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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
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It is always a great pleasure to welcome you all to another lecture in Egyptian mysteries.
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So tonight's lecture will be about the steppe pyramid, the world's oldest existing pyramid,
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circa 2800 BC.
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So the lecture, I'll be covering in the lecture the following point.
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Number one, a brief chronology up to the date of the pyramid.
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Number two, Memphis. I will talk about Memphis, the first capital city of Egypt,
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and most probably the first capital city in the world.
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Number three, I will talk about the development of the burial customs in Egypt
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up to the period of the steppe pyramid.
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Number four, I will talk about the Saqqara region,
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which is the cemetery of Memphis, the west side of Memphis in general,
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and the steppe pyramid in particular.
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So the chronology is as following.
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The Egyptian dynastic history starts in the year 3300 BC with the king Menes, M-E-N-E-S,
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or in Egyptian, M-N-Men.
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He is the founder of the Egyptian dynastic history.
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He came from the south and controlled the north and declared Egypt as one country,
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and founded the capital city, Memphis.
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This was in the year 3300 BC.
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So we have the first dynasty, the second dynasty, up to the year 2800 BC.
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These two dynasties are called the Archaic period.
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Then we have the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth dynasties.
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We call them the pyramid age, which starts from the year 2800 BC and extends to 2300
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BC, the pyramid age.
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Our subject today falls in the period of the third dynasty, King Jocer, J-O-S-E-R,
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the second king of the third dynasty.
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So Memphis was one of the greatest cities in the world and the oldest capital of ancient
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Egypt.
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The city was a beautiful city surrounded by white walls.
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The original name of the city was Men Nefer.
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Men M-N means to establish.
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Nefer means beautiful.
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In other words, the name of the city Men Nefer meant is well and established, or is
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established and well.
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And has become Memphis in the language of the Greeks.
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When the Greeks came before Christ, 300 years before Christ, they distorted many words.
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So one of them was the word Memphis, the word Men Nefer, which was distorted in the
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language of the Greeks to Memphis.
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In other words, Memphis is the Greek word for Men Nefer.
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And in Coptic it was called Menphi, and when the Arabs came, they called it Menouf.
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So its origin, the origin of the city of Memphis, can be traced to men.
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The first king, as I said, of the first dynasty, 3300 BC.
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So men founded the capital city of Egypt at Memphis because of its strategic importance,
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as it is situated between the upper and lower Egypt and at the apex of the delta, right
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here.
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Memphis is also the name of a city in Tennessee, USA, thus named on account of the similarity
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of its situation on the Mississippi River to that of ancient Memphis on the Nile.
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So this is a map.
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It shows Cairo on the right side.
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And if we want to go to Saqqara, we take the red line, the road there, going west,
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and instead of going to the pyramids of Giza, we turn down south on the red line till we
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reach the pyramids of Saqqara, as you see down there.
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And to the right of Saqqara is the city of Memphis.
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Saqqara is in the desert, and city of Memphis is in the agricultural land.
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And on the right side in green, we see the Nile.
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If we go a little bit north of the Nile, on the right side, we see a word there saying
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Tura.
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Tura is the quarries where the Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians quarried their limestones
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from there, the quarries of Tura.
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This is the picture of King Men, who united upper and lower Egypt and the founder of the
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dynastic Egypt.
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Memphis retained its influence throughout the dynastic history of Egypt, as is obvious
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in the existence of huge statues of Ramesses II, circa 12th century BC, and a huge alabaster
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sphinx.
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So here is a huge statue of Ramesses II made of limestone.
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Here is a alabaster sphinx.
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The length is 8 meter, and across is 4.25 meter, 4 and a quarter meters, and it weighs
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80 tons.
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This is the face of the sphinx.
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Besides being the capital city of Egypt during the archaic and old kingdom, old kingdom is
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also for the pyramid age, Memphis was also the great religious center of the god Ptah
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and its temple.
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This is the statue of the god Ptah, which was the symbol of light and life.
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Whose center was the city of Memphis?
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Memphis was also the center of learning, to which students from other countries came
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to study medicine, astronomy, etc.
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Today's Memphis is a very beautiful agricultural land.
