The glory of Dynasty III, King Dyoser

BC-Sanajt -2686-2668, first Pharaoh of Dynasty III may have had to deal with the mess that it now besieging the Nile valley and its inhabitants. However, approximately Sanajt was king for about eighteen years and their possible brother became his successor.

Netyrije, whose significance is Divine Body-is as it was known in his time but today it is called by his birth name, Dyoser.

In 2668 BC Dyoser also had to be given the task of expanding the territory under its rule and extend the boundaries of his kingdom to the First Cataract. Subsequently, this traditional practice from birth to the decline of this civilization is emphasized, managed to go further to many neighboring areas would pay taxes set aside for gold and other items of commercial interest that is translated into wealth for the Egyptian Empire, making each increasingly powerful.

The king also took Dyoser exploitation in the Sinai to send an expedition to the site. They overpowered the locals by making them work in mines and quarries, the search at that time encompassed the copper and turquoise.

Egypt at that time had not yet expressed its grandeur in architecture. The adobe was the material used by the facility that provided the Egyptians in construction projects but was highly perishable. Until then very poorly the stone had been used for such purposes as there were few buildings in which they took advantage of this resource and when it was used on a smaller scale are showing the inexperience in handling.

The quarrying Dyoser allowed to make important changes in the construction industry, now had the financial capacity to increase the workforce making it possible to project from that time in a unique and exceptional new breakthroughs in the cultural area earlier general slowly progressed.

Dyoser apparently had a big ego and worried about being the first in everything, as was to be a pharaoh. For every Egyptian's life should be correct and thus be ensured eternal life in the underworld. This immutable ideological thought through the millennia in the world of the Egyptians was that Egypt was great and all tried to prepare for the transition well in advance. During the time of Dyoser burials were no longer a cavity in the sand where they would fit the deceased and some of their belongings as they were in pre-dynastic era, instead, were built in simple words mastabas are square buildings low altitude where the dead were buried with their belongings to take them to the other world with him. These had the appearance mastabas inside a house with rooms. Thus evolved a bit until the mastabas looked like a palace with rooms, hallways and niches.

Commonly in the early dynasties used to make burial satellites. They were to bury the chief with all their possessions by way of recreation on the tomb of everyday life such as would be the next world. Burial offerings included not only common and personal belongings of the deceased were also buried with the people who served him, allowing them to attend the officer even after death.

It is believed that these burials satellites that are buried and government servants in the same tomb merited no violent incidents. This may seem foolish at first but it must be a deeper analysis to get an explanation.

In Egypt there were few who could afford a mummification and tomb that allowed the dead to ensure their journey to another world where life was eternal. Given this situation it is quite possible that the servants of the pharaohs and queens exploited the death of their leaders to accompany him on his journey to the afterlife and to serve in the afterlife as they had in the Two Lands, after all, the soul of the deceased was a perpetual lie that mortality was perishable.

The first after the king, Imhotep

In Saqqara an inscription reads:

Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt, first after the king

Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Hall,

hereditary noble high priest of Heliopolis,

Imhotep the architect ...

This beautiful carved with hieroglyphs record reveal who was largely responsible of the most ostentatious of King Dyoser during one of the oldest dynasties. This is part of the inscription could have practically deified, as he allowed his name would be remembered, and is proof that it was the right hand of Pharaoh, to which this trusted their biggest secrets and ambitions that would make reality.

Imhotep was the first man in recorded history. This should not be mistaken as the first man recorded as prior to its appearance had represented several pharaohs in Egypt and human figures in other parts of the world but not identifiable as men or kings. Imhotep's case is different, it was the first to be registered as a common man with its own identity and not as a king, a deity or a human character with no name.

With its unparalleled understanding at the time, hastily won the sympathy of the king to the point where he did Dyoser part of the royal family.

Today there are no doubts that he was a genius Imhotep of ancient judging by all the titles that were awarded which was even proclaimed as the physician founder of Egyptian medicine. Such is the admiration the first after the king woke up in the ancient world was deified and later become the god of medicine by the Ptolemies. Also granted titles as an astronomer, adviser and enter the king. He is one of the few architects who have expertise in Pharaonic Egypt.

This image of Imhotep was perpetuated through the centuries by very obvious facts, his buildings were a source of admiration for later dynasties and empires where Dyoser funerary complex at Saqqara was frequently visited by people of the ancient world, and everyone remembered Imhotep the great author of such works for Pharaoh.

