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>> Okay, so this is the second part of the Egyptian lecture.
So in the first part we looked at a little bit
of what was going on in the Neolithic
in terms of the pre-Dynastic.
We started looking at the pit graves.
We went through what a mastaba looks like
and then talked a little bit
about what a pyramid can actually tell us.
If you remember, a pyramid can tell us about the government.
It can tell us about the economy.
It can tell us about religion.
And, of course, the one thing I forgot,
it can also tell us about art.
So try and think about all of these things
as you're looking at archaeology.
Okay, so what I want to do to start off this lecture is
to talk about a pharaoh named Djoser.
And I've given you the dates that he's ruling,
so he's fairly early on.
And here is a map of Egypt and I've put a little arrow here,
and it's pointing to a city called Saqqara.
So it's at Saqqara where Djoser ended
up building a very famous step pyramid.
And this is an image of the step pyramid.
And what you're looking at is, down at the bottom,
you've got an overhead view.
So if you're in a helicopter looking down,
this is what you're looking at,
and then the top part is a cross section.
So if you cut the pyramid right down the middle,
this is what you'd be looking at,
including the burial chamber at the bottom.
But let's start with the bottom part.
So Djoser, when he became pharaoh,
he ordered that his funerary monument start to be built.
So what they did was they built the burial chamber,
and in the bottom part it's that middle square.
In the top part, the cross section, it's the tunnel
that goes down into the ground.
So this yellow square, which is labeled M1 in the bottom,
is mastaba number one.
So they built his burial chamber underground,
then built the mastaba on top of that.
For whatever reason, Djoser didn't like it,
so they built mastaba number two, and in the bottom,
it's the orange box that says M2.
He didn't like that.
They then built another mastaba on top, or over it, M3.
Still wasn't satisfied.
Now, look at the top part.
You've got pyramid number one.
So they start to build this brand new building.
So it hadn't been done in Egypt before.
Didn't like that, and so they built another one added
on to it, which in the top is called pyramid two.
So what you've got here are multiple stages of building
within the same timeframe of a pharaoh.
You've got underground chambers, so the plan was to bury the body
under the ground and then build a giant building on top.
And this is what the step pyramid looks like today.
So it's not a nice, clean pyramid, you know,
with the smooth sides that you would normally imagine.
And if you look down at the bottom
of this particular picture, I've given some innovations.
And these are really important to remember.
This is the first time in Egyptian history
where you find these buildings built
out of stone instead of mud brick.
So the mastabas are mud brick.
These early pit graves, if they did line them
with brick, they're mud brick.
But this time with Djoser, they're building with stone.
And, of course, that's more technology.
You also need more trade, because you have
to find the stone, you have to cut it,
you have to bring it to the actual site.
Another thing they did here, and I'll show you a picture
in just second, is that they built a wall
around this entire pyramid.
And what they did was they built other buildings
within this called a temple complex.
And this is where you would go to pay your taxes.
It's where you'd go to pay respects to the pharaoh.
And then they also built a special room called a
mortuary temple.
And this was the temple,
just a building off the side of the pyramid.
They put a statue of the pharaoh in there and then when you go
in to make your offerings to the pharaoh, he could see you
and you could see him.
And then this is just a schematic drawing
of the step pyramid.
So right in the center of this, you've got the step pyramid,
which is labeled number one.
Number six is the mortuary temple, so off to the north.
And you can see this large wall built around the whole thing.
So this was a pretty massive undertaking.
Another interesting thing, and I can't remember if I have a slide
on this, is number two.
So at the very bottom in the south,
there is another tomb structure here,
so more tunnels built under the ground.
Okay, so you've got Djoser.
The next king to come along was Sneferu,
so Pharaoh Sneferu.
And sort of this happens with neighbors:
when your neighbor has a pool, you want a bigger pool.
Or they build a deck, and you want a bigger deck.
The pharaohs were exactly the same.
So Djoser has his step pyramid.
Sneferu wanted something bigger.
So they started to build what today is called the
Meidum Pyramid.
And what you're looking at here is sort
of the internal structure of the pyramid,
and most of the outer casing has peeled off.
That's this giant debris field down at the bottom.
And it was known for centuries and centuries that,
if you needed stone you could just go here
and pull it out, which is [inaudible].
This is a cross section of the Meidum Pyramid.
Now, what's interesting here, and I'll talk about this
in just a bit, is that the tomb chamber is no longer below.
It's no longer underground.
They've moved it up onto the ground.
So your tunnel might go below the ground, but then you have
to move upwards to the ground,
and then you build the pyramid over that.
So there are a couple of innovations in terms
of the Meidum Pyramid.
So remember the innovations of the step pyramid
of Sneferu, so Meidum Pyramid.
They're building these pyramids with larger stones.
So they're getting better at stone cutting,
better at moving these stones.
I just mentioned the burial chamber is above ground.
And if you look at this picture,
you can see it labeled the main pyramid.
Just off to your right are these things called
auxiliary pyramids.
So these are small pyramids that administrators are buried in
or the wives of the pharaohs are buried in,
and these become very common later on.
So you've got the main pyramid,
you've got the auxiliary pyramids.
If you look down to the bottom right of this photo,
you see a building
or a structure called the valley temple.
So this was built so that goods and things that need to go
into the pyramid to support this big worship of the pharaoh,
you dump material off in the valley temple.
It can be stored there.
They built a causeway which is really just a sidewalk that led
to the mortuary temples.
So you could store things in the valley temple
and then bring them up into the mortuary temple
and then bring them into the actual temple complex.
