbel

Most of the slaves would have been civilians who were captured, but many would also have been soldiers who had surrendered.  Some of these individuals would have been highly skilled and their talents were put to use.  Slaves could be found performing service ranging from grunt labor to any vocation not restricted to freemen.

Not all slaves were foreigners.  An Egyptian who was caught in criminal activity could find himself, and his entire family, enslaved as punishment.  Egyptians could also sell themselves into slavery to settle a debt.  Others sold themselves simply to improve their lot in life, finding the life of a slave more stable and secure than trying to get by on their own.  

At least some slaves were clearly treated as property in ancient Egypt.  The pharaoh might grant slaves, land, and cattle to a temple or an individual.  Wealthy Egyptians also included slaves in transactions among themselves. These contracts seem to have been conducted between individuals or with the state, but there were no slave markets as we see in other times and places.

So the question is, how common were such slaves in the Old Kingdom Period?  Could the pharaoh have mobilized an army of slaves to build the monumental structures of the Giza Plateau?  Obviously there were huge workforces of some sort involved, and this undoubtedly involved servitude, but what was the nature of that service?  In his article Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Egypt, writer Jimmy Dunn observes:

For ancient Egypt, a better, or at least more precise definition of a slave might be a “person owned by a master, as was any other chattel, used as the master pleased, to the extent of being disposed of by inheritance, gift sale and so forth”. In reality, such slavery seems to have been fairly rare in Egypt prior to the Greek Period, progressing over time.

Dunn goes on to point out that huge slave populations do not really begin to appear in Egypt’s history until the great conquests of the New Kingdom Period.  As noted above, even when the pharaoh acquired slaves they tended to be distributed throughout the kingdom.  Egypt simply did not have the means to control a huge population of thousands of slaves in one location.

There were slave work camps, but these were smaller localized projects.  Slaves were used in the construction of some temples and other structures, but a project the scale of the Giza Pyramids required thousands of workers.  The archaeological evidence from the Giza Plateau simply does not support the notion of a slave camp of that size. 

But there were thousands of somebodies working on the plateau. 

The Bak Hypothesis

One way or another, pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure were able to mobilize huge workforces numbering in the thousands to build the pyramids.  At least 2,000 and as many as 4,000 workers were fed, housed, managed and motivated within an easy walk of these great monuments (the 10,000 figure postulated by Hawass in his blog post is generally considered to be way too high).  Regardless of how you cut it, these were clearly very expensive undertakings.  How could such a project be funded if not performed by slave labor?

One type of organizational structure that could generate a large free-but-obligated workforce would be feudalism.  In a feudal system everybody owes some sort of service to the social rank immediately above them.  Kings appoint nobles, nobles appoint vassals, vassals organize knights, knights build armies, and armies conscript soldiers.  By requiring goods and service in exchange for land, status, and other privileges, the king could mobilize his entire kingdom through delegation.

Lehner proposes that the pyramids, as well as other national construction projects, were organized the same way.  The Egyptian system of vassalage was called bak, and everybody owed bak to somebody above them (not to be confused with baksheesh, which is what tourists and travelers seem to owe to every Egyptian!). 

Priests owed bak.  Scribes owed bak.  Potters owed bak.  Farmers owed bak.  Through this system of obligatory servitude every citizen of the Old Kingdom could be called upon to do his or her shift of work on the pyramid projects.  Simply put, the Bak Hypothesis says that the pyramids were built by a rotating workforce of laborers who were serving their allotted shift to their lords.  (See Harvard Magazine:  “Who Built the Pyramids,” by Jonathan Shaw)

The bak system solves several problems involved in pyramid building.  First, it keeps the overhead low because the labor is essentially free.  Unskilled labor requires little training and the workers are interchangeable.  Similarly, skilled labor is easily rotated because the workers are assigned to duties that take best advantage of their skill set.  By obliging every citizen to invest their skills for a certain amount of time, a huge workforce of skilled and unskilled labor could be employed for very little cost.