Such is his work that is thought to possibly have been buried near their king in Saqqara. Usually had followers after his death made pilgrimages to the northwest of the funerary complex of Dyoser where he made offerings consisting of vessels with a mummified ibis. Currently the search for his grave is still alive in the hope of learning more about this wonderful character.

The funerary complex of the world's first pyramid

Since the resting place of the deceased was a sacred space is devoted the most attention.

Dyoser ordered to build a monumental complex at Saqqara as never seen before, a mortuary complex built entirely of stone to endure through the millennia as you would your ka. The place was not simply a mortuary complex but also a magical place for the king. Coincidentally is almost perfectly aligned with the four cardinal points, both the place in general and its internal structures, with little deviation of three degrees.

The site seems to have had a symbolic purpose other than religious, is like a map of Egypt itself which would accommodate the buildings according to how they did in the entire Nile Valley, respecting the practice situational geographically temples for worship and spaces for the dead at the other end. The pyramid even seems to symbolize the Egyptian society as a whole to be the pharaoh the top of the pyramid, which necessarily must be supported to a base that could be interpreted as the common people but without which the monarch would be nothing. Even today in modern times, the pyramids are used to illustrate a range of hierarchy where the most powerful is at the top of her while the weakest are in the lower levels of the same. For the ancient Egyptians had in a sense to have a meaning similar to that proposed.

The whole place is protected by a wall of high rise, just ten feet in height. In a first phase, the site would measure over three hundred meters wide thirteen percent. When completed the work of this cemetery, including extension and expansion of the project, finished measuring about five hundred forty meters long by two hundred and seventy eight of width. The wall surrounding the museum has at different points with fourteen doors of which only one is the real input-southeast-laying can be accessed while the remaining thirteen are false.

Through the door located in the southeast have access to a hallway or corridor-shaped porch roof line. The passage of fifty-four meters in length is besieged by pilasters on both sides in the top allow incoming sunlight through enormous columns illuminating spaces located on the opposite side of the corridor.

In the place had possibly representing the pharaoh statues, as well as King of Upper and Lower Egypt by their crossing a small representation of the Nile trip every time he remembered who was the pharaoh. The end of this hallway converges with the southern courtyard, possibly designed in part to the rituals of the festival king's coronation of the complex.

The northern part of the funerary complex is buried beneath the sands of the desert so you do not have knowledge that there can still be found buried from the earliest times in history.

Within the complex Dyoser there are a multitude of structures among which are the North House and South House with no known function. However, it is believed that both are only representations of the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt, as their territories dominated.

These structures made of limestone columns have also built of stone, where it shows that there is still uncertainty of the builders when lying on the wall intended to hold. In the case of in-wall columns representative of Lower Egypt are particularly evocative way of the papyrus plant, typical of the northern territories of Egypt. In the other case, the column is on the wall representative of Upper Egypt is shaped like a lotus flower, symbol of the southern territories, "motif used in temples and over again in later periods.

Adjacent to North House and South House are the two patios representative of the Lower and Upper Egypt respectively, of Lower Egypt being smaller than that of Upper Egypt.

In the southern part of the resort is also a tomb to which it can enter through a hole downward. In this ceremonial tomb chapel, has an exterior beautifully decorated with cobras in the highest part of it, on a wall with niches, seem to care the grounds on which they are carved. It is known that this tomb was made for Dyoser and not for their families because their interior decorations are what to think when you see the king performing the ritual for the place is virtually identical to his grave in the north.

It is known in the pyramid, or just at the bottom of the well below it where they buried the king and you could say that is the most powerful of the complex and would not be wasted or replaced by any other, Indeed, its construction had no other intentions than to host the Dyoser in his death. It is possible that in the chambers of the tomb of the South is the place where they buried the visceral organs of Pharaoh to give use the boxes as well as it is smaller than the tomb beneath the pyramid .

In this place you have a series of underground rooms that are playing the king's palace to inhabit after death. Its various rooms are decorated, both these and other below the pyramid, with reproductions of stone in imitation of the original palace Dyoser must have occupied at some point in their lives. Here you can see the blue ceramic inlaid turquoise imitation mats attached to the walls. This color was very popular among Egyptians, especially for necklaces and other jewelry that were once used by their owners, found them in different tombs of different dynasties and empires.

