A journey along many pyramids and other
nice places of interest.

Day 5, sunndag 3 december 2017.

Program today: Saqqara part 2, pyramids of Pepi I and Pepi II, mastaba of Sjepseskaf and the solartemple of Niuserre.

After a hearty breakfast we drove away at 7 o'clock to Saqqara, we arrived there 20 minutes to early and had to wait until the site opened.
The news that we wanted to go to the pyramids of Pepi I and II had also got through to the inspector here and he told us that we had to go to the local office of antiquities and pay 10,000 Egyptian pounds so that we could take a look there under supervision of an inspector, you understand that we did not go for that option.

Map of the necropolis of Saqqara, courtesy of Osirisnet.

Pyramid of Unas.

After the gate opened, immediately the necessary tickets were retrieved andwe drove to the parking nearby the pyramid of Unas.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of Unas.

Nice to finaaly having seen this one, great to be here.
Now on to another recently opened section, the Bubasteum, I'm curious.

Het Bubasteum.

The Bubasteum was a temple complex at the time of the Ptolemies and the Romans dedicated to the goddess Bastet. The place is called Abwab el-Qotat ("The Gates of the Cats").
The temple complex is surrounded by a 275 meter wide and 325 meter long wall and is situated southeast of the pyramid of Teti. It has a large entrance on the south side. In the New Kingdom there was already a temple of Bastet at this location, which was honored as the "Lady of Ankhtawy".
The site was thoroughly investigated from 1976 onwards by Alain Pierre Zivie and the first excavations started in 1980.
In one of the tombs, that of Aperia, stands a beautiful Hathor.

Click on the picture to see more of the Bubasteum.

Beautiful tombs, I'm glad I took the trouble to watch them.
Then it's time to visit Teti to see if anything has changed since my last visit in 2012.

The pyramid of Teti.

A first description of the pyramid was done by John Shae Perring, a British anthropologist / Egyptologist in 1839. The publication of this in 1842 was done by himself and by Richard William Howard Vyse, a colleague of his.
Carl Richard Lepsius, a German Egyptologist, visited Sakkara during his Egypt expedition in 1842-1846 and described the ruins between december 1842 and may 1843.
He included the Teti Pyramid under number XXX in his pyramid list.
Gaston Maspero first penetrated the burial chamber in 1882. The pyramid texts found there were copied by Emil Brugsch, Urbain Bouriant and Charles Wilbour.
Systematic excavations in the vicinity of the pyramid started in 1905 under the direction of James Edward Quibell, an English Egyptologist. They lasted until 1908. Between 1920 and 1924 a large part of the Temple of Death was examined by Cecil Mallaby Firth, a British Egyptologist.
From 1950, further excavations took place under the direction of Sainte Fare Garnot, Philippe Lauer and Jean Leclant, three French Egyptologists.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of Teti

Well that was also a nice reunion with this beautiful building.
If you want to make a comparison with my visit in 2012, click here for the photos taken at that time.
If you ask yourself why I do not visit the beautiful mastaba of Kagemni, the reason for this is that I already visited this in 2012 and I had to choose with respect to the available time, you can find the 2012 photos here.
During the time I was inside, Olette took the opportunity to take a rest in the shade and that turned out to have nice consequences,she was in conversation with another guard and the outcome was that he wanted to show us a part of the complex where you normally do not come that easy, namely the pyramids of the queens of Teti and some other older buildings , exciting.

Queen pyramids by Teti.

After climbing over a few walls and walking about 50 meters, I found the pyramid of the mother of Teti, Sesheshet, that was discovered not so long ago in 2008, with next to it the 2 pyramids of the women of Teti, being Iput I and Khuit II. Unfortunately, there is not much left of it, but still it is great to see this with your own eyes, fascinating.

Click on the picture to see more of the queen pyramids.

Magnificent again, but this is not all, there were also a few tombs to be watched according to the nice guard, so on to the tombs.

Tomb of Ankhmahor.

This tomb or mastaba is from the sixth dynasty together with those of Mererukah and Kagemni.
In the entrance you can see scenes of agriculture. Medical scenes are shown in the passage leading to a room with 5 pillars. Thus this tomb is described as the doctor's grave. Ankhmahor however, was not a doctor, he was a ka-priest. The reliefs in the room with pillars are unfortunately not in a good condition.

Click on the picture to see more of the tomb of Ankhmahor.

The next tomb to view was right next to the tomb of Ankhmahor, namely the tomb of Neferseshemptah.

