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| Djoser | ||||||||
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| 1. Pharaoh of the 3. Dynasty | ||||||||
Pharaonic names:
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Name SourcesWhen talking about this time of Egyptian history, we have to include basically two kinds of name sources, one for Djoser, one for Sanakht. I mentioned already in the article about Khasekhemwy, I strongly suspect Djoder and Sanakht to have been brothers whol probably also ruled together for a while. And that is a subject directly touching base with the problem of name sources.Things are easy for Djoser. In 1924, an expedition found his statue, the first lifesize statue of a king found in Egypt by the way, in Saqqara. Nicely, with his name on it. There are almost countless inscriptions connected to Djoser, all carrying different versions and combinations of his name in the different titulary forms. Djoser was all over the place. The question with Djoser was never his existence but merely where to put him in the order of 3rd Dynasty Kings. Earlier egyptologists tried to place him later in the dynasty, between Nebka and Huni for example but by all means, Djoser's seals are found in Khasekhemwy's tomb. Not Nebka's. That is as good evidence as it can get that Djoser buried Khasekhemwy and took over the throne as his successor. Now, that is one part. What about Sanakht? Manetho and the Turin Canon place him before Djoser and thus make him the actual founder of the 3rd dynasty. As pointed out in the article about Khasekhemwy, I don't buy in it. Djoser was the one who married his sister Hetephernebti, a clear indication who was the one marked as king and therefore determined by his father to keep the bloodline narrow. But Djoser and Sanakht built their obviously princely mastabas next to each other in Beit Khallaf, technology, used tools, decoration and construction are the very same, despite the difference in size. Shanakt was buried in his one and we know his name from this burial in Mastaba K2. In other name sources, we find a scratched graffito near to the same tomb. And Shanakt appears on a relief on the Sinai, smashing the enemies of Egypt with his war mace in a truely royal manner. It's the classical depiction of an Egyptian king in wartimes. So, both existed. There are of course a lot of theories what their relationship to each other was and therefore, the need to "order" them. There is only a pile of problems with each of them.
Brothers sharing a throne?All theories tossed around in the circles of egyptologists are based on the idea, there could have been only one paharaoh at one time. The simplifed imagination of a straight line of succession. So every theory tries to find an explanation that puts Djoser and Shanakht after each other, in which wa ever.Fact is, we know, in later phases of Egyptian history, there were co-rulers. Look for example at the Tutmosides. Situations that called for co-ruling were aging kings making their sons co-rulers long before they died, political pressure or simply sharing the work load. Yeah, such pragmatic things happened. Now, the time and the end and after Khasekhemy's time was definitively a time of change and a time of a lot of work. Egypt was re-untied and trade, technology and military action took off like an express train. The wisest and most educated people of their time were part of Djoser's court. Writing, administration, mathematics, architecture and medicine made big leaps forward. Enemies threatened the realm from the outside and on the inside, the unification was probably not entirely executed yet, leaving domestic groups as permanent threads to the heirs of Khasekhemwy's united kingdom. So, if there was ever a time, there was a need to split the work load, it was that time. Now, as with most paharohs f the early dynasties in the Old Kingdom, we can't pinpoint the dates of rulerships exactly down to the year. We rely rather on assumptions, who became heir of whom. In other words, all early Egyptian dating is rather a ntwork of relations to each other and we conclude to those relations by what we see. The first thing we see is Beit Khallaf. Two basically quite humungous mastabas, but one is still the bigger one - Djoser's. By the timing, we can conclude those constructions were started long before the father, Khasekhemwy, died. Means, both were able to finace such construction work while not being king and officially also not overseers of anything or any other kind of high official. So even if we wouldn't know, Djoser buried Khasekhemwy, this screams "royality". But since it screams royality, it also includes the necessary limitations imposed by royality on this construction project. The younger brother, regardless of money and imagination and ambition, wouldn't have been allowed to build bigger than the older brother, the heir to the throne. Shanakht built smaller, so he was the younger brother. All wild theories, he was an older brother who married his own mother and ruled some years before Djoser are merely rather desperate attempts to hang on to Manetho who then again used the Turin Stone as source. So the writer of the king lists was two-thousand years after all of this happened and even his source was thousand and twohundred-fifty to thousandthreehundred years later. While those mastabas are actually from exactly their lifetimes. Now, how could this have worked out? Novels have been written about the two brother kicking each other off the throne again and again. But what is real and what fiction? Since Shanakht was depicted as king in ar on the Sinai, we know, he was there and probably fought there. No surprise because the Sinai is right where any Egyptian king would stop any invader from the North, thinking Assyria for example, which at this time was establishing itself as a new power. A