The pyramid complex of Sahure, the second…
2481 BCE to 2470 BCE
The pyramid complex of Sahure, the second king of Egypt’s Fifth dynasty, is the first built at the new royal burial ground at Abusir a few kilometers north of Saqqara (though Userkaf had probably already built his solar temple there) and marks the decline of pyramid building, both in the size and quality, though many of the reliefs are very well done.
His pyramid provides us most of the information we know of this king.
When it was excavated in the first years of the nineteen-hundreds BCE, a great amount of fine reliefs were found to an extent and quality superior to those from the dynasty before.
Some of the low relief-cuttings in red granite are masterpieces of their kind and still in place at the site.
The construction of the pyramid was on the other hand (like the others from this dynasty) made with an inner core of roughly hewn stones in a step construction held together in many sections with a mortar of mud.
The reliefs in his mortuary and valley temple depict a counting of foreigners by or in front of the goddess Seshat and the return of a fleet from Asia, perhaps Byblos, with huge cedar trees.
This may indicate a military interest in the Near East, but the contacts may have been diplomatic and commercial as well.
As part of the contacts with the Near East, the reliefs from his funerary monuments also hold the oldest known representation of a Syrian bear.
We also have the first documented expedition to the land of Punt, which apparently yielded a quantity of myrrh, along with malachite and electrum, and because of this, Sahure is often credited with establishing an Egyptian navy.
There are also scenes of a raid into Libya which yielded various livestock and showed the king smiting the local chieftains.
The Palermo stone also corroborates some of these events and also mentions expeditions to the Sinai and to the exotic land of Punt, as well as to the diorite quarries northwest of Abu Simbel, thus, far into Nubia.