Pyramid of Sahure

The Pyramid of Sahure (in ancient Egyptian Kha-ba Sahura (The rising of the "ba" spirit of Sahure)) is a late-26th-to-25th century BC pyramid complex built for the Egyptian pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty. Sahure built the inaugural pyramid in Abusir after his direct predecessor, Userkaf, built his sun temple in the same area. Sahure's successors, Neferirkare Kakai, Neferefre, and Nyuserre Ini all built their monuments in the vicinity. The site was first properly excavated by Ludwig Borchardt between March 1907 and 1908, who penned the seminal work on the topic "Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sahu-Re" between 1910 and 1913.
The layout of Sahure's monument was adopted by the succeeding kings of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty, thereby representing a milestone in pyramid complex construction. Compared to the monuments of the preceding Fourth Dynasty, the enormity of these constructions was dramatically reduced, but, in tandem, the decorative program proliferated and temples were augmented by enlarged storeroom complexes. Sahure's monument is estimated to have had of finely carved relief adorning its walls, of which a mere has been preserved. Certain of these preserved reliefs is considered unparalleled in Egyptian art, such as the by hunting scene from the mortuary temple. For comparison, Sahure's temple contained 370 running metres (1,214 running feet) of such relief decoration, while the temple of Khufu's Great Pyramid contained 100 running metres (328 running feet). The temple is also remarkable for the array of valuable materials – such as granite, alabaster and basalt – used extensively in its construction.
The main pyramid was built from roughly hewn limestone blocks, bound with mud mortar, and encased with fine white Tura limestone. It had a base long, converging at 50° 11′ 40″ towards the apex, high. Notably, the architects made an error in demarcating the pyramid base, extending the pyramid too far east. The pyramid's internal chambers were devastated by stone thieves, which has rendered an accurate reconstruction impossible. Stone fragments believed to belong to the king's basalt sarcophagus are the only remains of the burial that have been found. The mortuary temple adjacent the pyramid's east face contains an entrance hall, an open courtyard, a five niche statue chapel, an offering hall, and storerooms. These had appeared in mortuary temples since the reign of Khafre. South of the temple is the enclosure with the cult pyramid, employing the same construction method used in the main pyramid but on a reduced scale, with a base length of converging at 56° to a peak high. The complex's two temples are linked by a long intricately decorated and well-illuminated causeway. The valley temple is situated on Abusir lake, which is unusual for having two entrances: the main on its east side, and a secondary one on its south. It remains unclear why a second entry point was built, though it may have been connected to a pyramid town to its south.
Sahure's mortuary temple became the object of a cult of Sekhmet around the Eighteenth Dynasty. This cult remained active through to the Ptolemaic Kingdom, though its influence had begun to wane following the reign of Ramesses II. This period heralded the first wave of destruction that was visited up the Abusir monuments, whilst Sahure's escaped the dismantlement, possibly as a result of the cult's presence. The monuments stirred interest again in the Twenty-Fifth to Twenty-Sixth Dynasties, as shown by the copying of reliefs from the mortuary temples of Sahure, Nyuserre and Pepi II by the pharaoh Taharqa for the temple of Kawa in Nubia. A second wave of destruction of the Abusir monuments took place in the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, but Sahure's temple was spared again, the cult still being present. With the onset of the Roman period, the Abusir monuments, including Sahure's, were subjected to a third wave of destruction. At the beginning of the Christian era, Sahure's temple became the site of a Coptic shrine, as evidenced by the recovery of pottery and graffiti dating to between the fourth and seventh century AD. Thereafter, until the late nineteenth century, the monuments were periodically farmed for limestone.
Location and excavation.
Sahure chose a site near Abusir for his funerary monument, thus constructing the first pyramid in the region. Earlier, the founder of the Fifth Dynasty, Userkaf, had chosen Abusir as the location for his sun temple. It is unclear why Userkaf chose such a remote site. It may have been significant for the nearby cult of Ra, or, in the opinion of the Egyptologist Werner Kaiser, the southernmost point from which the gilded obelisk pyramidion of the temple of Re in Heliopolis could be seen. It is clear, however, that his decision influenced the history of Abusir, including Sahure's decision to build his monument there. Three of the Abusir pyramids, those of Sahure, Neferirkare and Neferefre, are linked at the northwest corners by an imaginary line running to Heliopolis ("Iunu"). The diagonal was broken by Nyuserre, who positioned his complex between those of Neferirkare and Sahure.