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It is indeed a picturesque scenery.
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All around is green on the ground, and beautiful blue is the sky.
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On the far west, in the background, we see the steppe pyramid on a higher plateau, dominating
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the area.
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Looking out into the desert, we see the line of demarcation between the desert and the
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agricultural land.
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In other words, we can have one foot in the black land of Egypt, and another foot in
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the desert sand.
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The ruins of the temple of Ptah is indeed in very poor conditions.
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This is the area where the embalmment of the sacred bulls took place.
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Memphis was a magnificent city up to the 7th century AD.
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When the Arabs invaded Egypt, it was then that they considered Cairo the center and
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the capital city of Egypt.
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As a result, Memphis died, and almost nothing remains of this beautiful capital city.
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Now, Egypt was famous by its temple in Memphis called Hoth Kupp Tah.
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Hoth, in ancient Egyptian, means temple.
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Ptah is the aura, and Ptah is the god of light and life.
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This temple was very, very famous, and many students came from outside to study in Egypt
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in this temple.
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And for the outsiders, Egypt was known as Hoth Kupp Tah.
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So if somebody wanted to go to Memphis, he would say, I'm going to Hoth Kupp Tah.
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At the same time, it means he's going to Egypt.
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As a whole, it was called by the outsider Hoth Kupp Tah, because it was a very famous
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temple there, center of learning, a university, if you can call.
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By the time the Greeks came, this word was also distorted in the language of the Greeks.
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So Hoth Kupp Tah became Hig Gupp Tah, and afterward it became Ay Gip Tah, or Ay Giptos,
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or Egypt.
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The word Egypt comes from right here, from the word Hoth Kupp Tah.
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And when the Arabs came, they thought that this first letter I is Al.
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Al is the definite article in Arabic, and the word Giptos was considered to be Egypt,
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or the Egyptians.
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Al Giptos means the Egyptians.
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Up to this day, we have the word Gipt, or Kuppt.
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Kuppt is the Egyptian, it's the word for the Egyptians.
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And when the Arabs came, they called the natives Al Kuppt, Al Gipt,
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Al Kuppt, Al Gipt, means the Egyptians.
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And at that time, the Egyptians were Christians, were Christians.
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So to differentiate between the Muslims and the Christians,
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the native Egyptians were called Al Kuppt.
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Up to this day, if you hear the word Kuppt, and the Kupptic Church that we have here in Toronto,
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it means the ancient Egyptian church, or the ancient Egyptian name for Egyptians.
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And the Egyptians at that time, since a memorial time, they called their land Ta Meri.
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The word Ta means land.
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The word Meri, if you want to know, means beloved.
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In other words, Ta Meri means beloved land.
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And they also called their land Kemet, which means the black land.
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Today Egypt is called Masr, or Mesr.
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And again, like in the old time, if someone says I'm going to Masr,
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it means going to Egypt as a nation.
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At the same time, it means the capital city, Cairo.
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And the word Masr, or Mesr, is the present name of Egypt,
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and is equivalent of the Biblical Mesraim.
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In the Bible, there is the word Mesraim, which is a Semitic word.
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In Akkadian, it's an Akkadian Semitic word, the verb Asaru means to cut,
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to draw up a picture, a plan.
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And adding an M at the beginning of the word Masaru, it becomes the past participle, Masr,
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which means, in the Akkadian language, in the Semitic language,
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it means that Egypt is the country built according to a geometric plan.
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This is what it means.
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However, back to Memphis.
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Memphis was a magnificent city up to the 7th century, as we said.
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But before we proceed to the Saqqara area, which is west of Memphis,
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in other words, Saqqara was the cemetery or the necropolis of the city of Memphis,
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we have to have an idea about the development of the burial customs in Egypt.
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The poor man's house and the noble man's mansion, as well as the king's palace,
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have all long since crumbled and disappeared.
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But the tombs have remained and will remain forever.
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For the ancient Egyptian, life on earth was but short transitory.
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It was but short transient and temporary.
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Therefore, whether a poor man or a noble man, a beggar or a king,
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the ancient Egyptian lived in a house built by sun-baked bricks made of mud,
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but constructed beautiful tombs made of stones destined to last for eternity.