Second, the bak system absorbs the cost of supplying the workforce.  Raw materials such as grain and livestock are supplied through taxes and bak, and the workforce required to turn them into hot meals is at least partly composed of citizens serving their bak debt.  We shall see in Part 2 that the Pyramid City included a permanent workforce who made their living off of the building projects.  But even their wages would have come from the bak supplied by others.

Third, the bak system of conscription was actually good for morale.  As we have seen in the wars of the last century, a drafted soldier may not like the idea of going to war, but the esprit de corps he forms with his fellow draftees compel him to give 100% to the effort.  Dr. Lehner and others have found archaeological evidence of this sort of camaraderie around the building projects of the Giza Plateau, which we will look at in Part 2.

So the Bak Hypothesis gives an alternate model of how the pyramids may have been built.  Unlike the Slavery Hypothesis, for which we have no archaeological evidence, Lehner has been able to paint a very detailed picture of the lives of the permanent and rotating citizens of the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders.

In Part 2:  Pyramid City, Inc., we will look at the evidence for how the workforce was organized, and how the evidence supports Lehner’s hypothesis while contradicting the Slave Hypothesis.  We will close the series with Part 3:  A Guided Tour of the Pyramid City, a trip through the Great Western Gate of the Wall of the Crow for a street-level look at how the denizens of the Pyramid City worked and lived.

The Great Western Gate of the Wall of the Crow (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Note:  Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), the organization founded by Dr. Lehner to excavate and analyze the Pyramid City, refers to the site in its official literature as the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders.  For the sake of brevity, these articles will simply refer to the site as the Pyramid City, but we are talking about the same place.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photograph “mark.png” from “This Old Pyramid,” courtesy of PBS.org, all rights reserved.  Photographs “plateau_14.png” and “plateau_16” by Jon Bodsworth, are copyright free.  Photograph “Nubian Slaves” is in the public domain and is copyright free.  Still from the movie “The Ten Commandments” courtesy of Paramount Pictures, all rights reserved.

Fourth Dynasty

The Zenith of the Pyramid Age

2613 to 2494

In the Fourth Dynasty, the pharaoh is Egypt.  Absolute and centralized power, wide prosperity, and religious and political nationalism combine into a period of high spirituality, monumental architecture, and efficient bureaucracy.

Dating systems

The primary source for the dates used in the Em Hotep Dynasties pages is the chronology developed by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson for the British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. In an effort to be as comprehensive as possible other dating systems were used to fill in the blanks.  These various systems were chosen based on how closely they could be integrated to the Shaw and Nicholson chronology.  Note that dates in Egyptian chronologies may radically vary from one Egyptologist to the next.

In addition to Shaw and Nicholson, chronologies from the following sources were used in the compilation of the Em Hotep Dynasties pages.

• Digital Egypt for Universities – An online learning and teaching resource in Egyptology developed at University College London.
• Aiden Dodson – Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol.
• Detlef Franke – Institute of Egyptology of the University of Heidelberg.
• Peter Piccone – Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History, University of Charleston, SC.
• Donald Redford – Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Pennsylvania State University.
• Kim Ryholt – Associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen.
• Turin Cannon – A king’s list that names most of the Pharaohs from the First Dynasty to the Second Intermediate Period. 

