Saqqara - Step Pyramid, Egypt

Saqqara

The Saqqara pyramids and funeral complex was one of the most organized facilities I visited in Egypt. Peter and I started our tour in a well equipped room where a video dubbed by Omar Sharif wrapped up the history of the place. Then we visited the small Imhotep Museum before we drove up to the pyramids. The highlight of the museum for me was the sarcophagus of Imhotep, the royal architect of King Djoser's Step Pyramid and his funerary complex.

French Egyptology Jean-Philippe Lauer spent most of his life excavating and restoring the complex that was found crumbled under the sand. In the well displayed museum he tells the story of how it was like a puzzle putting all the pieces of the 40 columns together.

The Step Pyramid is the world's oldest stone monument and the first decent attempt at a pyramid, but it was not safe to go inside. Surrounding it is a complex that includes shrines and a colonnaded entrance with 40 columns, 20 on each side. These columns are supposed to represent the provinces of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Pyramid of Ti is also located in the area and its inner chambers were open to visit. It was one of the first pyramids to have its chambers adorned with texts. Mastaba of Ti (a low, rectangular tomb building with sloping sides and a flat roof) was also open to visitors but no cameras were allowed inside. Both the pyramid and the mastaba has many texts and frescoes with their original colors. The frescoes depict every day life, like people fishing, hunting, and milking cows and there are lots of stars on the roof. There were also many texts in hieroglyphs.

I was amazed at the quality of the original colors. Red seemed to be preferred over other colors, painted on the one dimensional human figures typical of the era.