Abusir
Abusir or
Abu Sir is the name given to an
Egyptian archaeological locality - specifically, an extensive
necropolis of the
Old Kingdom period, together with later additions - in the vicinity of the modern capital
Cairo. The name is also that of a neighbouring village in the
Nile Valley, from whence the site takes its name. Abusir is located several kilometres north of
Saqqara and, like it, served as one of the main elite cemeteries for the ancient Egyptian capital city of
Memphis.
Just one, relatively small segment of the extensive "pyramid field" that extends from north of
Giza to below
Saqqara, the locality of Abusir took its turn as the focus of the prestigious western burial rites operating out of the then-capital of Memphis during the
Old Kingdom 5th Dynasty. As an elite cemetery, neighbouring
Giza had by then "filled up" with the massive pyramids and other monuments of the
4th Dynasty, leading the
5th Dynasty pharaohs to seek sites elsewhere for their own funerary monuments.
Abusir was the origin of the largest find of Old Kingdom
papyri to date — the
Abusir Papyri: in the late nineteenth century, a number of Western museums acquired collections of fragmentary papyri from the administrative (temple) records of one Abusir funerary cult, that for king
Neferirkare Kakai. This discovery was supplemented in the late
twentieth century when excavations by a Czech expedition to the site revealed papyri from two other cult complexes, that of the pharaoh
Neferefre (also read Raneferef) and for the king's mother
Khentkaus II.
There are a total of seven pyramids at this site, which served as the main royal necropolis during the Fifth Dynasty. The quality of construction of the Abusir pyramids is inferior to those of the Fourth Dynasty — perhaps signalling a decrease in royal power or a less vibrant economy. They are smaller than their predecessors, and are built of low quality local
limestone.
The three major pyramids are those of
Nyuserre Ini (which is also the most intact),
Neferirkare and
Sahure. The site is also home to the incomplete Pyramid of
Neferefre. All of the major pyramids at Abusir were built as
step pyramids, although the largest of them — the Pyramid of Neferirkare — is believed to have originally been built as a step pyramid some seventy metres in height and then later transformed into a "true" pyramid by having its steps filled in with loose masonry.
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Satellite images of Abusir - at WikiMapia = Google maps + wiki
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Waseda University Expedition to Abusir South* the
Tomb of Qar at Abusir - Czech Institute of Egyptology