The Dynasties of Ancient Egypt

Predynastic Period

Zero Dynasty:  From Nomads to Villages, From City-States to Kingdoms

Early Dynastic Period

First Dynasty:  The Formative Years of Egyptian Culture

Second Dynasty:  Religious and Political Strife Threatens the Union

Old Kingdom Period

Third Dynasty:  Egypt Enters its Pyramid Age

Fourth Dynasty:  The Zenith of the Pyramid Age

Fifth Dynasty:  The Decline of the Pyramid Age and the Rise of the Solar Cult

Sixth Dynasty:  The Twilight of the Old Kingdom

First Intermediate Period

Seventh and Eighth Dynasties:  The Center Cannot Hold, Things Fall Apart

Ninth and Tenth Dynasties:  The Herakleopolitan Dynasties

Middle Kingdom Period

Eleventh Dynasty:  The Restoration of the Union of Upper and Lower Egypt

Twelfth Dynasty:  Power, Peace, and Prosperity

Second Intermediate Period

Thirteenth Dynasty:  Rise of the Hyksos, Descent into Chaos

Fourteenth Dynasty:  The Kings of the Delta

Fifteenth Dynasty:  The Hyksos Dynasty

Sixteenth Dynasty:  The Kysos Dynasty

Seventeenth Dynasty:  Thebes in Turmoil Rediscovers its Egyptian Spirit

New Kingdom Period

Eighteenth Dynasty:  The Egyptian Renaissance and the Dynasty of Celebrities

Nineteenth Dynasty:  Might Makes Right—The Ramesside Period Pt. 1

Twentieth Dynasty:  From Greatness to Irrelevancy—The Ramesside Period Pt. 2

Third Intermediate Period

Twenty-First Dynasty:  The Tanite Dynasty and the Amun Priesthood

Twenty-Second Dynasty:  The Libyan Dynasty

Twenty-Third Dynasty:  The Libyan Federation of Egypt

Twenty-Fourth Dynasty:  The Great Chiefs of the West

Late Period

Twenty-Fifth Dynasty:  The Kushite Dynasty

Twenty-Sixth Dynasty:  The Saite Dynasty

Twenty-Seventh Dynasty:  The First Persian Dynasty

Twenty-Eighth Dynasty:  The Short Reign of the Liberator

Twenty-Ninth Dynasty:  The Mendean Kings

Thirtieth Dynasty:  The Last Egyptian Dynasty

Thirty-First Dynasty:  The Second Persian Dynasty

Ptolemaic Period

Thirty-Second Dynasty:  The Macedonian Dynasty

Thirty-Third Dynasty:  The Ptolemaic Dynasty

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

Valley Temples

Valley temples served a number of functions, some of which are better understood than others.  Primarily, the valley vemple was the main entrance to the pyramid complex.  The standard layout of a pyramid complex included the pyramid itself, a smaller cult pyramid, cemeteries for family and favored servants, and a mortuary temple at the base of the pyramid, with a causeway leading down to a valley temple.  The entire complex would be surrounded by an enclosure wall, with the valley temple being the entrance point.

Valley temples were typically connected to the Nile River via canal, with a harbor and a quay constructed at the base of the temple’s forecourt.  The quay was large enough to accommodate everything from barges carrying construction materials to the funeral boat carrying the deceased pharaoh.  But the most important ships to berth at the valley temple were the celestial barques that brought the gods themselves to the temple.

Visiting gods would be greeted by statues of the pharaoh whose temple they were calling upon, both in the forecourt and within the temple itself.  There were numerous chambers within valley temples, some which may have been dedicated to certain deities, and others which would have been involved in the embalming and sanctifying of the king’s body.  The king himself was not worshipped in the valley temple—that function was served by the mortuary temple.

Khafre’s Valley Temple

Pharaoh Khafre (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Pharaoh Khafre’s valley temple was built in the mid- to late twenty-sixth century BC.  Due to being buried in sand until the 19th century AD, it is the best preserved structure from the Fourth Dynasty.  Khafre’s temple is austere by the standards of later valley temples, particularly those of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, which are richly decorated.

There are two causeways leading from the quay to the forecourt, with an entrance opposite each causeway in the temple’s eastern side.  Each entrance opens into its own antechamber, and the antechambers connect in a central vestibule.  The northernmost entrance is dedicated to the goddess Bastet, the southernmost to the goddess Hathor. 

The vestibule is connected to a large T-shaped hall, usually referred to as the Sixteen-Pillared Chamber due to the presence of sixteen large unadorned square pillars made of pink Aswan granite.  The pillars once supported a roof of which only the primary granite beams remain.  There are six pillars in the north-south segment of the chamber, and two rows of five pillars in the east-west segment.