Among the tomb and the pyramid is a patio where you think you could carry part of the heb-sed festival of the pharaoh because of its location and the existence of two permanent structures in place they may have meant to be points reference arrival and departure in the career of the king in his physical test.

To the north, almost in the center of the tomb complex is the serdab. This serdab is a rectangular structure to which the Arabs gave the name to look like a basement, but this issue does not have a strong resemblance. It is located right in front of the pyramid. It can be seen through two holes a replica of the Statue of Dyoser, being the original of course, the first large sculpture-five feet high by eighteen inches wide, which has been achieved in Egypt, therefore, before this could not be found any other of such proportions.

Within serdab looms this life-size statue of Dyoser presented with great majesty, and curiously, the only statue that remains of the king. See her face through the pair of small holes because no doubt a thrill in the viewer. Dyoser, heading north, with a deep, penetrating gaze seems to be facing the courtyard of the north where concurrently once and for all eternity, is held sacred rituals.

The statue before being plundered by grave robbers who threatened the afterlife of the pharaohs, both in antiquity as today, had glass inlaid copper cavity eyes. You can imagine the king's image with those striking eyes staring at the strange visitor who looks between the two holes.

This statue represents him wearing the ritual robe completely adhered to it and a wig that is below nemes headdress. Also notice that his left hand rests on his left thigh, a position from then on it became fashionable among kings by the grandeur that gave the pharaonic sculptures.

In antiquity, this serdab should be used to make offerings to the king. Be deposited from the same fruit, animal sacrifices and incense to honor Dyoser.

Despite the impact that can cause a statue of the serdab Dyoser, this is not the original sculpture is a cast in cement. The original statue was found in the same place in 1924 remains today in the Cairo Museum along with other wonders of the kings who wanted to be gods.

Next to the pyramid in the north, near the serdab, is the mortuary temple which should perform the rituals for Dyoser for once dead. In this site you can enter through a door petrified that has always remained open for construction material.

Through a courtyard which is accessed after passing through several corridors from the mortuary temple is another passage that gives more access to the pyramid. The funerary complex owes its fame, apart from its cultural significance to the later dynasties, the ingenuity of the architect Imhotep in creating this place full of nooks passages hardly matched by any other architect in the dynasties that succeeded him.

In itself, the whole place is a wonderful piece of architecture and historic because that's where the first buildings were constructed around the world made entirely of stone and that's where Imhotep tested his genius and imagination.

It is curious to note that in this necropolis Dyoser, specifically in the Northern House-like columns were Doric Greek. They obviously are not from Greece but are purely Egyptian which suggests that the Greeks copied for their own monuments nearly two thousand years later, most likely all the admiration they felt for the art of the Egyptians.

The whole place is the idealization of a large palace and in it are pre-produced in stone all the usual elements of daily life such as doors, mats and various objects that show to its smallest detail, all reproduced in stone.

However, the most impressive structures, but these are not in the center of the tomb complex is the Step Pyramid, the first large building of humanity, and certainly the first pyramid. Dyoser apparently had every intention of being the first in everything and he certainly succeeded.

It all started with the idea of building a mastaba in which they buried their king but Imhotep wanted something more impressive to Dyoser which completed the building of the pyramid. Building it was not clear at first. At first he had built a mastaba to which was added after another over and then another.

Both the mastaba as the pyramid are symbolic representations of the creation of the universe. According to the Egyptian religion especially in the beginning was water suddenly began to emerge a mound of earth that was developed into Egypt itself, that is, the place was the center of the universe.

The symbolism of the pyramid is a step beyond that of the mastaba, when the pharaoh died was joining the stars. The Step Pyramid was precisely the most impressive building which was built up to that time and viewed from any angle could be seen as steps towards the sky, through which the pharaoh ascend. Subsequently, these steps become the pyramids disappeared in structures that had a stone veneer that made them smooth. The appearance of the pyramid evolved thanks to the tireless enthusiasm of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh, Snofru -2613-2589 BC, which despite having previously failed to build a perfect pyramid finally managed to build the so-called Red Pyramid were copied all later models to be authentic in form.

The construction of the pyramid

At first, when construction began on the site was built a mastaba for the king. It is known that the original idea was to build a typical monument mastaba-the burial of the time, because for that part of the lining of blocks of the pyramid in one of its sides collapsed at some point made evident the original project.