Tome of Neferseshemptah.

The owner of this tomb had the following titles, "Inspector of the Priests of the pyramid city of Teti, Steward of the Pyramid of Teti", during the early years of dynasty 6.

Click on the picture to see more of the tomb of Neferseshemptah.

After this again very interesting tomb the guard took us to, the tomb of Nikauisesi.

Tomb of Nikauisesi.

Before I went inside, I first had to walk to the back of the tomb, where the guard shows me a nice portal, its great to have a guard like him who takes you to places where the average tourist does not come .......
The tomb was discovered in 1979-80 by the "Supreme Council of Antiquities" at the time called "the Egyptian Antiquities organization" under the direction of Dr. Mahmud Abder-Raziq.
Although the tomb is much smaller than the mastaba of Kagemni, it still contains five rooms, four of which are decorated, as well as a serdab and a courtyard with a staircase to the roof.

Click on the picture to see more of the tomb of Nikauisesi

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, by now we are almost ready with viewing all the beauty in Sakkara, I only want to try to go to the pyramid of Sekhemkhet to see what is left of it.

Piramide van Sekhemkhet.

To get there I first had to walk back to the pyramid of Unas, when I arrived there, they thought I wanted to go back to Unas, but when I said that I wanted to go to Sekhemkhet, the first reaction of the guard was that it was closed and therefore I could not go.
A glance at the policeman sitting next to him quickly made the decision because he laughed and said why not, and he sent another guard with me to show the way through the desert.
The entire complex was built by pharaoh Sekhemkhet, the successor of Djoser.
The complex is close to that of Djoser and in terms of construction plan the similarities are very large.
According to some Egyptologists, the builder of both complexes might be the same, namely the well-known architect Imhotep.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of Sekhemchet.

Great, even though there was not much left, I am still happy to have walked 400 meters through the desert so that I have also seen this pyramid, with brings it to a total of 16 pyramids.
Time to search for the pyramids of Pepi I and Pepi II, we just stopped at the exit of the Sakkara complex to photograph the valley temple of Unas.

Valley temple of Unas.

The valley temple, laying together with its harbor on the west bank of a contemporary lake that is no longer in existence, is also referred to as the Unasmeer.
The temple is badly damaged by stone robbers, but some columns have been preserved in different museums. Access to the temple is on the east side over the quay of the port. Once there were 8 m high pillars of red granite. Two other entrances were located in the north and the south, both of which had two columns of 5.21 m high.
On the west side of the temple the causeway started to the pyramid. Decoration of the temple is only fragmentary. The motifs on the decorations were deities, offerers and boats.

Click on the picture to see more of the valley temple of Unas.

So that was it, what would it be nice if you could see this complex in all its glory in antiquity ........

In search of the pyramids of the two Pepi's, we quickly decided that we should call the man in question so that we would not lose too much time in the search and that proved to be the right choice. Because you really have to know the way if you want to get close to it by car.
After a phone call he was soon with us and led us to the first pyramid, that of Pepi II, incidentally it was still a walk of about 600 meters through the desert before I was there, the driver and Olette stayed behind in the car because it was quite far.

Pyramid of Pepi II.

The complex consists of the main pyramid, a Ka pyramid, 3 royal pyramids, a valley temple and a mortuary temple, connected to each other by a 400-meter long causeway, running from the Nile to the pyramid. Unfortunately you can not go inside the pyramid, too bad, too bad.

Schematic representation of the complex, courtesy of Neithsabes.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of Pepi II.

Beautiful pyramid again, and what is great and beautiful, there is a gigantic mastaba nearby, that of Shepseskaf a pharaoh from the fourth dynasty. And of course I also take a look.

Mastaba of Shepseskaf.

Shepseskaf's tomb is a great mastaba at Saqqara, originally named "Shepseskaf is purified", now known as the mastabet el-Fara'un.
This mastaba was first recognized as being a mastaba by Richard Lepsius, a Prussian Egyptologist in the middle of the 19th century and was first excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1858.
By building a mastaba for himself, Shepseskaf broke with the 4th Dynasty tradition to build great pyramids. His predecessors built 2 pyramids at Giza and one in Abu-Rawash, while Sneferu , the founder of the fourth dynasty, built 3 pyramids on his own during his reign.
It is not clear why Shepseskaf did not build a pyramid for himself, although there are, of course several theories to explain his choice, just google it.

Click on the picture to see more of the mastaba of Shepseskaf.