Looking down the western arm of the Sixteen Pillared Chamber (Photo by Keith Payne)

At the southern end of the north-south hall a short entryway leads to a storage chamber.  The two-story chamber is laid out in three parallel storerooms, each situated over another storeroom, for a total of six rooms. 

Above the storerooms, the terraced roof is fitted with alabaster-lined channels which connect with similar channels throughout the temple, and are believed to have served a ceremonial rather than literal function.  It was previously thought that the king’s body was embalmed under a tent on the terrace, however, it is now considered more likely that cleansing rituals were carried out there.

At the north end of the north-south hall a short passageway leads to the causeway to Khafre’s mortuary temple and pyramid. 

The exit corridor to the causeway, with Khafre’s Pyramid beyond (Photo by Keith Payne)

The temple is constructed of a limestone core of huge blocks, many weighing between 100 to 150 tons.  The blocks were quarried from the plateau surrounding the Great Sphinx, which along with its temple lies adjacent to Khafre’s valley temple.  The floors throughout the temple are paved with alabaster.

Jigsaw granite facing stones wrapping around a corner (Photo by Keith Payne)

The limestone core of the walls is dressed with the same pink Nubian granite used to make the pillars.  The wall facing is cut and fitted with extreme precision, with odd shapes that give the appearance of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.  Some of the facing stones are shaped so intricately as to have three or more exposed surfaces and multiple corners and angles.

Remarkable engineering has kept the mortar-free facing in place for millennia (Photo by Keith Payne)

Diorite statue of Khafre in the Cairo Museum (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Around the perimeter of the T-shaped chamber are 23 impressions in the floor where life-sized statues of Khafre once stood.  The statues would have been illuminated from above via narrow slits in the ceiling, creating an effect in the shadowy temple that would have been comparable to the lighting used in modern museums and galleries. 

Several of these statues were discovered, broken and headless, in a shaft in the vestibule.  Only one of the diorite statues that once lined the temple has been found intact.  It currently resides in the Cairo Museum.

Being concealed within the desert sands spared Khafre’s valley temple from having its alabaster flooring and granite facing being stripped away for other uses, allowing us a glimpse of the artistry and engineering of the mighty builders of the Fourth Dynasty.  Although it may lack the cosmetic flourishes of the temples of later dynasties, its construction is vastly superior to later Old Kingdom structures.  With the wonders of the Great Sphinx and the pyramids beyond, one may be tempted to rush through the valley temple.  But this is the place where the gods themselves came to linger with the king’s memory.  We should do no less.

Terrace along the side of the causeway leading to the mortuary temple and pyramid (Photo by Keith Payne)

Further Reading

Egypt Index

Valley Temple of Khafre

Egyptian Monuments

Pyramid of Khafre

LookLex Egypt

Mortuary Complex of Khafre

Talking Pyramids

Photos of Khafre’s Valley Temple

Tour Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Khafre at Giza

Photograph “Pharaoh Khafre” was originally titled “Ägyptisches Museum Leipzig 035.jpg” by Einsamer Schütze, and photograph “Diorite statue of Khafre in the Cairo museum” was originally titled “Khafre statue.jpg” by Jon Bodsworth, are both provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright by Keith Payne, 2009, all rights reserved.

Actually, these structures contain some intriguing clues about Userkaf and his times, and a shadow of things to come.

Pharaoh Userkaf

Pharaoh Userkaf (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Userkaf, whose name means “his soul (Ka) is powerful,” was the first king of the Fifth Dynasty.  His reign was short, about seven years, around the time of 2504 to 2496 BC.  We do not know who Userkaf’s father was, but his grandfather was King Djedefre, and Neferhetepes, previously thought to be his mother, was more likely one of his wives.  This confusing set of trivia is about all we know of his biography, but fortunately, his monuments suggest a bit more.

