Step Pyramids: The First Pyramids in Egyptian History

The step pyramid is the earliest form of the Egyptian pyramid. The first and greatest example, the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, was built c. 2670 BCE and is the world’s first large stone building, designed by Imhotep for the pharaoh Djoser of the Third Dynasty. The step pyramid tradition began the architectural sequence that would culminate, more than 600 years later, in the pyramids of Giza.

From Mastaba to Pyramid

The earliest Egyptian tombs were simple. In the Predynastic Period, wealthy Egyptians were buried in shallow pits, with their bodies wrapped in linen or matting and a few grave goods beside them. By the Early Dynastic Period, the standard royal tomb was a flat-roofed, rectangular brick or stone structure called a mastaba (from the Arabic word for “bench”). The first pharaohs of the unified Egypt were buried in mastabas at Abydos.

Around 2686 BCE, Djoser, the second pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, came to the throne. His architect (or perhaps his chancellor) was Imhotep, one of the first named architects in human history. The two of them together conceived a tomb on a scale that had never been attempted: a mastaba, but bigger, made of stone, and stacked into the sky.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

The Step Pyramid of Djoser, located at Saqqara about 30 km south of modern Cairo, is a tomb complex of breathtaking originality. The pyramid itself is built in six “steps,” each of them a rectangular mastaba laid on top of the one below. The whole structure is about 60 meters (197 feet) tall and 121 by 109 meters (397 by 358 feet) at the base. The surrounding complex, with its courtyards, ceremonial structures, and dummy tombs, covers an area of about 60 acres.

For a full guide, see the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.

The Design

The basic design of the Step Pyramid is deceptively simple. The architect Imhotep started with a single mastaba (a flat, rectangular structure of stone) and then added five more, each smaller and stacked on top of the one below. The result is a tiered, six-stepped monument that looks strikingly like a giant staircase to heaven. In Egyptian belief, the stepped shape was meant to act as a ramp, a launching pad for the dead king’s ascent to the sky and the stars.

Below ground, the pyramid is just as elaborate. A vertical shaft, 28 meters (92 feet) deep, leads to the burial chamber, lined with granite imported from Aswan. The king’s body, in a granite sarcophagus, was at the very bottom of the shaft, sealed inside a chamber cut from the living rock. A system of tunnels, including a 1.6-kilometer (1-mile) gallery, connects the burial chamber to the rest of the complex.

The Complex

Surrounding the pyramid, Imhotep created an entire ceremonial landscape. There are:

• A Great South Court, an enormous rectangular open space, used for ritual purposes.
• A Sed Festival Court, where the king celebrated his jubilee.
• A South Tomb, a smaller, symbolic tomb that served as the eternal residence of the king’s ka (spiritual double).
• A Heb-Sed courtyard, with dummy buildings and shrines.
• A serdab, a small sealed room holding a life-size statue of the king, through which a slit allows the king’s ka to look out at the offerings.
• A series of dummy buildings, including dummy palaces and dummy shrines, designed to provide a complete set of buildings for the king’s afterlife.

The whole complex is enclosed by a massive, finely cut limestone wall, 10.5 meters (34 feet) high, with one opening in the south and one in the north. The wall is decorated with niches that imitate the facades of royal palaces. Inside, the buildings are decorated with delicate relief carvings of the king, of gods, and of ritual scenes.

Imhotep: The World’s First Known Architect

Imhotep, the designer of the Step Pyramid and the chancellor of Djoser, is the world’s first known architect by name. We know more about him than about most other Old Kingdom officials, although most of what we know comes from much later sources.

In his own lifetime, he was honored as a great architect and wise man. Within a few centuries, he was worshipped as the son of Ptah and the god of wisdom, medicine, and architecture. The Greeks later identified him with their own god of medicine, Asclepius. The cult of Imhotep continued for more than two thousand years, and he was the only mortal Egyptian (other than Amenhotep son of Hapu) ever to be officially deified.

Other Step Pyramids

The Step Pyramid of Djoser was the only fully realized step pyramid in Egyptian history, but several smaller “layer pyramids” or step pyramids were built later, mostly in the Third and Fourth Dynasties. These include:

• The Layer Pyramid at Zawyet el-Meiyitin, sometimes attributed to the pharaoh Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty. It is small and unfinished, and the stonework is of poor quality.
• The Layer Pyramid at Elephantine, attributed to the same Huni.
• The Pyramid of Sekhemkhet at Saqqara, an unfinished step pyramid built for Djoser’s successor. It was discovered in the 1950s, untouched by tomb robbers, but its burial chamber was empty when found.

For the broader pattern, see our guide to the lost and lesser-known pyramids.

Why the Step Shape?

The step shape was a deliberate choice, but its meaning has been debated for centuries. The most common explanations include:

• A stairway to the stars. The pyramid, it is argued, was a cosmic staircase by which the dead pharaoh could climb to the sky. The stepped form is a literal version of this idea.
• An evolution of the mastaba. Imhotep, in stacking mastabas, was simply experimenting with a familiar form on a larger scale. The step shape was a transitional phase, leading to the smooth-sided pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty.
• A solar symbol. Some scholars argue that the steps represented the rays of the sun, falling on the king’s tomb. The pharaoh was associated with the sun god Ra, and a stepped pyramid could be read as a sun symbol.
• An imitation of the primordial mound. The Egyptians believed that the first piece of dry land had risen from the waters of chaos at the moment of creation, a hill called the benben. The pyramid, in this reading, was a recreation of the original act of creation, with the king’s tomb as the new land.

Whatever the original meaning, the step pyramid was a brilliant architectural and political statement. It made Djoser the most prominent pharaoh in Egyptian history, and it gave Imhotep a reputation that would last for three thousand years. For the broader context, see our guide to the Old Kingdom of Egypt.

From Step Pyramid to True Pyramid

The step pyramid was a brilliant solution to the problem of building a giant tomb in stone, but it was not the final word. The Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Sneferu, the founder of the dynasty, experimented with the form throughout his long reign, building the Meidum Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid, all at Dahshur. The Red Pyramid, finally, was the first true smooth-sided pyramid, the form that would be used at Giza. For more, see our guide to the pyramids of Giza and to the lost and lesser-known pyramids.

I find Sneferu the most underappreciated of the great pyramid builders. He built three of the largest pyramids in Egyptian history (the Meidum, Bent, and Red), he was the first to solve the smooth-sided pyramid in stone, and his reign was almost certainly longer than any of his Fourth Dynasty successors’. Yet because he is overshadowed by his son Khufu and grandson Khafre, he gets far less popular attention than the Giza builders deserve. If you want to understand how the Egyptians went from a six-stepped stack of mastabas to a true pyramid in a single reign, Sneferu’s three pyramids at Dahshur are the place to look.