century earlier, Summerian kings had dealt with the Assyrians and Eannatum of Lagash, one of the mighitest Summerian rulers back then claimed to have them smashed, but in Djoser's and Shanakht's times things were changing in Mesopotamia as rapid as in Egypt and about 2500 BC, we find already an established, expanive and quite aggressively growing Assyrian empire, right north of the road to Egypt. So, war on the Sinai was a logical consequence. Now, the body found in Mastaba K2 was a male of over six feet height. A tall man and by all means, a strong man. And the decoration of K2 includes a lot of hints on war and fights. Khasekhemwy, the father, hadn't been exactly small by all descriptions. And he had a reputation as a fierce warrior. His wife, Nimaatahpis, was more the wise part in the family (a bit like later Ramses and his Nefertari). So, the younger on of a warrior king has the stature and the tomb of a warrior. Not really surprising, isn't it. But if we accept this, we have also to admit, it is no accident that the only remaining depiction of Shanakht stems from a war zone and shows him smashing down invaders. To me, it appears pretty clear, what part of the work load, Shanakht had taken over: War and military. No wonder, the autopsy report reads like a train wreck. Now, have a look at Djoser. He reigned probabla for almost three decades, given the cattle counts in the annals. This is consitent with the number of construction projects under his rule. He is also known to have dispatched a number of military espeditions to the Sinai and have started the mining ofvaluable minerals there ... oh wait. Here is the rub: All inscriptions about this subject mention actually, he sent military expeditions! They don't mention he led an army there. This is unusual in more than one way. Because Egyptian pharaohs all to often had to lead their armies directly. They didn't sent armies, they led armies. First of all, the reputation as a warrior was important propaganda, second, to send a general with an army would have meant, the general returns at some point with that army. We can be sure, Khasekhemwy's son would have been very aware of that problem because his daddy pulled that stunt occasionally. So, why the heck was Djoser not with his armies, why could he dispatch an army unsupervised in the first place? There is noly one explanation: This army wasn't unsupervised. They had a leader and Djoser tristed this general without any limitations. No wonder, it was his brother and he was sworn to the same things as Djoser himself. So, Djoser organized, Djoser cared for administration and politcs, Djoser gathered the wisest men of his time at his court and founded, with the help of his vizir Imhotep, the House of Life, basically the first university in history. Let me ord this a little bit more blasphemous: Djoser stuck at home at the desk. Now, this explains another thing. Manetho was about right with his estimation, Djoser ruled for twenty-eight years. Later ideas, he ruled much shorter were merely based on the assumption, Sanakht would have ruled before him and thus, proponents of those theories had to shorten Djoser's reign to make room for Sanakht. Who, according to Manetho ruled for about 18 years, ten years shorter than Djoser. Given that those two could be in age only a few years away from each other, maybe not more than a year or two, this means, that war and too much action took its toll. The man in K2, he was not that old, in his late forties as it looks, when he died. It also explains, that Djoser'S travel activity, including military activity, increased obviously in the last decade of his reign. He had to, his brother, who had done a lot of this job, was dead. Everything fits together. Even the glaring ommission make sense. The successor of Djoser on the throne was Sekhemhet. Nobody knows when he was born, there are no inscriptions of him as prince, is name doesn't even appear together with Djoser on any seals. Sekhemhet appeared kind of out of the blue and it is widely assumed, he was maybe a brother of Djoser or the eldest son simply based on the fact, he followed him on the throne. However, it is worth to note, that neither Sekhemhet nor his direct successors showed any of the genetic problems that come with incest. Djoser was married to his sister but he had also several other queens. So, either way, it appears as if Sekhemhet'S blood line was surely not 100% "pure" but rather on the healthier side. Only, if he was assumed to be hair to the throne from early childhood on, as it would befit him as oldest son of the king ... wouldn't he appear in inscriptions? We know of two daughters of Djoser, one with the ame Ietkawes and another royal female whose name was destroyed. No boys. So as it looks, this successor was for the time of his youth NOT considered the heir. He only became king when their was no male heir. Which in itself produces another corundrum. What would have been his legitimation? Royal legitimation follows blood lines. So, while not a son of the king, he had to be a prince or he would have needed to marry one of Djoser's daughters to legitimate himself. He didn'T. He didn't need to because he was of royal blood and well documented, only for a long time in a presumed inferior postion in the throne succession. Which was fine till the decades went by and Djoser had only daughters. So, a male heir, royal blood, legitimated by birth right but no son of the king, that leaves a very limited number of options concerning his father, right? It also explains the ommissions, his absence from inscriptions. Chances are, Sekhemhet was rather Sanakht's son than Djoser's. So, by all means, behaviorally and by all evidence, the theory, Sanakht was the younger brother, the warrior and co-ruler, makes more sense than any desperate attempt to squeaze him in in a strictly sequential line of rulers.
