Egypt - Saqqâra

Title of research topic
Pyramids of the Late Old Kingdom
Texts from pyramids; urban funeral planning; usury of royal power and the transformation of the State.

Brief introduction to the site and purpose of dig
Saqqâra, occupied for forty centuries, is at the heart of the royal necropolis of Memphis, the capital of Ancient Egypt. Located 30 kilometres south of Cairo, this desert plateau borders the Nile Valley to the west. This is where the text-bearing pyramids (±2367-2279 BC), the French Archaeological Mission’s study focus in Saqqâra since 1964, are grouped.

It is there, too, that the Mission has been unearthing, since 2000, traces of a new class that emerged during and after the fall of the Old Kingdom (±2216 BC).

The dates adopted here are those from the lower estimated chronology of J. von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten, MÂS 46, 1997, p. 188-192.