The 5th Dynasty Pyramid of King Unas

Pyramid of Unas

Burial Chamber

The Pyramid Texts

Star Ceiling

Start of the Causeway

(Tour arranged and organised by Cecelia and Lindy at Egypt & Beyond.)

The first day of the February 2008 tour of Egypt ended with a visit to my favourite place in Egypt - the ancient necropolis of Saqqara. To my surprise and delight, we were permitted to visit the closed pyramid of a king of the 5th dynasty, king Unas (ca.2375-2345BCE).

The pyramid is in a ruinous condition. Tumbled stones lay one upon the other in a tangled heap. It is estimated that it was originally forty-three metres high - today it is barely nineteen metres high. But take a walk around its perimeter and you get an idea of what it must have looked like; the lower courses still lie in their original positions, smooth and neat; the beautifully made corners especially give an idea of the skill of the ancient stone masons who helped to build the king's monument; this pyramid, however, was even then a poor shadow of the earlier magnificent pyramids on the Giza plateau.

But this dilapidated ruin, hardly noticed by tourists, hides a wonderful secret! A granite lined passage of only about fifteen metres descends at a gentle angle into the desert rock into a small vestibule that in turn leads into a straight passage about twenty metres long. In this passage, look out for three niches - these originally housed granite portcullises that were put into place after the burial and were meant to protect the king's tomb from robbers - alas, to no avail.

Arriving in an ante chamber, one gets the first glimpse of what makes this tomb unique! Here you are surrounded by the earliest large-scale religious composition in the world. Hundreds of spells, collectively known as the Pyramid Texts, are skillfully carved in hieroglyphs in exquisite detail onto the walls. Many of these are included in the New Kingdom Book of the Dead - but this is the very first time they appear anywhere in any of the known early tombs. This is the first time I've seen them outside of a book, a wonderful surprise and a dream come true, thanks to Cecelia and Egypt and Beyond!

Coming back to earth (almost) I went into the burial chamber to take in the lovely gabled ceiling with stars carved in relief on a blue background (representing the sky); polished calcite, or Egyptian alabaster, lines the walls which surround, on three sides, the king's black granite sarcophagus. The calcite is decorated with the distinctive 'palace facade' design.

Of the over two hundred Pyramid Texts inscribed here, many are designed to restore the king to life and to provide sustenance for him in the Afterlife. Some of the spells can magically create for King Unas water, beer, linen, royal regalia like sceptres and crowns, while other spells ensure his safe journey to join the sun god Ra. Some give a glimpse of a stellar cult where the spell speaks of the king soaring into the sky to become a star - the meaning of many others is obscure and Egyptologists are still pondering their meanings.

If you can tear yourself away from this wonderful place, its worthwhile taking the short walk from the pyramid and between two limestone pillars and onto the to the only extant covered part of the causeway. The reliefs here are interesting, but unfortunately, time and the desert sands have done their work and those higher up are difficult to make out - here, binoculars come in handy!

Some of the more important blocks have been removed for their own safety, but of those, the most interesting is the one depicting a boat transporting two stone columns to the valley temple; the columns have palm leaf capitals, just like the real ones found in the mortuary and valley temples. Hieroglyphs above the boat tell us that they have come from the quarries at Aswan and give the destination as the 'Pyramid of Unas - Beautiful of Places'. It's worth mentioning that the columns appear to be already dressed, which must mean that the dressing was done in Aswan - just another indication of the practicality, inventiveness and ingenuity of these ancient Egyptians.

This relief is very important because it's the only representation of the transportation of stone columns by boat this early in Egyptian history - it would be one thousand years more before this scene would again be seen in relief - that is, the transportation of the granite obelisk of the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The causeway is about six hundred metres long and was part of the funerary complex of the king; it led to a valley temple on the river bank, of which little remains today.

Like the builder of the Great Pyramid, Kind Unas had two boat pits dug, each forty-nine metres long. They were lined with limestone blocks but no trace of a vessel has ever been found, so the pits may have been symbolic only; but symbolic or not, they were enough to ensure that King Unas was able to travel in the day and night boats of the sun god.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that to live again in the Afterlife, the body had to be preserved. Unfortunately, the body of King Unas has not been found but as another text says in part, "...to speak the name of the dead is to cause him to live again," so as long as we speak the name of King Unas, he will continue to live in the Afterlife.

To find out how you can visit these fascinating sites, please contact us on +27 11 678 4777 or +27 11 478 2884 or email us on: info@egyptandbeyond.co.za.

[ Back to top ]