The solar cult of Ra, based in Heliopolis, had steadily grown in power and influence throughout the Fourth Dynasty, and was beginning to exert some of that influence over the nobility.  We know that Userkaf built a temple dedicated to the growing religion in Abusir, and that other Fifth Dynasty kings would follow his example. 

This may have been a political move intended to curry favor with this increasing constituency, with the unintended effect of undermining his own authority as the primary divinity of the Egyptian people.  The Fifth Dynasty would be a transitional period where the wealth and power of lesser, more local, nobility is on the increase, and the new cult was an additional subtle drain on the supremacy of the Pharaoh.

Userkaf’s Pyramid

Little remains of Userkaf’s pyramid besides a pile of rubble.  The construction, which may have been cosmetically attractive at the time, seems nevertheless to be a throwback to the days before Snefru.  It had a limestone casing that would have given it the appearance of a smooth-sided pyramid.  But the casing was stripped away in antiquity, and the core seems to have had little tolerance for erosion.  Fortunately, there is still enough of Userkaf’s complex left to note some other interesting deviations from long-established standards.

The Pyramid of Userkaf (Photo by Keith Payne)

Userkaf’s pyramid complex has all of the elements of previous complexes—a valley temple on the river with a causeway leading up to a mortuary temple adjacent to the pyramid, and a smaller enclosed cult pyramid.  But the layout may reflect the influence of the Ra cult.

The mortuary temple is built to the south of the pyramid, rather than the east, and is oriented away from the pyramid itself.  This southward orientation maximizes the hours of direct sunlight on the funerary complex.  It has also been suggested that the decision to build the mortuary temple to the south may have been due to unfavorable terrain to the east, or the proximity of Djoser’s complex, but this fails to explain why the orientation of the temple is reversed.

Userkaf’s choice to build his pyramid so close to that of Djoser also represents a shift.  Pyramid building in the northern end of the Memphis Necropolis, particularly in the area of Giza, had been in vogue since the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty.  Userkaf’s predecessor, Shepseskaf, had broken with this tradition by moving back to Saqqara.  But Userkaf chose not only to return to Saqqara, but to build his pyramid to the immediate north-east of Djoser’s complex.

These anomalies and reversals may not tell us much of Pharaoh Userkaf as an individual, but they certainly point to a time of changing conventions and emerging powers.  There is a pronounced movement away from the ways of the Fourth Dynasty, where the absolute rule of the pharaoh was unquestioned.    His decision to move away from the monuments of the Fourth Dynasty and back to those of the Third Dynasty is reflected in the construction of his pyramid, which was a clear devolution.

Times were quietly changing, and not for the better.

Further Reading

Egyptian Monuments

Pyramid and Mortuary Complex of Userkaf

LookLex Egypt

Pyramid of Userkaf

Talking Pyramids

Saqqara – Userkaf

Tour Egypt

Userkaf:  First Ruler of the 5th Dynasty

Photograph “Userkaf.jpg” by Jon Bodsworth is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright 2009, all rights reserved.

Pharaoh Khufu

Pharaoh Khufu (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Pharaoh Khufu was known as Cheops to the Greeks, and was also called Suphis by the Ptolemaic-Era Egyptian historian Manetho.  His actual name was Khnum-Khufwy, which means “the god Khnum protects me.” 

Khufu reigned from 2589 to 2566 BC and was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, the son of Pharaoh Snefru and father of kings Djedefre and Khafre.  He was coroneted in his early twenties, although sources vary regarding the length of his reign.  The earliest source, the Turin King List, has him ruling for 23 years, the Ptolemaic Era Egyptian historian Manetho has him ruling for 63 years, and the Greek Historian Herodotus puts his reign at 50 years.