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Their tombs were called castles or houses of eternity in the realm of the blessed.
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That is the aminta. It was called the aminta.
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Again, we have the word amen, which means hidden, and the word ta, which means land,
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the hidden land that is the west side of the river Nile, the necropolis of Egypt.
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And this is why we don't have a single palace of any pharaoh or noble man.
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Even the capital cities of ancient Egypt, such as Memphis or Thebes in the south
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or Sais in the north, have no trace of any palace or house.
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Therefore, the ancient Egyptians built huge and indestructible tombs
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with which they supplied statues and personal belongings.
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They mummified their dead for the sole purpose of the survival of the deceased Ka.
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Without a doubt, these objects of the tombs were not aimed at being displayed in museums and galleries.
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In fact, we owe all our knowledge of ancient Egypt to the ka of man, to the aura of man.
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In other words, all we know of ancient Egypt is derived from the tombs.
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Almost all the Egyptian antiquities that we admire in museums all over the world were removed from the tombs.
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Were it not for these tombs, we would be almost entirely unaware of the ancient Egyptians.
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In my last two lectures, I explained, the first one was about the ancient Egyptian view of man's constitution, visible and invisible.
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The following one was about the mummification, how and why.
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In these two lectures, I explained why the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead
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and why they built these huge tombs, indestructible tombs.
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However, I say a few words about the ka. You heard me saying ka.
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What is the ka?
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The ka is the double of man, or what we may call today the aura or the astral body of man.
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It is born with him and lives within and around him.
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And after death, it continues living around the body, provided the latter is preserved.
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Therefore, the tomb was also called the house of the ka.
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In pre-dynastic periods, that is prior to 3300 BC, the dead were buried in rectangular or oval pits dug in the sand.
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The body was laid in a fetal posture that is knees towards the chin, and the body was covered with red mats or animal skin.
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But from the beginning of the dynastic period, the kings and noblemen had recourse to a better way,
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by building over the burial pit a rectangular superstructure,
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a monumental architecture constructed of sun-baked bricks made of mud.
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This type of tomb is known today as mastaba, which in Arabic is an Arabic word which means a bench.
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It was so named because it resembles the bench with sloping sides that we find outside the houses where the owner or the attendant sits on it and drinks coffee with friends.
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The mastaba usually contained a chapel. This is the transfer section, this is the chapel, and several chambers.
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The body of the deceased was introduced through the shaft from the roof down to the burial chamber, which is over 40 feet deep.
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This burial chamber was hewn out in the rocks and contained the sarcophagus.
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Around the sarcophagus were placed the deceased's household goods. In the corners, statues were placed.
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Outside the room, another statue was also placed.
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Once the door was walled up, the shaft was filled with rubbles and stones and huge stones. This way it was blocked and sealed.
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As for the mastaba itself, its size varied from 24 square yards up to a quarter of an acre.
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The mastaba, besides being a tomb, was a chapel where the worshippers came and recited the magical formulae while facing the West.
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That is the realm of the Blessed, the Amenta.
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As you see from this section, there is no connection between the burial room and the chapel. There is no any connection.
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This is the roof and this is the chapel.
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Now, there was a door on the east side, but this door was a false door. It was not for entrance.
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The real door was on this side, on the south side.
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And in the chapel there was another false door, this door here, which is called false door, facing the West.
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This door had two eye holes and behind this door was a little room, which in Arabic is called Serdab.
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Serdab means cellar, a secret room, in which was the statue of the deceased.
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We'll see this in one of the mastabas later on.
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As for this door here outside on the east side, the name of the deceased was mentioned and prayers were written,
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beseeching the passersby to read the text aloud and to recite the prayers for the deceased.
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This leads us to assume that more people could read in ancient Egypt than we originally thought.
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Now we come to the Saqqara area, which is exactly west of Memphis.
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And it is on a higher plateau, as you saw from the slide, and it is approximately 15 miles away from Cairo and six miles away from the River Nile.
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And as I said, Saqqara is the cemetery or the necropolis of the city of Memphis.
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Again, the original name of Saqqara was Ptah-Sakkar, S-O-K-E-R.
