A New Early
Sakuji Yoshimura and Nozomu Kawai
A team from the Institute of Egyptology at Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) has been carrying out
excavations since 1991 on a hilltop site about 1 km north-west of the Serapeum. The work there has already revealed a
Excavations on the southeastern slope were
initiated in 2001 and a previously unknown rock-cut chamber was found in the
middle of the hill. Investigations in the chamber yielded a number of
artifacts, including a headless ceramic recumbent lion with a small statue
between its front paws and inscribed with the name of Khufu
and some standing ceramic statues of a Lioness goddess. Two of these have two
figures of a child-king. One child king on each lioness statue bears the name
of Pepy I, while another lioness statue bears the Horus name of Khufu on the side
of its backpiller.
In the 2002 season, excavations were
resumed in order to extend the area under investigation so as to reveal the
context of the rock-cut chamber found in 2001. While opening a sounding about
20 m to the south of the chamber, a rectangular layered stone structure
appeared with its longer axis running in the east-west direction. The
front façade, that is the southern surface, sways to the east about 27 degrees in
spite of facing true south, and faces the points to the area where Gisr-el-Mudir, Sekhemkhet’s
Pyramid and Djoser’s Step Pyramid are situated. The structure comprises a massive wall
with a pronounced batter measuring 34.3 m in length from east to west, and
features 15 courses of stones, which measures approximately 4.1 m in height.
The maximum length from the corner of the façade to the northern edge of the
visible area of the structure is approximately 14m. The construction technique
is reminiscent of the Third Dynasty Step Pyramid of Djoser.
The angles of the frontal façade is 70 degrees leaning against the hill behind,
while the angles of the inner individual layers of the stones were also
determined to be about 20 degrees inwards with at least three internal accretion
layers. A trench made in perpendicular to the façade of the layered stone
structure in the frontal area revealed the floor level around the time of the
construction of the building containing some beer jar fragments which can be
dated to the Third Dynasty, which is compatible with the date for the layered
stone structure.
Behind the structure on the slope, a shaft
was exposed which leads to two chambers in the east and west respectively. The
shaft seems to have been contemporary to the layered stone structure. It is
likely that both stone structure and the shaft were made as a unit. The east
chamber contained a number of votive objects from the Early Dynastic Period to
the early
The evidence recovered to date permits a
number of preliminary but important conclusions to be drawn about the history
of this part of the vast Saqqara Necropolis. Although the excavations have not
been completed in its entire area, a short progress report on these excavations
and findings particularly of the early