Although he had a reputation for cruelty to friend and foe alike, he was worshipped until well into the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, nearly 2000 years, although this may have something to do with his rather impressive pyramid.  Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has recently postulated that the reason for Khufu’s bad reputation may have to do with his declaration during his lifetime that he was the god Ra.  Its one thing for a pharaoh to be a living god, quite another to declare oneself to be the living god.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu

Also known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops, the Pyramid of Khufu is the oldest of the three pyramids which dominate the Giza Plateau.  It is also the largest, although the Pyramid of Khafre appears taller due to being built on a higher part of the plateau.  The pyramid was believed to have been completed during Khufu’s lifetime. 

The architect of the Great Pyramid was Hemienu, Khufu’s Vizier and Master of Works.  Hemienu was either the son of Nefermaat, the architect who built King Snefru’s pyramids, or was a son of Snefru himself, and brother to Khufu.  Either way, the perfecting of the pyramidal form, from the step pyramid design to the flat-sided Red Pyramid, occurred during Hemienu’s lifetime. He would have observed firsthand the failure of the collapsed pyramid at Meidum and the tough lessons of the Bent Pyramid, which owes its odd shape to a decision to change the angle after construction was well underway.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Photo by Keith Payne)

At an original height of about 481 feet, the Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest building on Earth for more than 3,800 years, until the completion of the Lincoln Cathedral around AD 1300.  It is believed that more than 2.3 million blocks were used in its construction, not including the limestone casing.  Theories regarding its manner of construction abound. 

It is interesting to note that even given Manetho’s rather high estimate of Khufu’s reign, the Egyptians would have had to quarry, dress, move, and place just over 100 blocks per day, at an average weight of 2.5 tons, non-stop, 24 hours a day, for 63 years to complete the Great Pyramid.  Given the more likely reign of 23 years, that would mean about 274 blocks per day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week—about one block every five minutes.  Such logistics naturally raise a few questions.

(For some potential answers, be sure to read the Em Hotep! exclusive series, Hemienu to Houdin)

One two-ton block, every five minutes, day and night, non-stop, for 23 years? (Photo by Keith Payne)

All theories aside, the notion that Khufu’s pyramid was built by slaves has been roundly discredited.  Ruins of what seems to be the builders’ village have been uncovered, along with tombs of their own.  Evidence suggests that the building of Khufu’s pyramid was a national project that drew laborers, engineers, architects, craftsmen, and all of the specialized labor necessary to support such a workforce from all over Egypt.  From a social perspective, the construction of Khufu’s pyramid may be compared to the conscription efforts of World War II, had the war lasted 23-63 years…

Climbing into the Thieves' Entrance (Photo by Keith Payne)

There has been some debate over whether the Great Pyramid was intended as a tomb for the pharaoh, or if it served more of a symbolic function.  Most Egyptologists agree that the pyramid was intended for the burial of Khufu, but not everyone agrees on where in the pyramid he may have been interred.  Zahi Hawass has expressed doubt that the King’s Chamber was the tomb of Khufu, which he thinks may still lie undisturbed within the pyramid.

Access to the pyramid is gained through the Thieves’ Entrance, a rough-hewn cave dug out by robbers more than eleven centuries ago, which leads into the original descending passageway.  This in turn leads to a narrow 130 foot-long ascending passageway which is 3½ to 4 feet high, and extremely steep.  This passageway lets out in the Grand Gallery, a 30-foot high passageway that continues along at a 29 degree incline, and opens into the King’s Chamber.

The Grand Gallery inside Khufu's Pyramid (Photo by Keith Payne)

Inside the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid (Photo by Keith Payne)

The King’s Chamber is lined with red granite, and the sarcophagus inside is hewn from a single block of the same.  To date, two rooms besides the King’s Chamber have been found.  The middle chamber is called the Queen’s Chamber, although there is no evidence it had anything to do with any of Khufu’s queens, who have their own pyramids.  Its true function is unknown.  The third chamber was never completed and may have originally been planned to hold the sarcophagus, but again, there is no way to be certain.