Very impressive, whouw. This was worth the walk through the desert.
Now on to the pyramid complex of Pharaoh Pepi I.
For this we had to go back into the village and we did drop Olette and the driver off at my guide's shop so they could rest there in the shade, we went on foot to the pyramid of Pepi I and even more as it turns out later.

Pyramid of Pepi I.

The Pyramid of Pepi I. in Sakkara South was called Men-nefer-Pepi, "Permanent and perfect is the pyramid of Pepi". Nowadays the pyramid is unfortunately very dilapidated, so that the cover of the burial chamber is recognizable from the outside. This burial chamber also contains Pyramid Texts like Pepi II, Unas and Teti.
During the search for the two pyramids of the queens Anches-Merire, in early 1995 Jean Leclant discovered a hitherto unknown pyramid, with mortuary temple and remnants of an obelisk, which was described to Pepi and queen Merit-Ites on the basis of inscriptions. Merit-Ites would be a further wife, daughter or grandchild of Pepi.
The Egyptian antiquity service, however, dates this pyramid in the eighth dynasty. Perhaps more clarity will be given soon.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of Pepi I.

Since they were busy with excavations here, I was not allowed to get too close to the monument, but I was allowed by the local guard to take pictures from a distance.

Click on the picture to see more of the pyramid of the unknown.

Magnificent again, how beautiful it is here if you like these ancient monuments.
Now we walk back to the village to have a drink and then drive on to Abusir.

Arriving at Abusir, however, it turned out that we were not allowed to go there because excavations were being carried out there, but the inspector said they would be gone by about an hour and a half and then it would be possible, so we decided to drive to Abu Ghorab first to see the Sun temple of Niuserre.

Suntemple of Niuserre.

The Sun temple of Niuserre with the name Šsp-jb-Rˁ (schesep-ib-Re - "Blessedness of Ra") is located about 1200 meters northeast of the pyramids of Abusir.
The Temple of the Sun-god is quite different from that of other gods. While with the other gods the idea of a house arises, in which the god is present, the sun temples have the form of an open courtyard, with in the middle an altar and a cult object. They have the character of a place of worship. They fit the concept of the temple, but still have their own character. The cult of the Sun took a central role in the Egyptian tradition. Nevertheless, the knowledge of sanctuaries of the sun is only selective. Eight sun temples are known, but only two have been excavated so far.

To get there was a different story, after a lot of asking we finally arrived at the back of the village at the desert, but there was a huge wall without passage, in other words we could not go any further.
Fortunately, there were just a few people working there and after some conversation we were told that the owner of the compound with riding school could arrange something.
It turned out that I had to ride a horse as that would be easiest way given the distance to be covered.
Unfortunately, I have never ridden a horse so I had to sit behind someone else, so it happened, no saddle just a blanket. I can say that this was not really comfortable haha, well after a ride of about 2 km the wall ended and we were able to enter the area, which means 2 km back through the desert to get there pffft. The way back I decided to go walking, because my rear one did not like it anymore, untrained as I am regarding to this.

Click on the picture to see more of the Sun temple of Niuserre.

Again nice, special and interesting having seen this.
As I said, the way back I walked and after I returned to the riding school they offered me a cup of tea during which we decided not to go to Abusir this time because it was already getting dark.
If you are interested in photos of Abusir you can click here for the photos I took in 2012.
Back to Cairo so to see the "Sound and Light Show" at Giza tonight, we'll see.....

Sound and Light show.

The Sound and Light Show at the pyramids of Giza, heard a lot about it and also a long time ago partly seen it in the James Bond film from 1977 "The spy who loved me". To see everything well we but bought VIP tickets because they were only 30 pounds more expensive than the regular ticket.
After having chosen a place in the first row, we were waiting full of excitement for the start of the show.
This excitement quickly ebbed away once it was started, the show was in my view dramatic in terms of light effects, it seemed strongly that they were stuck in the eighties as for the technology, ie it can be 1000 times better than what they do now .
And there is also the fact that the story that is told during the light show, is full of historically falsehoods.
In short, it was really a pity to have been here, but I was in the neighborhood and I can now give a personally verdict, do with it what you want.
I can only hope that people will change something here, so that something more professional happens and the audience feels satisfied afterwards instead of disappointin .

Click on the picture to see more of the Sound and Light show.

Luckily the rest of the day was fantastic and the counter with respect to the pyramids is now at 22, with more to come, because tomorrow on my last day here, the Giza plateau is on the list to visit.

See you tomorow.

To day 6

To the index

A journey along many pyramids and other nice places of interest.