Zoser

Egyptian pharaoh (r. c. 2687-2650 b.c.e.)

• Born: c. 2700 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Probably Memphis, Egypt
• Died: c. 2650 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Memphis, Egypt

Zoser was the first great king of the epoch known as the Old Kingdom, the Third through Eighth Dynasties. His outstanding achievement was the construction of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara near Memphis, the earliest of the great pyramids.

Early Life

Zoser is usually regarded as either the first king of the Third Dynasty (c. 2687-c. 2613), although some historians include a predecessor, Nebka (Sanekht). Zoser’s physical description is known from several reliefs found in the Step Pyramid complex and from a seated limestone statue, thought to be the oldest life-size statue found in Egypt. This portrayal of the king was discovered in a small, doorless room near his pyramid, positioned to look out of two eyeholes in the wall so that the king could view food offerings brought to him by his funerary priests each day. Although the inlaid eyes have been gouged out and the nose has been damaged, the massive head, with its high cheekbones and prominent mouth, has lost none of its intimidating majesty. This is no idealized portrait, but the likeness of Zoser himself.

Apart from the members of his immediate family, only a few others can be linked to Zoser by name. Hesyra and Khabausokar have left impressive funerary monuments that testify to their importance in Zoser’s court. Although his tomb remains to be discovered, there is one man, Imhotep, whose name must rank with that of the great king. In later antiquity he was credited with every kind of wisdom and was even accorded divine status as a god of healing. It is as Zoser’s chief architect, however, that Imhotep has ensured his place in history, for the king entrusted to this innovative genius the construction of the Step Pyramid.

Life’s Work

Ancient Egyptians believed that the king was the incarnation of the falcon god Horus, source of all goods and prosperity for the entire land. During his life on earth, the king displayed his effectiveness as a ruler by the wealth and beauty of his royal residence; after his death, he proclaimed his ability to continue to perform good services for his subjects by the magnificence of his tomb. When the king departed this life he became one with his father, Osiris, god of the land’s fertility, and continued to bestow prosperity on his subjects through the new incarnation of the god Horus, that is, the king’s son and successor.

From the very beginning, royal tombs were built on the analogy of the royal residence, for the king’s tomb was his “house of eternity,” in the common Egyptian expression. Thus, in very early times when the king lived in a circular hut, his tomb was circular; when the royal residence became rectangular in shape, the royal tomb became rectangular. The royal tomb, despite some changes, remained essentially the same until the time of Zoser. It consisted of a subterranean structure where the dead king was buried with his most valuable possessions, topped by a brick superstructure in the form of a rectangular platform, which Egyptologists refer to as a mastaba (Arabic for “bench”).

When Zoser came to the throne, he had the same assumptions about his role as his predecessors. He was the god Horus, or rather a temporary incarnation of that god, whose special name for this particular incarnation was Netjerikhet (“divine of body”). It was by this name that the king identified himself everywhere in the Step Pyramid complex and not by the familiar name Zoser (found only in later writings together with the name Netjerikhet). Like his predecessors, Zoser assumed that one of his most important duties as king was to undertake the preparation of his “house of eternity.” Fortunately, he had in his service the brilliant Imhotep.

Zoser’s decision to construct a mastaba for his monument was dictated by tradition, but instead of employing the usual rectangular shape, he directed Imhotep to build it as a square, with each side facing the four cardinal points and measuring approximately 207 feet (63 meters). In addition, he ordered that the monument be constructed of limestone and not brick, the material used in all previous constructions of this sort. Rising to a height of 26 feet (8 meters), this square stone mastaba was enclosed in a rectangular area by a wall 33 feet (10 meters) high and more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long.

Even as it stood, Zoser’s monument displayed a number of bold innovations. Simply in point of size, it dwarfed anything in Egyptian experience because the area enclosed by the girdle wall was more than sixty times larger than any built so far. Almost immediately, however, Zoser began to rethink the plan of his monument. In the end, the original mastaba underwent six major reconstructions and eventually emerged as a white stone pyramid rising in six unequal steps to a height of 204 feet (63 meters) and measuring at the base 411 by 358 feet (125 by 109 meters). Instead of viewing his tomb simply as his royal residence in death, Zoser had come to think of it also as a colossal staircase by which his transfigured body might climb up into the sky and join the sun god Ra in his solar barge as he passed through the sky each day (this according to information discovered in pyramids of the Fifth Dynasty).

Not until after the pyramid was finished did Zoser complete the numerous other temples and courts that he considered essential to the complex, for he envisioned it as a true necropolis, a city of the dead. Except for the Mortuary Temple and the smaller building in which Zoser’s statue was found, none of the other buildings surrounding the Step Pyramid has any known precedent or parallel, and the purpose that many were intended to serve remains obscure. One group of buildings, partially restored, whose function is reasonably clear, relates to the celebration of the Sed or Jubilee Festival and requires special attention.