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Sakkar is the death god of the necropolis of Memphis, the dead god.
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And Ptah-Sakkar, as I said, is the creative power to death, to sakkar.
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The first word Ptah was dropped and Sakkar, S-O-K-E-R, became Sakkar, Sager, Sakaris, Zakaris, Zakaridis, Sakaris, and finally Sakkara.
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So we call this area Saqqara.
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So we have the map of Saqqara.
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This is the area of Saqqara, the cemetery of Memphis.
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It holds the tombs of numerous kings and innumerable number of members of their families and noblemen of the court.
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This necropolis holds kings and noblemen from the earliest dynasties down to the monks of the Coptic Church down in the south in yellow.
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So we have in the center part of this map the step pyramid complex.
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It's in a complex. It's in an enclosure.
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And the diagrams in pink are pyramids. There are approximately 15 pyramids in this area.
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And in the northeast side are mastabas, very old mastabas, of the first and second dynasties, the archaic period.
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And then we will see many other mastabas of the fourth, fifth, and sixth dynasties, which I will show some of the pictures.
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So this is the step pyramid in the step pyramid complex, in the center of the step pyramid complex.
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Another pyramid is the Venice pyramid. Then we have here a faced pyramid, a faced pyramid that is cased with stones so as to give it a smooth, uninterrupted shape as you see it.
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And we have many other pyramids, approximately 15.
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And in Saqqara we encounter the earliest use of dressed stones and the laying of them in regular courses.
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The first and the second dynasties, they used mud bricks, but starting with King Josser, they used dressed stones and the laying of them in regular courses.
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We also encounter the huge first man-made monument ever known to the world, the step pyramid.
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So let us admire and appreciate some of the paintings and the low reliefs on the walls of the mastabas in the Saqqara region.
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This is the entrance to the mastaba of Mereruka.
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Now this is the chapel that I was talking to you about, this is the chapel, the entrance to the chapel.
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On the west side of the chapel room is a door now removed.
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Also called the false door, as I said, the false door is removed here.
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The false door, as I said, had a small, narrow hole behind which was the serdab, which means the room in which stands the statue.
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The cow of the deceased who inhabited or attached itself to the statue enjoyed seeing the beloved and receiving the incense and prayers through the hole of the false door.
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An offering stair table is placed before the false door.
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The worshippers came and placed their offerings on the table and recited the magical formulae.
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This is the entrance to the tomb of Petah Hoteb.
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Petah Hoteb here is portrayed at his funerary feast, seated on a stool before a richly laden offering table.
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Petah Hoteb accepts the gifts of wine and food borne by his servants.
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In the narrow horizontal space above his head are carved rows of birds and animals representing the abundance that will sustain Hiskah in the afterlife.
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Entrance door to the mastaba of Chi.
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Chi was the curator of monuments during the 5th dynasty.
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This is his statue found in the serdab behind the false door in the chapel.
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And we see some of the lor reliefs in his chapel.
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This painted relief shows the construction of boats.
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The same mastaba we see cattle led by herdsmen through water.
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Again in the same mastaba we see chi.
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We see men bearing offerings.
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Here is in the mastaba of Ankh Emhor, who was called the physician or the tomb of the physician, famous scenes of circumcision.
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This scene of circumcision shows us that this custom was practiced by the Egyptians long before the Hebrews.
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In the mastaba of Hesira, the court official, or he was called the chief of dentists and physicians, 3rd dynasty.
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This is made of wood. The height is approximately 4 feet.
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And there were 11 wooden panels in the walls of his tomb.
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Now Hesira sits on his chair, the rod of office, in one hand and the writing materials, that is the pen holder, the bowl of water and the palette on his back.
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His tomb is near that of his master King Choser.
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The statue of Mecheche, chief of the royal farmers under King Gwyneth, 5th dynasty.
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Painted wood and inlaid eyes. This statue today is in the Brooklyn Museum.
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This is the entrance to the Serapium.
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Serapium gate. Serapium in fact is not archaic or pyramid age, it's more recent, it's during the Ptolemaic period.
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And here we see the burial underground galleries of embalmed and burial bulls.
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The
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Indeed a remarkable group of structure built by King Choser.
