Pyramid of Djedkarê Isési

The pyramid of Djedkarê Isési is located on the site of Saqqarah. It thus breaks with the choice of its predecessors to install their tomb with Abousir. This fact is variously appreciated: Lacks place on the plate of Abousir? Will to approach the origins of the royalty following the example founder of the dynasty Ouserkaf? At all events Djedkarê makes build its complex funerary not far from that of Chepseskaf in the south of the site on a headland overhanging the valley of Memphis. This dominant position will be worth the name of " to him; Sentinelle" pyramid; data thereafter by the Arabs.

The funerary complex

The funerary complex of Djedkarê is conceived on the model of the precedents with various parts with the precise and distinct roles which were articulated in a coherent unit intended to ensure the worship of the late king. Nevertheless the temple of the valley or temple of reception was not localized yet with precision. Built with the edge of the cultivated grounds which since millenia covered its vestiges little by little, it is currently under the modern city of Saqqarah. Only part of the roadway and the high temple or temple of the worship with the royal pyramid currently remains identifiable.

This temple developed on a East-West axis, was thus composed at the conclusion of the rising roadway of two hundreds - twenty meters, of part of reception comprising a corridor leading at a ceremonial court. The corridor was to be the Chambre of Large the , if one follows the model of the funerary temple of Sahourê in Abousir, left where stopped the funerary procession and where the body of Pharaon or the offerings intended for its daily worship was entrusted to the priests who only had access to the pertaining to worship parts. On each side of this part of reception two solid masses which one interprets as being two Egyptian pylons framed the temple, elements which one finds already initiated in the funerary complex of Niouserrê and which are thus a true architectural innovation of. These structures, for the complex of Djedkarê, are still preserved on a good rise revealing thus that they were conceived on a square level, in masonry regular and full.

The court Péristyle on its four sides included/understood eighteen monolithic red granite columns of Assouan to the palmiform capitals, that is to say same style as those which one finds in other funerary complexes of. Of this majestic gantry there remain today only some elements of barrels and capitals broken which lie on the ground of the court the majority of the monoliths having probably been taken as of Antiquity. This court was intended for the presentation of the offerings and the rites of purification of use in all the Egyptian sanctuaries. It comprised only two accesses in the main axis of the delimiting temple thus clearly, and for ultimate once, the layman of crowned included in the peribolus of the pyramid.

Beyond the Western door, thus followed a transverse corridor acting as hall to the intimate part of the funerary temple. This corridor extended over all the width from the building and opened by its two sides on the peribolus of which the southernmost part included/understood the satellite pyramid of the royal funerary complex. It also gave to the north and the south of the principal court on two series of six stores which one reached by corridors of which that of the northern part opened by a gantry with two columns papyriformes out of one second court with open sky. The latter seems to be the single access of a small pyramid placed at the North-East of the complex of the king and having a true temple of worship to the more modest proportions but comprising a ceremonial court to gantry, stores and pertaining to worship parts as well as a small satellite pyramid is all the elements necessary to the funerary worship of an important personality. The two complexes would be thus dependant, the second of the first, which supports the theory of a pyramid of queen who remains to be identified, the research practiced until now on the site not having revealed anything convincing on this point.

Finally and while returning on the funerary temple of Djedkarê, last the hall one reached by a single door the pertaining to worship part of the building including/understanding a room five niches in which were preserved the royal and divine statues. This part opened in north and in the south on a last series of stores, intended to shelter the liturgical objects, which framed the court in which the stele false-carries of the king was preserved, leant with the Eastern face of the pyramid.

The pyramid

The pyramid of Djedkarê is designed following the example other dynastic monuments since a core which fills the hollow part of the funerary apartments from now on systematically underground. The unit is built in block of local limestone whose adjustment by successive layers is regularized as one progressed towards the surface of the slopes completed with a fine limestone facing of Tourah giving the smooth aspect to the pyramid. It measured initially a little more fifty-two meters at the top of the pyramidion, that is to say as much as the pyramid of Niouserrê in Abousir.

There the resemblance stops, because the plan of the vault adopts a new more complex device being inspired largely by the plan of the Mastaba de Chepseskaf. An innovation which will be systematically reproduced in the future royal tombs. Its access remains traditionally in the north of the pyramid. A corridor was inserted in the solid mass of the pyramid on a score of meters to lead to a first anteroom, kind of corridor which continuing with a horizontal corridor opened on a room of the harrows provided with three granite monoliths blocking the passage once the ceremony of the burial completed. Left since this room stop, a second corridor horizontal leading to the anteroom of the vault located plumb with the pyramid. The overall plan presents a development more complex than before. On a East-West axis, the anteroom opened by the east on a transverse part with three niches which was to shelter part of funerary furniture or statues royal, and by the west on the royal vault. The unit, anteroom and vault, were covered by a device of vault out of rafters which was repeated by successive layers ensuring a protection necessary to preserve the royal cenotaph of the considerable masses which recovered it and formed the heart then the principal mass of the pyramid. This plan will be precisely that which will adopt Ounas successor of Djedkarê for its own vault. The absence of texts engraved on the walls at Djedkarê thus seems to indicate that a certain evolution in the installation of the royal vault was with the work and whose result would be the invention of the Textes of the Pyramids .

During the exploration of the vault at the 19th century, one found remainders of a royal sarcophagus as of a mummy which after analysis revealed to be that of a man died in around fifty. The quality of the embalming and the fact that Djedkarê reigned a little more than one about thirty year according to proper Egyptian annals, encourage the Egyptologists to think that they are the remainders of the king himself.

It would be one of the rare royal mummies of the Ancient Empire to be found which more is in its tomb.

Bibliographical references

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