Imhotep ... and othersNow, this guy is worth an article on his own. Architect, physician, mathematician, administrator, priest and that is only the beginning of the list. His name is connected to the first penicilline cure in human history, to the invention of pyramid construction, to the change to building almost entirely in sone instead of mud bricks and to the re-invention of Egyptian writing in an easier form that allowed for more effective administration. He reformed stock keeping and negotiated contracts to bring Egypt through times of bad harvests and allegedly, he also constructed one of the first official Nile-meters.LEts be honest here, this guy sounds too good to be true, but evidence shows, he was really that good and thus, he played a big role in the new third dynasty including the advancement of technology and organization. As much as Djoser, he formed the new Egypt, that, what we really know today as the Old Kingdom. To wrod in in a more modern way: Honor your Geek! But then, as with most things, the chaange from 2nd to 3rd Dynasty didn't really happen. Djoser was Khasekhemwy's son, there was no new dynasty. Manetho, aboutish twothousand years only thought so because of the obvious changes, Egypt went through. And this is also true when it comes to Imhotep. It wasn't really Djoser, who called Imhotep to the court. Imhotep was already on his father'S court. Imhotep was already a high-ranking advisor of Khasekhemwy. Chances are, he was also a teacher of Djoser and Sanakht. Aside of his achievements, Imhotep also plays another role. As architect, he "signed" his works. Means, we can basically group all his construction works and know they are from this time. Thus, he serves as anchor point for dating buildings from the late 2nd and early 3rd dynasty. Now, after all those superlatives, lets put a brake in here. A lot of books leave the impression, Imhotep single-handedly created Egypt and went for a picnic the next day. It was not that way. He spet his whole life to do so. Two, probably three kings, spent thier whole lifes. And there were others. Hesy-Ra was another physician who would wear the title of a "Chief of dentists and physicians" and later be the "Overseer of the King's scribes". Both titles mark him as Imhotep's second man, a colleague and probalby also as his successor in a number of functions. And with Merit-Ptah, we find the first female physician documented in history. She was either a student of Imhotep or Hesy-Ra ad her son, who became high priest later, described her as "The Chief Physician" which not only indicates, she followed Hesy-Ra on the job but also throws some interesting light on the female role in ancient Egyptian society. There were more, we only don't know their names. But there had to be. Djoser had too many construction sites parallel to have them all supervised by Imhotep in person. There had to be more architects. And the advance of medicine spread too fast over all the kingdom to believe, just three people were travelling and curing people. There were too many papyri written too claim, only a handful people did it. The rela achievement was the House of Life. A school, one can say, the first university. There, teachers like Imhotep, Hesy-Ra and Merit-Ptah trained not a dozen but probably hundreds of scribes. There, they trained doctors and architects, clerks and probably also some future province rulers. Education on a never before seen level, that is the often overlooked achievement of this court and it was a team effort.
ReignAs mentioned, all evidence indicates, Manetho was about right wis his estimation, that Djoser ruled for 28 years. Sanakht had 18. And as I wrote above, those 18 were probably parallel to Dosers first eighteen on the job. In general terms, Egypt remained save from invaders, the economy flourished, technological advance is documented by the products, especially the copper pots appearing all over the place, and the architectural changes in construction. The combination of political power and science created also an administration that used big construction projects as initial ignition for the economy. The step pyramid, Djoser's tomb, is the first of its kind. Fellachs came every year to work there, fed by the government and working for the government during the time of flooding when they couldn't work their fields. Like almost every construction project in the Old Kingdom, that wasn't the work of slaves. It was giving people work in the time, they couldn't work on the fields. And every year, people returned to their fields in time to sow and plough. All of them? Probably not. Because every year, so ad so many of them learned to work with stone. Aside of scribes, which appear as a new profession accessible to everyone, also the mason appears as a new line of work.While Egypt displayed quite some strength against enemies form the outside, in the land itself, all was about progress. This was not just the king and his court of a few nobles. We can see, that those new copper pots and new tools appear not only in royal housing but all over the country down till the smallest huts. The progress wasn't limited to the nobility. That doesn't mean, life was really easy going. It was a hrd life, of course, and there was no equality. Bt that didn't matter too much because for everyoe, life became better. The source of it, not oly in terms of money (which actually wasn't invented, mostly jewelry was used to pay and as gift), was the palace. New metaphors like "House of the THousand Years" document the role, the king and his court played in the mind of the people. So, Djoser and Sanakht did a good job. Which is irrelevant as far as we, more than four-and-a-half millenia later, try to judge it. It was relevant for the people back then. The gorwth made people happy and thus did more to unite a nation than any law could do.