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As I said, King Choser was the second king of the 3rd dynasty.
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This is the pyramid, the step pyramid complex.
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The step pyramid is in the center and these different colors show the phases that it went through during the building.
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Now we're going to go through the only entrance here, the only gate, and on both sides we'll have columns.
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And then this huge area is a court, it's called southern court, and another court here is called northern court.
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And here we find a mastaba, as the one that I showed you, the diagram.
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This is a real mastaba here with a burial chamber in the bottom of the pit.
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The same mastaba is again repeated under this pyramid. We have two mastabas here.
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This area is called the Jubilee Court, and here we will see a platform on which stood most probably two thrones.
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Then we have two houses here, the northern house and the southern house.
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Then this area is the mortuary temple, and in here we will see another serdab with the statue of King Choser in it.
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So the whole enclosure was surrounded by a wall, and the perimeter of the wall is almost a mile, is more than a mile.
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And the wall surrounding this enclosure is particularly well preserved on the south side, this area.
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But the west side is almost gone.
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So we can see some of the slides, the wall here.
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This is the wall surrounding the enclosure, and it is huge and magnificent.
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The wall is constructed by fine Tura limestone. Its face is marked by alternating projections and recesses.
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The large fortress wall is of some 33 feet in height.
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It has 14 gates, but 13 of these are false gates.
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Only the one near the southeast side is a true gateway and allows entrance to the complex.
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This wall, which was constructed with Tura limestone, is a reproduction of the type of massive mud brick walls built around the fortified towns and royal palaces of the period.
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Passing through the only gateway, we enter a small court, and immediately beyond the court is another wider passage, leading to a magnificent colonnade of 40 columns, 20 on each side.
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The height of the columns is 6.6 meters, or 7.2 yards, covered with a modern roof.
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The columns represent bundles of reed or bundles of palm trees. Whatever they may represent, they are unique to Egypt.
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22 centuries later, the Greeks borrowed the very same style when they built the Acropolis in Athens.
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The columns, of which are fluted and have an identical design to these columns in Saqqara. If you go to Athens, you will see the resemblance.
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At the end of the colonnade is a lower chamber, and it's called the hypostyle, that is, lower hall compared to the previous one.
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And here you notice the four columns here and the difference of the ceilings. The foreground we see the hypostyle, and the background is the colonnade ceiling.
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And if we stand at the end of the colonnade, at the far end in the center of the slide, we see a building, on top of which we will see the wall decorated with frieze of cobras.
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And on the right side is the court, the southern court. Now, a close-up of the frieze of cobras.
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Underneath the sculpture of cobras is a stone cylinder, like the roller blinds used for closing doorways.
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Facing the north is the southern court, and at the background is the step pyramid. And in the large open court were two small, B-shaped stone structures.
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Now, if we go out from the enclosure to the south and look to the north, we will see the enclosure wall, and then behind the enclosure wall we will see the colonnade.
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And on the left side is the mastaba, and then the step pyramid.
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This mastaba has a deep shaft of 90 feet depth, or 28 meters, and at the bottom is a granite tomb chamber, like the one that exists underneath the step pyramid.
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But it's a very small tomb chamber. It's only 5.2 feet, or 1.6 meters, on each side.
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This tomb chamber contains a sarcophagus in the mastaba, at the bottom of the mastaba, and is considered to be the king's second tomb.
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It may have even contained the king's viscera, the internal organs. The entire contents of that room were rubbed with the use of a tunnel on the south wall from this area to the room, and everything was emptied.
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Immediately above that sarcophagus room is another room, another chamber, containing a large granite plug, or stopper, with which the entrance to the tomb chamber underneath could be blocked.
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So this is the room above the sarcophagus chamber.
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Now, attached to the burial chambers are many, many other galleries and rooms. It's an apartment. And they are all faced with limestone and decorated with tiles of blue faience.
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We'll see some of these.
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This is the name of Josser on the right side. We see his second name, Nechergott.
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A decorated gallery. The walls, as I said, were lined with glazed ceramic tiles. On the top is a representation of heaven, sustained by the sign Jed.
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So we see the sign Jed, which is a symbol of stability. In other words, it means that the universe is sustained by stability, or there is stability in the universe.