You also get a change in orientation in terms
of the front of the pyramid or the entranceway in terms
of being east and west.
Now, Sneferu for whatever reason didn't like the Meidum Pyramid,
so he ordered that another pyramid be built.
And this was the Bent Pyramid.
You can see it's called bent because if you look
at the middle of the picture you can see a nice, clear line,
and the angles are steeper.
So what happened with the Bent Pyramid,
they started building it and it started to crack.
So they got a huge section of it done, a little less than half
of the original, and they made a mistake with their foundation.
So the building started to crack.
It was cracking on the inside, and instead of tearing it down,
what they did was they decided to make the angle steeper.
So if you look at that line, which is a pretty clear line,
you imagine the line continuing upwards.
This Bent Pyramid was meant to be taller than it is today.
So they reduced the height by making it steeper,
thinking that would reduce the cracks.
And it sort of did, and clearly it's still standing today.
But, of course, Sneferu was not happy with that,
so he had another pyramid built which,
I don't have a picture here, and that is the Red Pyramid.
So during his lifetime he's got three pyramids being built:
the Meidum Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid.
And towards the end of his reign,
Meidum and the Bent were left unfinished,
and then what they did was they went back and finished these.
Now, the one pyramid you probably think of when you think
of a pyramid is the Great Pyramid at Giza.
And on this picture, it's the first pyramid that's toward you
called the Khufu Pyramid.
And Khufu is the pharaoh.
And then just behind that, you have his son's pyramid, Khafre;
and then just behind that you've got a smaller...
pyramid by Khufu's grandson, Menkaure.
Now, even though it looks
like Khafre's pyramid is taller, it's not.
So what they did was they built this pyramid on higher bedrock.
And so Khufu's pyramid was
about 500 feet tall with a massive base.
Khafre's pyramid isn't quite that tall,
but it just looks taller.
So this is a fairly busy picture showing you these same pyramids.
It's a different orientation.
So towards the top, you've got Khufu's pyramid,
then Khafre's, and then Menkaure's.
So what I sort of want to talk about here is --
of course, you can see the modern village built right
up against these.
So undoubtedly there are buildings under there.
So if you look at the pyramid of Khufu,
you can see the funerary temple off
to the right side of the pyramid.
You've got the causeway.
There was almost certainly a valley temple, but it's gone,
because people have built over that.
You've got the auxiliary pyramids out front.
One thing I do want to mention here, and I've got a slide here
in just a bit; it's called these boat pits.
Four boat pits were discovered around the pyramid of Khufu,
and they were also found around the pyramid of Khafre.
So what they think is going on here is
that when the pharaoh wakes up in the afterlife, then he needs
to get to the afterlife.
So he jumps in these boats.
This is a cross-cut of the Great Pyramid.
And as you can see now,
the burial chambers have moved really off the ground
and into the actual structure of the pyramid.
So this top section is called the king's chamber,
and those dark lines that you're looking
at are actually support structures.
And then you've got sort of a regular, it looks like a roof,
a triangle-type roof that was built to take the pressure off.
So you've got all the stone on top.
They didn't want the pyramid to collapse
into the king's chamber.
Below that you've got something called a queen's chamber.
We don't know if that's actually what it was, but that's the name
that was attached to it.
And then this is a picture of one of the boats,
so that came out of the boat pit.
Now, those boats in the boat pits were totally taken apart
and they were taken apart, put in the pit,
and then modern historians had to come in
and then put these things together.
But you can see it's a fairly large boat and, again, you know,
it was probably used for the pharaoh
to go off into the afterlife.
A couple more things I want to talk about and then we'll stop.
So in the pyramids themselves, you find actual texts.
And these are easy enough to remember.
They're called the pyramid texts.
And what the idea is, what you're looking at here is a shot
of the burial chamber within the Pyramid of Unas.
I've given you the dates that he ruled here.
And just below, and you can't see it,
is where his coffin would be.
And on the wall right in front of that, it's solid writing.
So these are the pyramid texts.
And these start showing up around Dynasty Five,
so in the middle of the Old Kingdom.
And no big surprise, the main god that it talked
about in these pyramid texts is Osiris,
who was associated with resurrection.
So the idea is that the pharaoh would wake in the afterlife
and then he could actually read instructions on what to --
so not everyone could afford a pyramid.
So you just had the pharaohs having pyramids.
But, of course, other people were interested
in what was going to happen to them after their death,
so you start to find these things called coffin texts
showing up.
So late Old Kingdom, certainly the First Intermediate Period,
and then disappeared into the Middle Kingdom.
And, again, what these are, you've got a coffin made
out of wood, and it's just packed with writing.
And, again, the main god is Osiris,
so the god of the underworld.
And then, so the last thing we'll talk
about for Egyptian history is the First Intermediate Period.
So if you remember, we talked about the fact
that Egypt was broken up into nomes
and governors called Nomarks.
So toward the end of the Old Kingdom, you get a series
of very weak pharaohs, and they can't control what's going
on in the north and in the south.
And so you've got Nomarks who now have power structures
in the north and south, and they decide they should be pharaohs.
So they break away.
And the First Intermediate Period is, in general,
thought of as civil war.
Unfortunately, we can't really go into this very much,
but if you'll look at sort of the details of what's happening
in the First Intermediate Period,
the government certainly breaks down, but the culture does not.
So this seems to be a thriving period in Egyptian history,
and what they think is happening is,
without the central government sort of controlling everything,
people had freedom to do other things.
But certainly this is a period of civil war
in terms of the government.