Pyramid of Néferirkarê

The pyramid of Néferirkarê is built on the south-western side of the headland of Abousir. It is that which best resisted among the pyramids of the site and still dominates this necropolis royal of. Néferirkarê seems to have initially projected a monument with six degrees, following the example Sahourê its predecessor whose pyramid dominates the hill over its east coast. In the course of construction, the proportions of the pyramid were changed by adding two additional degrees. It seems that the untimely death of the king carried a crushing argument to the project and they are the successors of Néferirkarê who will complete with haste the funerary complex . Its ancient name was “the pyramid of the spirit Bâ”.

The funerary complex

The death of Néferirkarê intervened whereas the roadway only was partially built and the hardly founded temple of the valley. The funerary temple or high temple formed a vast building of sixty side meters on forty meters of frontage and was divided into three distinct parts.

The part of reception formed by a gantry with four columns which communicated with the roadway on the one hand and a first hypostyle room or rather a corridor whose ceiling was supported by twelve columns that one can interpret as being a " room of the grands" as for the funerary temple of Sahourê. The second part is trained by a large court with open sky surrounded by a rectangular peristyle. Measuring twenty-five meters by twenty on sides, it was to be the court of the offerings and drinkings necessary to the worship of the king. This court distributed various parts to north and the south where were located additional stores and buildings. The whole of these two parts was completed out of brick believed for the walls and wood for the lotus-like columns.

Finally in the west and in the axis of the hypostyle corridor, being next to the pyramid and included in its peribolus was the temple of the worship itself with its five vaults which sheltered the statues royal and divine and the room of the false stele carries. In the north and the south of this intimate part of the sanctuary reserved to the initiates of the funerary worship of Néferirkarê vaults and the appendices of uses were. Only this part reserved for the royal worship could be completed out of stone on the totality of its rise. The little of decorations which remained dates from the reign of Néferefrê which was made represent returning the worship with his/her late father in company of his mother Khentkaous {{II}}, invaluable information for the genealogy of the dynasty.

It will be noted that the complex did not comprise a pyramid-satellite unless that located at the south and who is allotted finally to the queen Khentkaous {{II}} was initially envisaged for this purpose. However within sight of the preceding examples that it is at Ouserkaf or Sahourê, where it pyramid-satellite is directly of connection with the funerary temple of the king, it is probable that this related monument with the pyramid is to be sought elsewhere under sands of Abousir unless he was never built. This point remains to be cleared up because since the beginning of each pyramidal complex comprised one of them, and it seems that this element was essential to the good performance of the rites practiced around the worship of the late king.

The complex remains incomplete in any event without its roadway and its temple of the valley and it is precisely this imperfection which made the archaeological fortune of the site. During the first explorations of the site Borchardt discovered a whole batch of the files of the temple registers on papyrus. First discovered kind, it at the same time made it possible to restore the site of other files in the same way standard appeared earlier on the market of antiquities and thus to ensure their source but especially to have access to a whole unknown universe concerning the life of the funerary complexes of the Ancient Empire. However these files were obviously to be preserved in the low part of the complex.

Indeed, the low temple or temple of reception or temple of the valley were in general the temple which ensured the operation of the worship by means of an administration meddles priests and scribes which placed then in the dwellings which extended around in what is of use to call the town of pyramid. The high temple was devoted to him to the rites and the ceremonies, sheltering the liturgical objects.

This city very devoted to the god-king whose pyramid dominated the Western horizon was a stock room with his port and its stores like all the people necessary to make live a true village. Fields were attached to this temple, fields which provided the goods and the vivres necessary of which a considerable part was devoted to the temple. The whole of this true economic activity was preciously consigned by the administration on the papyri in the appendices of the temple of the valley.

For the complex of Néferirkarê because of absence of such a temple, the priests were obliged " replier" on the high temple in the south of which their home had been exceptionally arranged. The additional parts had all then at the same time to be used for operation of the funerary temple and partially that of the temple of reception, which finally guaranteed the conservation of the vestiges of their activity because the joined together unit was beyond the grounds cultivated in the desert. Thus not only thanks to the files we have a new testimony on the daily life under and that we know that the worship of these sovereigns will continue to function until the end of that is to say the end of the Ancient Empire.

The pyramid

The pyramid in its stage more developed with its eight degrees had a base of one hundred five meters for a height of more than seventy meters. It is probable that it was to be completed in smooth pyramid and, as for the example of Sahourê, the monument with degrees would have been only one intermediate stage in the construction of the monument. However contrary to the preceding royal pyramids, that of Néferirkarê is built in regular bases of blocks carefully cut and adjusted in successive steps following the example pyramid of Djéser to Saqqarah. The coating of the pyramid was probably completed by Niouserrê what would have still raised the monument of a few meters. Only the first low bases of the monument remain what shows that if the pyramid were not completed in Pyramide with smooth faces the intention was there in the preliminary draft.

One reached classically the funerary apartments by the northern face of the pyramid. A corridor was inserted in the solid mass of the pyramid and ended very quickly in a room with harrow which barred the access. The corridor continued then towards the anteroom located plumb with the axis of the pyramid and which opened by its Western wall on the funerary room of the king.

The fact that at the time of the demise of the king, the pyramid was practically completed, the funerary temple was only partially built and that the roadway and the temple of the valley were hardly outlined informs us about the methodology employed by the royal architects for the construction of these monuments.

One dug initially the funerary apartments in the rock mass of the plate, then the whole was equipped with walls or walls out of carefully assembled stones, the vault being in general protected by several blocks monoliths laid out out of rafters and which were superimposed as much as necessary, decreasing by as much volume remaining to build. The roadway was to already be traced even founded to be used for the routing of materials since the port located in against bottom of the complex at the edge of the the Nile. Other slopes made it possible to raise the stones as the monument rose itself. The remainders of such a slope are visible besides on the western face of the pyramid of Néferirkarê. The presence of a slope of construction still in place goes more in the direction of the abandonment of the building site rather than of its completion in smooth pyramid.

Finally once the sufficiently advanced building site of the pyramid one started to build the remainder of the funerary complex while starting with the crowned part and in " descendant" towards the valley, the temple of reception being probably the last element to be completed.

Photographs

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