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Blue glazed tiles imitated the colored reed matting that had adorned the walls of the king's palace during his lifetime.
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In one of the subterranean galleries, we see a low relief of the king performing religious ceremonies connected with the Jubilee Festival.
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He carries in his right hand the flail, symbol of pastoral authority, and a small object in his right hand, an identified object.
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The panel is surrounded by blue faience tiles. This is a close-up picture of the same low relief.
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Here we see the king is running, running a ritual course around the B-shaped stones in the southern court.
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We see two B-shaped on his right side, right and left foot. And in front of his head is his name, Horace Nechergott, and over his head is the falcon holding the ankh symbol of life.
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Now we come to the ground. The mastaba also had a chapel where the worshippers came and presented their offerings and recited their prayers.
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Now if we come to the east side of the court, we see three elegant fluted columns standing among the ruins of a small rectangular temple.
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Now we come to the Jubilee Court, a very beautiful set of buildings here.
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And this court appears to be the replica of the ceremonial court used by the king for celebrating his Jubilee.
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The remains of this court indicate that two rows of chapels with curved roofs existed along both eastern and western walls.
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So this is a chapel here which has three engaged columns. Engaged means that the column is part of the wall, with the middle one higher than the others.
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This is the entrance to the chapel. At the southern part of the court is a large stone platform on which probably stood two thrones side by side, one for the king as the ruler of Upper Egypt and one for him as the ruler of Lower Egypt.
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At the end of the northern part of this Jubilee Court stands a shrine containing four statues of which only the feet remain.
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We also see three unfinished statues. And this writing once encircled the base of the statue of Jasser with his name on it.
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The Jubilee Festival served as a means of renewing the king's youthful vigor and potency and thus extending his reign. He wanted to prove that he is still strong to run that area.
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And here we see again an engaged columns with papyrus capitals, symbol of the north or lower Egypt.
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Northern part, which is the mortuary part of the temple, it is now, much of it is ruined.
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Now outside the, on the east side of the entrance to the mortuary temple is the serdab. Here again we have a serdab, which is as previously mentioned the chamber for the Ka, in which was placed the famous limestone statue of King Jasser seated on a chair.
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Now we see the cast of the statue, the original being in the Cairo Museum. Now two holes were cut in the front wall, that is the false door of the serdab opposite the face.
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This was done to allow the smoke of the incense to reach the statue possessed by the Ka of the deceased, permitting it to enjoy the smell and look, and to look at the outside world.
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One of the earliest and certainly the most majestic of the royal statues. The statue is life-size and dressed in a long shroud-like garment, which leaves only his hands, feet and the top of shoulders exposed.
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Was this garment worn for his revival ceremony, that is the Jubilee Festival? Probably yes. He is wearing the false beard, the symbol of royalty, which was worn on ceremonial occasions.
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His head is covered with the striped headdress called nemes, the eyes which were probably inlaid in stone were damaged in antiquity, but still show a majestic and noble dignity.
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Now we come to the step pyramid itself, the step pyramid. The step pyramid is situated in the center of the complex, and according to Egyptology, is the first pyramid ever built in Egypt, and probably the first in the world.
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It is also the first huge structure in Egypt ever built of stone instead of mud bricks. The step pyramid differs from later pyramids in that it was never faced, as I said, it was never faced or cased with stone to give a smooth uninterrupted shape.
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Therefore, no other structure is like the step pyramid, a gigantic terraced building, 200 feet high, constructed of the finest limestone that has ever been seen in Egypt. Joseph's pyramid must have been the wonder of the age.
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Now this structure is considered to be a mastaba, upon which a step pyramid was built. Let us study the structure and the way it was built, starting from the bottom and going and proceeding up to the top.
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First, a shaft was dug of 23 feet square, to a depth of 28 feet into the limestone bedrock, into the substratum of limestone bedrock.
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A tunnel with its ceiling 23 feet below was dug to the surface ground, driven to the north, its floor sloping gradually upwards until it reached the ground level.
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Work of the shaft was resumed until it had reached a depth of 92 feet. Concurrently, the deepening of the ramp of the shaft, the floor of the tunnel was lowered so that it became a ramp.