Early excavators neglected to perform thorough investigations of Sahure's monument, perhaps discouraged by its ruined state. In 1838, John Shae Perring, an engineer working under Colonel Howard Vyse, cleared the entrances to the Sahure, Neferirkare and Nyuserre pyramids. Perring was also the first person to enter the substructure of Sahure's pyramid. Five years later, Karl Richard Lepsius, sponsored by King Frederick William IV of Prussia, explored the Abusir necropolis and catalogued Sahure's pyramid as XVIII. The pyramid was re-entered later by Jacques de Morgan, but he too did not explore further. It then remained ignored for fifty years, until the Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt visited the site.
From 1902 to 1908, Borchardt, working for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society), had the Abusir pyramids resurveyed and their adjoining temples and causeways excavated. From March 1907 to March 1908, Borchardt had Sahure's pyramid thoroughly investigated, and he had trial digs conducted at nearby sites, including Neferefre's unfinished pyramid. He published his discoveries in the two-volume study "Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sahu-re" (1910–13), which remains the standard work on the complex.
In 1994, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities decided to have the Abusir necropolis opened to tourism. In preparation, they had restorative works conducted at Sahure's pyramid. The architect Zahi Hawass had a segment of Sahure's causeway cleaned and reconstructed, during which large relief decorated limestone blocks, that had been buried in the sand, were uncovered. The reliefs found on these blocks were thematically and artistically unique and shed new light on the decorative program of the complex.
Mortuary complex.
Layout.
Old Kingdom mortuary complexes typically consist of five main components: (1) a valley temple; (2) a causeway; (3) a mortuary temple; (4) a cult pyramid; and (5) the main pyramid. Sahure's east–west oriented complex contains all of these elements. Its tall main pyramid comprised six ascending steps of stone encased in fine white limestone, with a cult pyramid located at the south-east corner, and a mortuary temple, the standard-bearer for future variants, adjacent its east face. These elements were connected to the valley temple, situated on Abusir lake, by a long limestone causeway.
Sahure's monument represents a milestone in the development of pyramid construction. Except for minor deviations, the complexes of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties were modelled after Sahure's. The main pyramids were dramatically reduced in size and adopted simplified construction techniques. The arrangement of the apartments of Sahure's mortuary temple became the model layout for subsequent temples of the type in the Old Kingdom. Meanwhile, relief decoration advanced in wealth of subject matter and quality of workmanship and temples were outfitted with expansive storeroom complexes.
Sahure reserved of the mortuary temple's floorplan for storerooms, accounting for 21.6% of its total area. A stark departure from the Fourth Dynasty. The temple of Sneferu's Red Pyramid at Dahshur, and temple of Khufu's Great Pyramid had no storerooms, while the temple of Khafre's pyramid reserved less than of space for storerooms, accounting for 15.8% of its total area.
Sahure's complex is the most expertly decorated and containing the most thematically diverse relief-work yet discovered from the Old Kingdom. Across the entire complex, it is estimated that of finely carved relief adorned the walls. His mortuary temple alone contained 370 running metres (1,214 running feet) of relief decorations. By contrast, Sneferu's mortuary temple contained 64 running metres (210 running feet) of relief decoration, Khufu's contained 100 running metres (328 running feet), and, Sahure's direct predecessor, Userkaf's contained 120 running metres (394 running feet). The last king of the Old Kingdom, Pepi II's mortuary temple contained 200 running metres (656 running feet) of relief decoration, indicating a decline after Sahure, as well. No more than of fragmentary relief has been preserved from Sahure's temple, but this is considered well-preserved.
Main pyramid.
Sahure's pyramid is situated upon a hill elevated above the Nile valley. Although the subsoil of the area has never been investigated, evidence from the nearby mastaba of Ptahshepses suggests that the pyramid was not embedded into bedrock, but on a platform constructed from at least two layers of limestone. The pyramid had a, likely horizontally layered, core comprising six ascending steps, five of which remain. The core consisted of low-grade roughly cut limestone bound with mud mortar, and was encased by fine white limestone.
Sahure's pyramid was constructed in a drastically different manner to those of the preceding dynasty. Its outer faces were framed using massive – at Neferefre's unfinished pyramid the single step contained blocks up to by by large – roughly dressed grey limestone blocks well-joined with mortar. The inner chambers were similarly framed, but using significantly smaller blocks. The core of the pyramid, between the two frames, was then packed with a rubble fill of limestone chips, pottery shards, and sand, with clay mortaring. This method, while less time and resource consuming, was careless and unstable, and meant that only the outer casing was constructed using high quality limestone.