From this mastaba was the first issue appeared pyramid known. The mastaba was about sixty-three square meters and eight meters high but there was a change of plans. This mastaba was added a new layer of stones that made their increase in their lateral size ten feet. Then, on the east side of the mastaba was added a new layer of stones that made the square shape of the mastaba to become a rectangle.

After having the rectangular base began to build a smaller mastaba on the first one was built, the result was a two-story mastaba. This new addition was not random, which means that Imhotep probably already had in mind what I wanted to create. Before making the second mastaba on the first coating was a new stone with the idea that new forms of mastabas which sits atop a pyramid would result, ie, a mastaba over another and yet another to complete about four steps making it high in the center of attention around the burial site.

By itself the pyramid was the tallest building on earth at that moment but it seems that Imhotep was not satisfied with his revolutionary invention. His desire was to build a large pyramid which base ordered to expand considerably so that this pyramid of four steps to be bigger you could add two more floors, with the result, a pyramid of sixty-six steps two meters tall in the middle of a beautiful desert.

Beneath the pyramid, about twenty-eight meters is a vertical pit in the bottom of which lies the tomb of Dyoser. The form was accessible through a stairway from the mortuary temple of King that ends at the height of a ramp that was the way to access before its closure at the time of extending the pyramid of four to six steps.

Before coming to the king's chamber must pass through a series of rooms and corridors arranged in a labyrinth. Although not all rooms and corridors were completed, those who are are a splendid demonstration of the genius of the architect of the king, the place is a reproduction of a royal palace.

A hundred feet further down the chamber of the sarcophagus of the king, they built a suite of rooms that serve as tombs for family members. In total there were eleven for their wives and children but only five of them located in the north were completed fully. The remaining six are located in the south and found jars full of dynasties past. The number of these is more or less about forty thousand and is believed to Dyoser had them put there to protect them in their own home. Many of these vessels still contain the names of the pharaohs to which they belonged.

Only one of the eleven graves had to be occupied after the funerary complex was completed because the other ten had been occupied during the process.

The festival-ritual heb-sed

The festival of the double crown of the king was the symbol of his rule over the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt and its rejuvenation. This ritual was to bring the king to the throne and there he was crowned as king with the white crown of Upper Egypt and then with the red crown of Lower Egypt. In this act was preceded by a procession that priests visited the shrines of the gods of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt respectively.

After his coronation, the king had to run around the yard with a real symbol in hand, the flagellum. This was another ritual in which the practitioner was evidence of his good physical condition before the procession as it shows a relief of the tomb of the south where you go to Dyoser performing this ceremony, running around the yard with the white crown of Upper Egypt and the scourge in her right hand.

As the site is constructed for burial, this court and the chapels of the gods of the Two Lands of Egypt would be used by the king so that even after his death could practice the ritual as it had in life.

Hoods despite having niches for members of the procession lay their offerings one could say that these are false to be stuffed inside, as it intended to be purely representative and that the ritual would be to the king after death and what mattered was its symbolism.

In the New York Museum houses a small statue of a god of a representative of a prefecture of Egypt. This statuette of not more than twenty-two inches tall may have belonged to one of the chapels. It is believed that there were several similar to this, each in a different chapel but in this case is the small god erect, nearly naked with a knife in his right hand. However, failed to demonstrate that the complex is its origin Dyoser although actually is dated as belonging to Dynasty III.

The king's journey to another world

You could say that Pharaoh Dyoser marked a line between the prehistory and history before his appearance did not differ strongly among the inhabitants of the Nile is Dyoser appearance that made Egypt overflows with scientific knowledge, spiritual, architecture, art and above all, the idea that being against the pharaoh was the same as being against god.

Unfortunately there are not many traces of which can extract information from the king in a biographical form but to assess its monumental buildings one can see that he was a man of unsurpassed rigor ego and was remembered even in the vicinity of the decline of Pharaonic culture, and an example of this might be the fact that it was made a forgery that claimed to date from the reign of Dyoser period almost 2400 years later, during the reign of the Ptolemies.

In the year 2649 BC Dyoser dies after being ruled nineteen years, which many admit to be very rare for the construction of such a wonderful creation, but fortunately, his mark was marked from the Old Kingdom Dynasty III and fortunately left a small flame to be developed across the centuries on the torch of knowledge of Pharaonic Egypt, the cradle of all civilizations thought and is therefore an example of them.