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With the progressively steeper gradient, the floor was not lowered to the full depth of the shaft, but only 40 feet above the base. At the bottom of the shaft is the tomb chamber.
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As you can see here, the size of the tomb chamber is 10 feet length and 5 feet and a half width and height. It was built entirely by pink granite from a swan.
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A hole existed in one of the slabs, as we have seen in the mastaba, to plug the entrance, once the body was introduced into the burial chamber.
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After the body was introduced into the burial chamber, here we see another room with a very solid roof, a firm roof, in order to support the weight of the rubble and stones once the burial was done.
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Now, around the burial chamber, as I mentioned in the mastaba, there are many galleries and rooms and connecting passages. Some of these passages and galleries were never finished.
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But it is likely that the original intention was to cover many of their walls with panels of small blue glaze, as you have seen, a very beautiful blue color, arranged so as to resemble the reed mats.
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Here we see tiled panels of the kind were found in the East Gallery. We also find the repetition of the relief showing the king performing religious ceremony, as we have just seen in the southern tomb.
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The same thing is repeated in this area too. And some rooms were packed up to the ceiling with vases not fewer than 30,000 in number, made of alabaster, granite, diorite, brachia, schist, etc.
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The father of archaeology, Flinders Petrie, who did great archaeological excavations in the Steppe Pyramid.
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Now, this is a transverse section. The orange section in the center is a transverse section of the base, of the bottom of the Steppe Pyramid. And the other colored section is the ground section, transverse section.
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So the different colors show the different phases that this building underwent.
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Now, in addition to the central chamber and the connecting passages and galleries, all these lines are connecting passages and galleries, we see 11 circles on the right side, on the blue section.
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These are 11 vertical shafts that go down into the ground, 108 feet down into the bottom of the building. And at the bottom of each shaft, there is a corridor extending to the west, as you see from the picture.
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And at the far end of the fifth corridor, from the north, count to fifth, and at the end of the corridor, two alabaster coffins were found, one of which contained the remains of a child.
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The process of building this monument was carried out in several phases. I will explain later on.
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This was, how did we discover it, the phases? This was discovered not by dismantling the building, of course, but by studying the lapse of time and the countless sandstorms, and that eroded the structure and caused the loss of some parts of the monuments.
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From an archaeological point of view, this loss was actually a gain. Here we see, we can see the walls of the mastaba.
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Now we can see from this poster here that the nucleus of the monument is a mastaba, built on top of the shaft.
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But instead of the conventional rectangular shape, it was square shape, each side being 207 feet long, and was oriented approximately to face one of the four cardinal points.
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Then the mastaba was extended 14 feet on each side, the height of this extension being 2 feet less, therefore forming a step mastaba.
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Further, 28 feet extension to the east only, this one, this part in blue, only to the east, so as to make the tomb oblong with the longer axes running from east to west.
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This third extension buried the entrance to the 11 shafts, was completely buried. If these 11 shafts were intended as tombs for the members of the royal family, then why were their entrances all buried?
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There is an unknown. The only access to them now is a long stairway leading to the northernmost mortuary temple.
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And another extension of 9.5 feet, the one in grey, on all sides, thus the mastaba became the lowest stage upon which the four-step pyramid was built.
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Here again we assume that the builder decided to extend the pyramid further towards the north and the west, thus by adding two more steps to the height, resulting in a six-step pyramid structure.
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The size of the finished pyramid is 415 feet from east to west and 358 from north to south. This is an isometric section. It shows the different stages that this building was done.
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Here again different sections showing the exact plan of construction of the step pyramid.
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Now the question is, what are the stability factors, the stability factors, controlling this huge building against the ravages of time?
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A perfectly built pyramid should have identically cut blocks of square or rectangular stones fixed and cemented together firmly and rigidly.
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Such a building will have a vertical pressure everywhere within the structure, harmoniously spread and balanced.
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But if the surface of the blocks is irregular and dissimilar, this will create a high pressure sideways instead of a vertical and balanced one, thus causing loosening and crumbling of the blocks of stones.
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The great architecture and the ingenious builder of this pyramid was fully aware of such problems and therefore introduced a stabilizing internal factor, which is the buttress wall.
