Pyramid of Néferefrê

The pyramid of Néferefrê belongs to the third funerary complex to being built by the kings of with Abousir. It is located at the south-west of the pyramid of Néferirkarê, father of Néferefrê, on a rock plate and remained unfinished because of the premature death of the king at the end of a reign which did not exceed the ten years. As for the preceding reign, Néferefrê thus did not have time to make build its complex funerary and it is its successor who completed it.

The funerary complex

The funerary complex of Néferefrê is much more incomplete than that of his/her father and offers today only ruins which do not restore its initial aspect clearly. It does not comprise any roadway nor temple of reception in the valley, the architects having probably used for the routing of materials intended for the new building site, the slope very close to the chaussee of Néferirkarê whose complex was still in full construction at the time of the crowning of the young king.

Néferefrê undoubtedly projected as of its advent a complex of great scale because the peribolus, this wall delimiting the crowned space of the layman and in which was registered the intimate part of the high temple as well as the pyramid, formed in the beginning a square of one hundred fifty side meters, which gives a rather clear idea of the proportions of the architectural program chooses by the Pharaon.

The funerary temple or high temple which started to rise at the same time as the first sitted ones of the pyramid, was designed on proportions close to those of his/her father with a seventy meters length on the East-West axis of the monument. It follows a plan become traditional since Sahourê including/understanding a " part; publique" , reserved however for the elite of monarchy, a court intended for the presentation of the offerings and the rites of purification of use for the funerary worship which was returned in the last Western part of the monument, nearest to the tomb of a transitory sovereign.

Indeed, its premature demise stopped this ambitious program and it was then necessary to include in this hardly outlined monument, the whole of the devices absolutely necessary to the operation of its funerary worship. Thus as for the pyramidal complex of his/her father Néferirkarê, the funerary temple of Néferefrê only gathers with him all these elements in a space which had not been envisaged for this purpose what preserved same manner of many traces of the activity of the complex. The destination of the parts of the temple is then modified and only the Western part is built out of calcareous stone.

The north of this crowned part of the stores built on two levels following the example those of Sahourê allowed to store the material of the worship and the files of the temple which were partially found and come to enrich the administrative corpus already discovered with Abousir, forming the first of the new discoveries of the complex of Néferefrê.

In the south of the monument, where probably stores were programmed initially, a building out of raw brick and wooden was built on a plan which points out that of the royal palaces. It is appeared as a hypostyle big room, whose ceiling was supported by a score of lotus-like columns out of wooden whose eight circular limestone bases are always in place. This room opened in the south and the west on additional parts which it is trying to interpret as being the fictitious apartments of the king. This funerary palate, the first of the kind attested with the accesses of a funerary complex, reserved to the Czech Egyptologists who excavate the site since middle of the years 1980, second surprised complex of Néferefrê: a collection of statues of the young late king in various materials as well as the decorative elements of a royal throne. These statues partially preserved for some present to us for the first time the features of the young sovereign and are of a refined invoice, enriching the royal iconography of which hitherto was rather seldom represented in the collections of the museum of Cairo.

Third discovered importance was made in the south of the oriental party of the temple which is outside the peribolus. It is about another raw brick building presenting a rectangular plan on a North-South development and which is mentioned in the files caused under the term of " Sanctuary of Couteau". This building, once more new, reserved for the ritual sacrifices of the animals offered to the funerary worship, was built under the reign of Niouserrê as attest some the seals found in the stores distributed in the east and the west of the axis of the monument. It opened in north directly in the oriental party of the funerary temple of the king by a narrow door which gave on a court to open sky in which the ritual setting with bottom of the animal was practiced, in general an ox. Many bones of Bovidae were indeed found in the stores in company of the remainders of crockery and containers intended to collect the blood and the meat of these food offerings. Immediately in the west of this court a table of squaring was in addition identified.

They are first time that such monument, that one knew only by the mentions which were made by it in the texts in particular tombs of the craftsmen butchers, can be identified with certainty by archeology.

The pyramid

Whereas in the case of Néferirkarê the royal pyramid was already quite advanced and the partially built funerary temple, for Néferefrê only the underground parts were completed as well as first sat principal core of the pyramid. The monument had then reached only sixty-five meter on sides and was completed in all haste in the form of vast a square Mastaba. The ambitious funerary complex was thus reduced to high a seven meters height square platform, which corresponds to the height of the first sitted one of the core of the pyramid projected initially, symbolizing the funerary hillock finally osirien, placed at the center of a crowned surface delimited by the peribolus.

The underground apartments are arranged in a large pit dug in the rock plate accessible as it should be by north from the building. A long descending shaft of almost forty meters leads to an anteroom which opened in the west on the royal vault. The unit was covered with a fine limestone facing of Tourah of which there remain some vestiges, the greatest part having been taken by the carriers at recent times as it is the case for the whole of the pyramids and monuments of the area built in this stone particularly appraisal for its qualities.

The funerary room still comprised a few pieces of a red granite sarcophagus which sheltered the momifié body of the sovereign. It is precisely among these remains that was updated the last discovery and was surprised complex of consistent Néferefrê in a momifiée hand whose analysis revealed that it belonged to a person having 20 to 25 years at the time of its death. This relic is interpreted as being that of the mummy of the king which one knows that he did not live beyond this age…

This succession of death " before the heure" certainly to shake the monarchy of, which shows perfectly the state partial of the funerary complexes of Néferefrê and its father. They however made it possible to transmit to us capital information concerning the progress report of the funerary architectural project of the Pharaon S of the Ancient Empire like their methodology of construction. The fact that the monument never reached the stage of pyramid is proven and completes to show that with the death of the Pharaon the building site was stopped and the pyramid left in the state. Only the elements essential to the operation of the funerary worship were then finished by the successor in title.

In this case it is Niouserrê, brother and successor of Néferefrê which will be this responsible.

Bibliographical references

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