Jean-Pierre Houdin has argued that all three chambers were intended for the burial of the king, but at different times.  From the outset, he contends, Hemienu wanted to make certain that the king had a suitable burial chamber, and the primary goal of the pyramid is the King’s Chamber.  But Hemienu knew that completion of the King’s Chamber, the final resting place for Khufu, was a while off, so the pyramid was built with contingency burial chambers. 

The underground tomb was built first and left in the rough—if needed it could be finished fairly quickly.  If the king should die during the first ten years of construction he could be buried in the underground tomb.  The Queen’s Chamber was then built as a more fitting temporary grave, and would have allowed Hemienu to test some of the techniques he would be using in the much grander King’s Chamber.  Finally, the King’s Chamber was completed.  It was fortunate the underground and middle chambers were never required, but Hemienu left nothing to chance.

Khufu's Sarcophagus--or was it? (Photo by Keith Payne)

Khufu’s valley temple, causeway, and mortuary temple (pyramid complex) are all but gone, with only a few basalt paving stone left to delineate their outline.    His cult pyramid was recently located to the southeast of his pyramid, but the most exciting discovery was a perfectly preserved and fully intact funeral barge.  (For more on the funeral barge see my feature article on the Giza Plateau here.)

The only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World (Photo by Keith Payne)

Further Reading

Egyptian Monuments:

Pyramid of Khufu

LookLex:

Khufu

National Geographic:

Great Pyramid:  Earth’s Largest

Tour Egypt:

Khufu

The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza in Egypt:  An Introduction

Photograph “WIKI – Khufu.jpg” is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright 2009, all rights reserved.

Possibly symbolic of a second son who was not his father’s first choice to reign, Khafre’s Pyramid steps forward from the plateau’s horizon as if to say “I will have my day in the sun…”

Pharaoh Khafre

Pharaoh Khafre (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Pharaoh Khafre was known as Chephren to the Greeks, and his name, Khaf-Ra, means “Appearing like Ra.”  One of Pharaoh Khufu’s sons, he was preceded in kingship by his brother, Djedefre, who ruled for about eight years.  After Djedefre’s early death, Khafre assumed the throne, making him the fourth king of the Fourth Dynasty. He was succeeded by his son, Menkaure.

Khafre is believed to have reigned between 2572—2546 BC, although this is not certain.  It is probable that the length of his reign was 25 years or so, although the Ptolemaic-Era historian Manetho gives the length of his reign as a very unlikely 66 years. 

In addition to building the second largest pyramid in Egypt, Khafre had a penchant for commissioning statues of himself.   Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass noted that Khafre had placed 23 life-sized statues of himself in his valley temple, seven larger-than-life statues of himself in his mortuary temple, with an additional 12 around its courtyard, and either built the Great Sphinx in his own image or (even worse) had his face carved over the original. 

The Pyramid of Khafre with the Great Sphinx and a canine friend (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Pyramid of Khafre

The Pyramid of Khafre, also called the Pyramid of Chephren, is the second largest in Egypt.  We are not sure of when its construction was completed, but it was most likely early in Khafre’s reign.  The original height of the Khafre‘s Pyramid would have been about 471 feet, although there has been some loss due to erosion and its missing capstone.  It is currently about 455 feet high.  The limestone casing at the topmost section of the pyramid is still largely intact, giving an idea of how the pyramids might have originally appeared.

The majestic Pyramid of Pharaoh Khafre (Photo by Keith Payne)

Looking up the side of Khafre's Pyramid at its limestone layer high above (Photo by Keith Payne)

The sarcophagus in Khafre’s burial chamber is cut from a single large block of granite, and is partially sunk into the floor.  No mummy or other remains were found in Khafre’s pyramid.  There is a second pit in the floor which may have held the canopic jars containing Khafre’s internal organs, but this is not certain.  It has been speculated that Khafre’s Pyramid may have served a ceremonial purpose rather than as a burial place, although both possibilities could be true.  There is a second chamber within the pyramid the purpose of which is unknown.

