South of Giza, just outside of Memphis is the vast necropolis of Saqqara, with many pyramids and mastabas and other ancient bits of rock. My driver was intent on just showing me the step pyramid but I was onto him by now and decided to have a good look around.
Having stayed outside at Giza, I was keen to crawl around inside the odd pyramid, and Saqqara offered a great chance to do this. I started off being accosted by an “Egyptologist” who wanted to show me around inside a couple of tombs. I took him up on his offer as he seemed quite knowledgable, unlike my horse guide at Giza who told me that the Great Pyramid was 500 metres tall.
So we wandered off and round a corner to this locked mastaba. A very desert looking guy shuffled up, produced a key and let us in. Turns out this was the tomb of twin noblemen, who’s high status was ensured because they were the King’s manicurists, as well as scribes and some other stuff, but the drawings and hieroglyphics on the wall were dominated by hands with neatly trimmed fingernails.
They must have gotten on ok as they were buried next to each other. You’re not meant to take photos but I grabbed a couple anyway since I knew I’d be paying for it in tips anyway.
The guide was well informed and happy to give me time to look at stuff so I was happy wandering around. He took me to another tomb which had a bunch of statues carved in it, some unfinished which was good as it showed you exactly how they made them.
After this it was back outside into the blazing sun and a look at Zoser’s Step Pyramid, the first pyramid known to have been built nearly 5000 years ago. It started as a Mastaba (rectangular tomb building, but Imhotep the architect just went crazy with a second storey. Once the king saw it he said, I like where you’re going with this, how about we strengthen the base and put anothger 4 levels on. The result:
And this guy turned up again
Next to the step pyramid is a remarkably well preserved temple, although many pieces have been removed to the Egyptian Museum where I saw them later. Some columns from the temple can be seen here
Once I finished the Step Pyramid complex, and to my driver’s great annoyance (becase I woke him up for 500 metre drive, I finished off the trip to Saqqara with a visit to Ti’s Mastaba, another interesting tomb. Nothing to see at the surface and fairly poorly lit inside. It was however a very interesting tomb with lots of hieroglyphics and wall paintings. A statue of Ti inside a niche had been saved from the museum people and is below:
From there it was off to Memphis which I will cover in my next post.