In earlier times, when the king’s physical vigor was observed to weaken, he was put to death and replaced by a younger man because nature’s bounty was thought to depend on the king’s virility. In later times, this custom was supplanted by the Sed Festival, which enabled the aging king to renew his power through magic and thus ensure the welfare of his kingdom. Zoser most likely had celebrated this festival during his life and had intended that the complex of buildings south of his pyramid should provide him with the setting necessary for repeating this ceremony throughout eternity. One of the most important rites was the reenactment of the king’s double coronation as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, during which he was presented with the white crown of the south and the red crown of the north. In another rite, which is depicted in a fine relief, the king is shown running a fixed course, apparently to display his renewed strength to his subjects. An area was set aside for Zoser’s eternal run.

Archaeologists have carefully examined the subterranean part of Zoser’s tomb, where he was buried with his most valuable possessions. Despite having been plundered by tomb robbers over the course of four thousand years, the storage rooms have yielded to excavators some 90 tons (82 metric tons) of stone vessels made of such costly stones as alabaster, porphyry, and quartz. It is clear that Zoser was lavishly equipped for eternity, on a scale never attempted before.

Significance

Menes, the semilegendary first king of the First Dynasty, unified Upper and Lower Egypt around 3050 b.c.e. An Egypt with a strong central government was able to undertake large hydraulic projects to control the annual inundations of the Nile. Under one king, the obedient army and conscripted peasants could increase the amount of arable land by draining swamps and irrigating the desert margins. During the first two dynasties, despite periods of civil strife, a unified Egypt was able to make enormous strides forward in every way. The invention of writing made it possible to conduct censuses of people and animals, make records of more complicated data, and communicate easily over long distances. Leisure provided the intelligentsia with an opportunity for speculative thought and for the fine arts as well as the practical.

Roughly five hundred years of progress culminated in Zoser’s reign. Although written documents are generally lacking for this period, the Step Pyramid itself is very reliable testimony to the great prosperity and self-confidence that characterized Zoser’s tenure. The size of his funerary monument alone implies much about the economic and political status of Egypt during this period. More important than mere size, however, are the architectural innovations, especially Zoser’s decision to build his monument in the revolutionary shape of a pyramid and to use quarried stone for its material, the first large structure to be so raised. The Step Pyramid represents Zoser’s vision of himself as king, able literally to ascend into the heavens by a stairway that would never perish. Zoser’s vision was fully realized about one hundred years later in the Great Pyramid of Khufu, still a wonder to the world.

Major Rulers of the Third Dynasty

c. 2687-c. 2650

• Zoser

c. 2648-c. 2640

• Sekhemkhet

c. 2640-c. 2637

• Khaba

c. 2637-c. 2613

• Huni

Note: Dynastic research is ongoing; data are approximate.

Bibliography

Aldred, Cyril. Egyptian Art in the Days of the Pharaohs, 3100-320 B.C. Reprint. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1985. Primarily trained as an art historian, Aldred has produced perhaps the most elegant and lucid descriptions of Egypt’s art treasures available in any language. The chapter on the Third Dynasty is particularly informative on the precise nature and significance of the architectural innovations of Zoser’s reign.

Firth, C. M., and J. E. Quibell. Excavations at Saqqara, the Step Pyramid. Architectural plans by J. Ph. Lauer. 2 vols. Cairo: L’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1935-1936. Serious excavations around the Step Pyramid did not begin until after World War I, when Firth took charge of the work from 1920 until his death in 1931. Lauer joined Firth in 1927 as architect and is responsible for the extensive restoration work on the pyramid and surrounding buildings that is still in progress. This book is the fundamental work on the Step Pyramid complex.

Smith, W. S. “The Old Kingdom in Egypt.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 1, edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, and N. G. L. Hammond. 3d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Smith’s discussion of the Third Dynasty includes all the minutiae pertaining to Zoser’s lineage and the chief monuments of officials of his court. In general, this admirable series of volumes is written by scholars for scholars, and Smith’s account is no exception. Each chapter is furnished with an extensive bibliography, an indispensable guide to further study.

Verner, Miroslav. The Pyramids: The Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt’s Great Monuments. Translated by Steven Rendall. New York: Grove, 2001. A very thorough study of the construction and cultural context of the pyramids. Traces the evolution of the form from the mastaba through the Great Pyramid, explaining the cult that produced Egyptian funerary rituals and the social conditions that supported them. Includes appendices of the basic dimensions of the pyramids, lists of Egyptologists and pyramid scholars, dynastic chronologies, and glossary.