Khafre's Pyramid on the horizon, with Khufu's Pyramid in the background (Photo by Keith Payne)

There are two entrances to Khafre’s Pyramid situated one above the other.  Some Egyptologists speculate that this may be because the pyramid was originally planned to be much larger, but others postulate the second entrance was built simply as a result of a change in plans.

Khafre’s mortuary temple was plundered for building materials, but its foundation remains and shows that the temple was quite large, and was constructed in a manner similar to his valley temple, which is intact.  Khafre’s valley temple was buried under sand until the 1800′s and is in excellent condition, serving as a valuable example of temple construction from that era.  Like the mortuary temple, the valley temple is constructed of a limestone core lined with pink Nubian granite imported from Aswan.

Khafre's Pyramid seen from the causeway (Photo by Keith Payne)

 Further Reading

Egyptian Monuments:

Pyramid of Khafre

LookLex:

Khafre

National Geographic:

Pyramid of Khafre:  Home of the Sphinx

Tour Egypt:

The Great Pyramid of Khafre at Giza

Photograph “WIKI – Khafre_statue.jpg” by Jon Bodsworth is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright by Keith Payne, 2009, all rights reserved.

Pharaoh Menkaure

Pharaoh Menkaure (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Pharaoh Menkaure was known as Mykerinos by the Greeks, and his name, Men-Kau-Re, means “Eternal is the Spirit (Ka) of Ra.”  The fifth king of the Fourth Dynasty, he ascended to the throne around 2539 BC, although the length of his reign is debated.  The Turin King List puts the length of his rule at 18 years, although some sources record his rule as being as short as 12 years and as long as 63 years.

Herodotus claimed that Menkaure was a son of Khufu, however it is more widely accepted that he is the son of Khafre and grandson of Khufu.  Tradition holds that he was a munificent and fair ruler, unlike his grandfather.  Herodotus credits him with reverssing many of the oppressive policies put in place by Khufu and allowed to stand by Khafre.

He was succeeded by his son, Shepseskhaf, who had to finish Menkaure’s pyramid after his death.  His valley temple, which was also completed by Shepseskhaf, was expanded during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, which further attests to his reputation for benevolence. 

The Pyramid of Menkaure

The Pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three Giza Pyramids, with an original height of 218 feet, and a current height of 204 feet.  It is estimated to have less than 1/10th the mass of Khufu’s Pyramid.  Its completion date is not exactly known.

Pyramid of Menkaure and his Queens' Pyramids (Photo by Keith Payne)

The upper part of the pyramid was originally encased in limestone in a manner similar to the other pyramids, but the lower portions were encased in granite.  The granite casing around the entrance is in various stages of completion, providing a glimpse of how the blocks would have looked before and after being smooth-cut.

Entrance to Menkaure's Pyramid with facing stones (Photo by Keith Payne)

The original basalt sarcophagus was lost at sea in 1838 when an attempt was made to move it to Great Britain.  As with other pyramids, this sarcophagus was empty.  A second wooden sarcophagus was found bearing Menkaure’s name and which contained human bones, but carbon dating has shown this body to be less than 2000 years old, making it a rather macabre forgery.  This again raises questions as to whether or not anyone was ever buried in any of the pyramids of the Giza Plateau.  Their location within the Memphis Necropolis, and their obvious relation to funerary temples, indicates that the pyramids were associated with the death and afterlife of the pharaohs in some actual or symbolic manner, but exactly what this function may have been remains open to speculation.

Menkaure's Pyramid (Photo by Keith Payne)

Further Reading

Egyptian Monuments:

Pyramid of Menkaure

LookLex:

Menkaure

National Geographic:

Pyramid of Menkaure:  Last of the Great Pyramids

Tour Egypt:

Menkaure:   The Last Great Pyramid Builder On the Giza Plateau

The Great Pyramid of Menkaure at Giza

Photograph “WIKI – MenkauraCloseUpOfKingsFace_MuseumOfFineArtsBoston.png” by Keith Schengili-Roberts is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright by Keith Payne, 2009, all rights reserved.