Owing to the poor condition of the monument, information regarding its dimensions and appearance contain a degree of imprecision. The pyramid had a base length of converging at 50° 11′ 40′′ towards the apex high. The architects made a notable error in demarcating the base, causing the southeast corner of the pyramid to extend too far east. Consequently, the base is not square. A ditch was left in the north face of the pyramid during construction which allowed workers to build the inner corridor and chambers while the core was being erected around it, before filling it in with rubble.
The pyramid is surrounded by a limestone paved courtyard, except where the mortuary temple sits, and is accessed from the temple's north and south wings. Enclosing the courtyard is a tall, rounded enclosure wall at its thickest.
Substructure.
The substructure access is located slightly above ground on the pyramid's north face. A short descending corridor – lined with granite – leads into a vestibule, beyond which the route is guarded by a pink granite portcullis, with granite lined walls on either side. The corridor is long sloped at 24° 48′, with a passage wide and high. The corridor following – lined with limestone – begins with a slight ascent becoming horizontal – lined with granite – just prior to its terminus. The ascending portion is long with a slope of 5°, whilst the horizontal section is long.
Precise reconstruction of the substructure plan has been rendered impossible by the extensive damage that stone thieves wrought on the chambers. As a result, sources differ as to whether the funerary apartment – estimated to be east-west by north-south – consisted of a single or twin chambers.
In the latter case, the antechamber lies on the vertical axis of the pyramid, with the burial chamber to its west. The chamber(s) had a ceiling constructed from three gabled layers of limestone blocks, which dispersed the weight from the superstructure onto either side of the passageway preventing collapse. Perring estimated the largest blocks to be long, wide and thick. Despite their size and weight, all but two have been broken. Inside the apartment's ruins, Perring found stone fragments – the only discovered remains of the burial – which he believed belonged to the king's basalt sarcophagus.
Valley temple.
Sahure's, now ruined, valley temple was situated on the shore of Abusir lake, on the edge of the desert. It had a rectangular ground plan long by wide and oriented on the north–south axis. Its base is now around below ground level, which has risen over the millennia due to the accumulation of silt deposits during the annual Nile flood. The temple's walls slope inwards as they rise, their corners are formed into a convex torus mould up to a cavetto cornice with its own horizontal torus mould.
The temple had two entrances. Its main entrance, in the east, consisted of a landing ramp leading to a column adorned portico. Its floor was paved with polished basalt, its walls had a red granite dado above which was limestone decorated with bas-relief, and it had a limestone ceiling that had been painted blue and decorated with relief-carved golden stars – representing the entrance into the "Duat". The columns were formed into date-palms, with leaves tied vertically to form capitals, and each column bore the king's titulary and name carved into the stone and painted green. An alternate entrance was built on the south side, accessed by a canal leading to a ramp up to another columned portico, this time containing four red granite columns. The columns, in contrast, were cylindrical in form and lacked any crown. This portico was also less deep and was paved with limestone. It remains unclear, why this entrance was built. The wall may belong to Sahure's pyramid town, named "The soul of Sahure comes forth in glory".
The entrances were connected by passages to a T-shaped hall equipped with two columns. Borchardt describes the room as "double staggered" ("doppel gestafellt"). It has a transverse space with a narrowed recess in its rear wall containing the two columns – the first stagger. Then an even narrower, recess in the first's rear wall – the second stagger. The room was originally adorned with polychromatic relief, and contained a scene depicting the king, as a sphinx or griffin, trampling captive Asiatic and Libyan enemies led to him by the gods. The room connects to two more rooms: a room with a staircase up to the roof terrace at the south end, and causeway at its rearmost recess.
A relief depiction of troops from Sahure's valley temple can be contrasted with similar imagery in Userkaf's complex. In Sahure's scene, the soldiers are carved with near identical postures, a stark contrast to Userkaf's confused arrangement of overlapping figures. The latter has greater dynamism inducing more interest, whilst the former is more readily understood. The monotony of Sahure's scene was balanced by craftsmen introducing detail in the musculature and facial features of the figures.
Causeway.