FamilyWe know little about Djoser's family. He was amrried to his siter Hetephernebti and he had probably more than one queen, but we don't know their names. As far as it comes to children, we know of a daughter named Inetkawes and inscriptions indicate, there was another royal female but the part with her name is destroyed.Even less we know about Sanakht's family and that little is rather speculation. Since we know, Djoser's successor was likely not Djoser's son, I suspect Sanakht to have been Sekhemhet's father. That would explain's Sekhemhet'S sudden appearance on the stage when Djoser died but not earlier. Because he was part of Sanakht'S household, not Djoser's. But then this all depends on whether one accepts the theory of a double-rulership.
TombsLets talk about Mastaba K2 in Beit Khallaf first, Sanakht's tomb. The whole structure is today about five meters high above ground. Apattern on the East side indicates possible side burials. Those side burials would have been servants, maybe family members, but they are not comparable with the human sacrifices during the 1st Dynasty. More one has to imagine this as a kind of extended family corner of the necropolis.Today, the upper part is covered with debris and K2 doesn't look like much compared with the bigger K1 connected to Djoser which is partially uncovered. But K2 measures 65 by 23.5 meters. This is smaller than K1 but still one of the real big mastaba tombs and it must have taken some time to build it. Below it, a shaft led into provision rooms and the burial chamber. Actually two sets of remains were found in K2, the afore mentioned male ad a female which is asusmed to ave been his wife. The interesting part is, that K2 was on the upper side a step construction. So, it wasn't a fully blown pyramid, but it was, in the architectural thinking, already well on the way. Th next one to look it is K1. And in a lot of aspects, K1 is like K2, only bigger. The same tools were used, the same architecture, the same kind of thinking. Also in K, human remains were found, but there is no indication who could have been that. Interesting is also the number of seals found in K1. Aside of Djoser, we find Sanakht, even the later king Nebka lading to a confusion whether Nebka maybe would be identical to Sanakht and seals naming a number of females, egyptologists are still struggling about how to read them. One name appears to be Nimaatapis, the mother of Djoser and Sanakht and led some egyptologists to believe, this could be the mother's burial. But then, the remains found there were clearly male, so this is a no go. Now we know, Djoser was the original owner. But when Djoser became king, he started to build on the step pyramid at Saqquara. Thus, the bigger mastaba in Beit Khallaf became obsolete. Chances are, Sanakht took over ownership at least as an option. He had at the time time probably also started to build a new bigger tomb at Saqquara. But then, Sanakht died before the step pyramid ad his own new tomb were finished and ready to use. That left K1 and K2 which were both ready for use. Only, in ase something would happen to Djoser, he would be the one without a fitting tomb. He had to hold on to K1. Which leaves as only possible burial place for Sanakht K2. At Saqquara, we find an unfinished 2nd dynasty style complex. This was intended as a royal tomb, the dimensions and location make this clear. However, it was never finished. Never finished means, it became obsolete at some point. In connection to Egypt this means, another bigger tomb was built instead or the owner died before it was finished. The vicinity to the step pyramid and Imhotep as architect leave only little possibilites who was the owner: Sanakht. Because Djoser had alredy the step pyramid in work. And then, there is the step pyramid. The first fully blown pyramid in Egypt. She isn't built from big blocks as later pyramids, but she is almost completely stone (under it, some mud brick was used for interior walls on the so-called gallery. The pyramid consists of six steps or mastabas built onto each other. The evolution from the original mastaba tombs is obvious. The pyramid itself is central part of a bigger complex, a court surrounding the burial with storage rooms, shrines and an enclosure. But alone the pyramid measures 109 x 125 meters x 62 meters. For comparison, K1 in Beit Khallaf measures 85 x 45 meters and stood about 8 meters high. Most egyptologists assume, the pyramid was a product of revisions, changes and extensions of an original plan. However, two details seem to contradict this theory. First of all, the pyramid is surrounded by an enclosure. A losed enclosure would make the construction of a pyramid inside of it impossible because there would be no space for ramps. Second the wall side of the two lower levels are unusual thick, intended to hold material under pressure from breaking outside. In other words, the two lower levels at least were constructed from the start with the idea, they would have to hold a lot of weight from levels built on them. It indicates, Imhotep, the architect, knew already, there would be more steps when he started to build. To describe the whole complex here would overstep the purpose of this article. At some point, there will be probably an article especially dedicated to this structure. However, under thiy pyramid is a lybyrinth of corridors and rooms almost 6 km in length. The rooms provide space for the king's burial but also for burials of relatives who died later. This, unlike common imagination, this pyramid wasn't even intended to be closed hermetically after the king's funeral. The burial chamber itself was sealed, but not the complex as whole. Another interesting detail is, that the weight of the pyramid lasts on the burial chamber. So it had to be constructed to hold the complete weight. This contradicts once more the idea, the step pyramid hadn't been planned as a pyramid to begin with. The outer complex went through entensions over time, but the core parts of the pyramid show clearly, Imhotep calculated with the whole weight of a fully blown pyramid from the start. | ||||||||
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