Djoser was an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty during the Old Kingdom .
The painted limestone statue of Djoser, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, is the oldest known life-sized Egyptian statue.
Today at the site in Saqqara where it was found, a plaster copy of the statue stands in place of the original. The statue was found during the Antiquities Service Excavations of 1924–1925.
The painted limestone statue of Djoser .
Saqqara.
Saqqara old picture
Djoser was buried in his famous step pyramid at Saqqara. This pyramid was originally built as a nearly quadratic mastaba, but then five further mastabas were literally piled upon the first, each new mastaba smaller than the predecessing ones, until the monument became Egypt's first step pyramid. Supervisor of the building constructions was the high lector priest Imhotep.
The step pyramid is made of limestone. It is massive and contains only one tight corridor leading to the close midst of the monument, ending in a rough chamber where the entrance to the tomb shaft was hidden. This inner construction was later filled with rubble, for it was of no use anymore. The pyramid was once 62 metres high and had a base measurement of ca. 125 X 109 metres. It was tightly covered in finely polished, white limestone
Beneath the step pyramid, a large maze of corridors and chambers were dug. The burial chamber lies in the midst of the subterranean complex, a 28 metres deep shaft leads directly from the surface down to the burial. The shaft entrance was sealed by a plug stone with a weight of 3.5 tons. The subterranean burial maze contains four magazine galleries, each pointing straight to one cardinal direction. The eastern gallery contained three limestone reliefs depicting king Djoser during the celebration of the Hebsed (rejuvenation feast). The walls around and between these reliefs were decorated with blueish fayence tiles. They were thought to imitate reed mats, as an allusion to the mythological underworld waters. The other galleries remained unfinished.
At the eastern site of the pyramid, very close to the blue chambers, eleven tomb shafts lead straight down for 30 – 32 metres deep and then deviate in a right angle in western direction. Shaft I – V were used for the burials of royal family members, shaft VI – XI were used as symbolic tombs for the grave goods of royal ancestors from dynasty I – II. More than 40,000 vessels, bowls and vases made of all kind of semiprecious stone were found in these galleries. Royal names such as of kings Den, Semerkhet, Nynetjer and Sekhemib were incised on the pots. It is now thought that Djoser once restored the original tombs of the ancestors and then sealed the grave goods in the galleries in attempt to save them Djoser's step pyramid was surrounded by a 10.5 metres high niched enclosure wall, building an inner courtyard of 37.06 acres (15 ha). This courtyard contains several cultic buildings, such as the Southern Tomb, the Southern Courtyard, the Southern Pavillon, the Northern Pavillon, the Entrance Colonnade and the Serdab with the famous seating statue of Djoser.
Source : found in Facebook . Egyptian Boadcasting Corporation