A long, slightly inclined limestone causeway connected the valley temple to the mortuary temple. The causeway was roofed, with narrow slits left in the ceiling slabs allowing light to enter illuminating its polychromatic bas-relief covered walls. These included scenes with seemingly apotropaic functions, such as a scene of the king represented as a sphinx crushing Egypt's enemies under his paw. Other scenes presented include offering bearers, animal slaughter, and the transport of the gilded pyramidion to the construction site. Only the base of the causeway, made of large limestone blocks, has been preserved.
The scene depicting emaciated Bedouins, reduced through starvation, to skin and bone – had significant historical implications. The scene was thought only to exist in Unas' causeway, and was thus believed to be unique eyewitness testimony to the declining living standards of Saharan Bedouins brought about by the end of the Sahara wet phase in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. The discovery of an identical scene in Sahure's causeway casts significant doubt onto this hypothesis. Instead, the Egyptologist Miroslav Verner suggests that the Bedouins might have been brought into the pyramid town to demonstrate the hardships faced by builders bringing higher quality stone from remote mountain areas.
A second discovered scene has implications for Fifth Dynasty genealogy. In this scene, Sahure is surrounded by his family in the palace garden "Wtjs-nfrw-Sahw-ra" (Extolled is Sahure's beauty). The image confirms the identity of Sahure's consort, Meretnebty, and his twin sons, Ranefer and Netjerirenre. Ranefer, who is depicted closer to Sahure and bears the titles "king's son" and "chief lector-priest", may have been Sahure's eldest son, ascending to the throne as Neferirkare Kakai. Netjerirenre may instead be the ephemeral ruler Shepseskare, who took the throne after Neferefre's early death.
Another significant relief discovered depicts a procession of ships, led by the king, being moored at an unidentified location. The relief originated on the causeway south wall, and although the location depicted cannot be identified, a corresponding relief on the same wall depicts the king, his mother and wife, awaiting the arrival of ships carrying myriad goods – particular emphasis was placed on the "Commiphora myrrha" trees ("nht n ˁntw")– from the land of Punt. Sahure's is the earliest recorded voyage taken by the Egyptians to Punt acquiring myrrh, electrum and wood from there.
Sahure is further depicted extracting myrrh with an adze from the tree in one scene, and banqueting with his family, including his sons, and officials near the tree in another. The trees depicted may not be "Commiphora myrrha", as the use of an adze to extract resin was typically reserved for the "Boswellia" tree, and moreover the colour of the resin in Sahure's scene was identified by the Egyptologist Tarek El-Awady as yellow-ish brown, like "Boswellia" frankincense, and not red, like myrrh.
Mortuary temple.
The mortuary temple was a voluminous, rectangular building oriented along the east–west axis, and situated on a level surface built from two layers of limestone blocks in front of the main pyramid's east face. The outer façade was inclined at 82° up to a cavetto cornice with torus mould. In its layout, Sahure's mortuary temple represented the "conceptual beginning" of all subsequent such temples of the Old Kingdom. It contained five basic elements, exemplified in the temple of Khafre: an entrance hall, an open courtyard, a five niche statue chapel, an offering hall, and storerooms. The dominant building material used in its construction, here as elsewhere, was limestone, but substantial valuable materials such as red and black granite, alabaster and basalt were also incorporated.
Entrance hall.
The transition between causeway and temple was marked by a large granite gate leading into the mortuary temple's entrance hall. In the Fifth Dynasty, it was of the standard size of long, wide, and tall. The hall has suffered significantly, rendering a precise reconstruction impracticable. It had a limestone floor, its walls had red granite dado above which was, probably, limestone decorated with painted bas-relief scenes, and was covered by a stone barrel vault ceiling which had slits in its tympanum allowing the enclosure to be dimly lit. Contemporary sources identify this room as the "pr-wrw" meaning "House of the Great Ones", and it may be a replica of the hall of the royal palace, where nobles were received and certain rituals performed. At its end, a granite doorway led to a closed corridor surrounding an open courtyard.
Corridor and courtyard.