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In other words, the buttress wall means the support or the pressure against the central core of the building. The pressure is in the center.
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Now the architect used horizontal lines, the architect used horizontal lines, horizontal layers of stones for the central mastaba.
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But to ensure stability and firmness to the building, he invented an inward inclination of the outer walls, thus, that is, laying the regular blocks of stone horizontally at an angle of 75 degrees.
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This way, the whole pressure is exerted towards the central core.
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Therefore, if there is any lateral weak spot developing in the structure, this weak spot will remain localized with slight deformation and will not affect the whole structure.
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This picture shows us clearly the inward inclination of the outer walls.
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This is how the step pyramid complex may have looked 48 centuries ago. All the architectural features appear in pair.
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We have two courts, one in the north, one in the south. We have two thrones, one for Upper Egypt, the king is Upper Egypt, one as the king of Lower Egypt.
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We have two rows of chapels in the Jubilee Court. We have two houses, northern house, southern house. We have two B-shaped stone structures.
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We have two mastabas. We have two burial chambers. We have two galleries, different galleries in each. We have the two kings' reliefs and the two chapels.
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It has been suggested that this design in pairs was done for the purpose of the celebration of Jubilee ceremony twice, once as the ruler of Upper Egypt and once as the ruler of Lower Egypt.
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All these complex buildings were not real buildings intended for the living, but were reproductions of construction of the palace compound for the dead king, for a renewal of an eternal Jubilee.
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Who was the master architect, the genius and creative mind who generated and executed the plan of this huge, gigantic, and unprecedented complex structure?
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It was this man, a famous architect by the name of E.M. Hatib, or we call it simply M. Hatib, I-M-H-O-T-E-P, who was also the vizier, that is the prime minister, to the king Josser.
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And he was the high priest of Ra at Heliopolis. He was traditionally credited with special medical skills as well as writings of wisdom.
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He was also deified in the New Kingdom period and was later assimilated to Asclepius, god of medicine by the Greeks.
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On the base of a royal statue found near the entrance to the pyramid complex, the king bestowed a singular favor on M. Hatib by allowing his name to appear near the king's name.
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It reads, E.M. Hatib, chancellor of the king of Lower Egypt, the first under the king of Upper Egypt, the administrator of the great palace, the hereditary noble, the high priest of Heliopolis, the chief sculptor, and the chief carpenter.
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The Egyptians revered and worshipped E.M. Hatib as a magician, skilled in charms, and as the inventor of stone masonry.
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They also saw in him the wise physician whose prescriptions contained all the secrets of medicine.
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Many temples all over the country were built in his name. These temples were the Mecca of the sick who came and besieged the cure for their illness.
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E.M. Hatib, the word E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-
01:07:43.780 --> 01:08:13.780
E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E
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The unraveling of these mysteries will be explosive not only to the Egyptians but to the whole world.
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It is my dream and my wish and my sincere wish, an eager wish, that one day by somehow shifting the sands of Egypt,
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a stone, a step, a door or an entrance will be discovered leading to the tomb of the great man, Yim Hattab, he who comes in peace.
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Who knows what we'll find in that tomb? Perhaps his writings on medicine, astronomy, architecture, magic, divinity or wisdom.
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The words of John Fiske uttered some time ago will then be repeated.
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And this is a quotation from Isis and Veiled.
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The world, philologists, astronomers, chemists, painters, architects, physicians must return to Egypt to learn the origin of language and writing,
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of the calendar and solar motion, of the art of cutting granite with a copper chisel, and of giving elasticity to a copper sword,
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of making glass with the variegated hues of the rainbow, of moving single blocks of polished cyanite, 900 tons in weight, for any distance by land and water,
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of building arches rounded and pointed with Masonic precision, unsurpassed at the present day, and antecedent by 2,000 years to the Cloca Magna of Rome,
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of sculpturing of Doric column, 1,000 years before the Dorians are known in history, a fresco painting in imperishable colors, of practical knowledge in anatomy, and of time-defying pyramid buildings.
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Every craftsman can behold in Egyptian monuments the progress of his art 4,000 years ago.
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Thank you very much for your interest.