Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [25]
Tradition, that much maligned handmaiden of history, had long credited the construction of the Step Pyramid to a certain Imhotep, the vizier and architect of Djoser, first or second king of the Third Dynasty. His name has been found in the Step Pyramid area, and there is little doubt but that tradition was correct. Imhotep was one of those talented people who captured the popular imagination; by Greek times he had become a godling and was credited with astounding accomplishments in medicine, magic, and scribal lore as well as in architecture.
Types of Old Kingdom mastabas
When his lord and master asked Imhotep what sort of tomb he ought to build, the architect’s first notion was to construct a huge mastaba—the type of tomb that was built by kings and nobles alike during the First and Second Dynasties. It continued to be used by commoners after their rulers had soared in ambition to the splendor of the pyramid. In shape a mastaba is a low, flat-topped rectangle, something like a shoe box.
It would be fascinating to have the tomb autobiography of Imhotep, as we have the autobiographies of later officials; to know when and how he first got the idea of superimposing another, smaller mastaba on top of the first, and a third on top of the second, and so on, forming a four-step pyramid. Later the design was enlarged to a six-step pyramid by broadening the base and building on along one of the extant faces of the structure. The Step Pyramid differs from later pyramids in that it was never filled in with stone to give a smooth, uninterrupted slope. But it served as an inspiration for a thousand years, and we are happy to be able to give the architect his due instead of crediting Anonymous, as we must do so often in ancient Egypt.
Building stages of the Step Pyramid
The first pyramid did not stand alone. A French architect, Jean-Phillipe Lauer, spent most of his long working life at Sakkara exploring and restoring the structures that surrounded the Step Pyramid, so we can visualize, with only a moderate straining of the imagination, what the immense tomb complex of King Djoser looked like in the days of its pristine glory.
All the buildings, including the pyramid, were enclosed by a wall built of small white limestone blocks. The size of the stones was a survival of the older brick construction; the Egyptians had yet to learn how to exploit the new building material properly. Inside the wall lay courts and buildings and tombs of various types; so complicated is the structure that archaeologists are still finding things within the Step Pyramid enclosure. The broken remains of the buildings are important for the study of domestic architecture, since some of them reproduce the actual living quarters of the king, which were built of less durable materials than stone. Others are replicas of structures used in various ritual performances.
The pyramid itself is solid (we think); the burial corridors and chambers were underground, entered through a passage from the funerary temple next to the pyramid. This is not typical of later pyramids, and the Step Pyramid substructure is more elaborate than later Old Kingdom examples. Some of the walls had reliefs, done in a subtle and skilled style; others were covered with small blue-green glazed tile in imitation of matting. A badly battered though once magnificent statue of Djoser was found in the serdab of the pyramid, but the body of the king has long since disappeared. A few bones, flung irreverently on the floor of the burial chamber, may be all that remains of him—though there is no way of proving it.
Of the master architect Imhotep even less has survived. A few years ago, the world of Egyptology was more or less electrified by the discovery of what might have been the tomb of Imhotep. Unfortunately we can’t be more specific than