The corridor was paved with basalt, and its walls had a granite dado, above which they were decorated with colourful relief. On its north wall, scenes depict the king fishing and hunting wildfowl, while on the south wall the king is depicted hunting – antelopes, gazelles, deer and other horned animals are shepherded into an enclosure for the king to shoot with his bow and arrow, after which hound dogs seize and kill the animals, elsewhere hyenas are observed poaching, and hedgehogs and jerboa scatter into their holes – whilst his courtiers observe. A masterful depth of detail has been incorporated into the latter scene, which measured long by high. The sedated posture of the king's courtiers, representing order, is juxtaposed against the mass of wounded and frightened animals depicted in a variety of postures and facing various directions, representing chaos. The imposing figure that is Sahure is unrivalled in any other example, and the gruesome detail of the injured animals is unreplicated. The figure of a hyena, pawing at an arrow in its jaw, reappears frequently in the Middle and New Kingdom, an homage to the relief from Sahure's temple. Ptahhotep's tomb in Saqqara contains an abridged, and slightly less skillfully executed, copy of this hunting scene.
The architect Mark Lehner suggests that the corridor represented the untamed wild, surrounding a clearing – the open courtyard – of which the king was guarantor. From the reliefs depicting ships on the east-corridor west-wall and west-corridor (transverse corridor) east-wall, the Egyptologist Dorothea Arnold contends that the courtyard and corridor form an architectural unit analogous to the Egyptian "benben" myth. The other reliefs present symbolize the king's role as guarantor of order and prosperity on the sacred island. Among the reliefs of this room a significant discovery was made. One of the individuals present has been modified to include a brief inscription identifying them as "Neferirkare King of Upper and Lower Egypt" ("nsw-bit Nfr-jrj-k3-rˀ"). From this detail, Kurt Sethe, who was responsible for compiling and preparing the scenes for publication, developed the hypothesis that Neferirkare Kakai and Sahure were brothers, and that Neferirkare had had the relief corrected after ascending to the throne.
The open courtyard was paved with polished basalt and lined with sixteen red granite columns, supporting the roof of an ambulatory. Aside from an alabaster altar in the north-west corner decorated with scenes of sacrifice, the open courtyard is bare, though it originally had statues of the pharaoh placed between the columns, and may once also have contained statues of kneeling captives. Eleven of the original sixteen granite columns were found in the temple. Each was tall, and carved into the form of date palms, symbolising fertility and immortality, upon which the king's name and titulary was inscribed and painted in green. The Two Ladies appear on these columns as well, Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, in the south half representing Upper Egypt, and Wadjet, the cobra goddess, in the north half representing Lower Egypt. Above, a red granite architrave bore the royal titulary, and further supported the limestone ceiling. The ambulatory's blue painted ceiling was decorated with yellow stars, whilst its limestone walls were decorated with polychrome bas-reliefs, fragments of which have been preserved, depicting the king's victory over his enemies – on the north wall Asiatics, on the south Libyans – and the acquired spoils. In a particular scene, showing the capture of animals, supplementary inscriptions identify the quantities seized: "123,440 head of cattle, 223,400 asses, 232,413 deer, and 243,688 sheep". In another scene, the family of a Libyan chief beg for his life to be spared whilst the king prepares to execute him. Under the northern ambulatory, a relief of exemplary craftsmanship depicting precious oil vases and Syrian brown bears was found. The figures were given rounded edges so that they simultaneously blend in with the background and stand out clearly. Much of the paint used has been preserved: a dark red-brown colour was used for the vase and a yellow-brown for the bear's fur. Up to a further eleven scenes remain too fragmentary to be reconstructed.
Transverse corridor and storage galleries.
Beyond the courtyard is a transverse (north-south) corridor which separates the public outer from the private inner temple, which only priests were allowed to access. The corridor further served as an intersection connecting the outer and inner temples, the courtyard surrounding the pyramid, and the cult pyramid. At its northern end was a staircase up to the roof terrace. Its floor was paved with basalt, as the courtyard was, and its walls had a granite dado, above which was bas-relief decorated limestone. On the north half of the corridor's east wall is a relief, considered by the Egyptologist Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards to be amongst the most interesting in the temple, that depicts the king and his court observing the departure of twelve sea-going vessels, probably on expedition to Syria or Palestine. In the south-half, a similar scene depicts the king and his court awaiting the arrival of ships laden with cargo and several Asiatics, who do not appear to be prisoners, indicating either a commercial or, perhaps, diplomatic mission. In the centre of the west wall of the corridor was an alabaster staircase that led into the five niche statue chapel.
Flanking the staircase were two deep niches, each containing two granite papyriform columns high. The columns supported an architrave, a fragment of which has been found in the oil press of St. Jeremiah monastery in Saqqara. The niche's walls were decorated with reliefs depicting processions of offering bearers, and they had recessed side doors leading to two-story storage galleries. The northern gallery consisted of ten rooms arranged in two rows, each outfitted with its own staircase – cut directly into the limestone walls – leading to the second story. These held cult objects used for the temple rituals. The southern gallery consisted of sixteen or seventeen rooms, also arranged in two rows and outfitted with staircases, that probably held sacrificial offerings. Reliefs in the corridors leading to the galleries even included ritual instructions, such as "presentation of gold" or "sealing a box containing incense" found in the north and south corridors respectively.
Statue chapel.
The transverse corridor staircase leads into the five niche statue chapel, a room with significant religious importance. Accessed through a double-door, it had a floor paved with white alabaster, red granite sheathing in the niches and dado, fine white limestone sheathed walls elsewhere which was lavishly decorated in relief, and a limestone ceiling decorated with stars evoking the night-sky of the "Duat". A small staircase stood before each niche, which was once occupied by a statue, none of which have been preserved. It was originally assumed that each statue represented one of the king's five names, but the Abusir Papyri, discovered in the nearby pyramid of Neferirkare, indicate otherwise. The papyri identify that the central statue represented the king as Osiris, while the two outermost ones represented him as the king of Upper Egypt, and the king of Lower Egypt. The remaining two are not identified. Exiting the chapel to the south is a path leading through two rooms – including a rectangular vestibule that appears to be a predecessor of the "antichambre carée", first found in Nyuserre's mortuary temple – passing around a great stone massif and into the westernmost room of the temple, the offering hall.
Offering hall and auxiliary rooms.
The offering hall of the temple held the most significance for the royal mortuary cult. The sanctuary was in length and wide. It was entered through a black granite door, that opened up to a white alabaster paved floor, walls with dado of black granite above which was fine white limestone decorated with polychromatic bas-relief depicting divinities bringing offerings to the king, and covered along its length by a vaulted ceiling with painted stars. A low alabaster altar stood at the west wall, at the foot of a granite false door, possibly covered in copper or gold, through which the spirit of the king would enter the room to receive his meal, before returning to his tomb. Unusually, the false door has been crudely fashioned, and bears none of the names, titles, or sacrificial formulas that are expected to be found. This led Borchardt to speculate that the door may have originally been sheathed with metal, that was eventually stolen by thieves. The room also originally contained a black granite statue and an offering basin, located in a recessed niche in its south-west corner, with an outflow of copper piping. In the north wall, a granite doorway gives access to five auxiliary rooms, which served the offering hall.
Drainage system.
Sahure's temple had an elaborate drainage system including more than of copper piping. Rainfall captured on the roof was funneled out through stone lion-head spouts fit onto the tops of the outer walls. The choice of the lion-head may relate to the ancient Egyptian belief that Seth and other inimical deities could manifest themselves in rain. The lion, a symbolic protector of sacred ground, consumed the harmful spirits and ejected harmless water. Where no roof existed, gaps around the base of the outer walls collected the water, conducting it out using channels cut into the paving. Water and other liquids used in rituals and ceremonies, which had become impure and thus dangerous to touch, were removed using the drainage system. Five stone and copper plated basins, each with a lead plug to fit the vent, were placed around the inner temple. The first was found in the offering hall, two more were in the auxiliary rooms beyond it, a fourth in the corridor leading up to the offering hall, and the fifth in the northern magazine gallery. These were connected via an intricate network of copper pipes laid beneath the temple, which lead down the length of the causeway before terminating at an outlet on its southern side.
Cult pyramid.
By the main pyramid's south-east corner, confined to a separate enclosure, lies a cult pyramid. The enclosure is accessed from either the southern end of the transverse corridor, or through a portico – the side-entrance to Sahure's mortuary temple – flanked by two granite columns bearing Sahure's royal titulary. The portico floor was paved with basalt, as were the dado of its walls, above which the walls were built of limestone and decorated with polychromatic relief. The reliefs portrayed rows of deities, nome and estate personifications, and fertility figures – all clutching "was-sceptres" and "ankh" signs – marching into the temple. An accompanying inscription bears their message to the king: "We give you all life, stability, and dominion, all joy, all offerings, all perfect things that are in Upper Egypt, since you have appeared as king of Upper and Lower Egypt alive forever". Beyond the portico, a room with two exits gives access to the transverse corridor in the north or to an oblong room preceding the cult pyramid in the south.
The cult pyramid had a core ascending in two or three steps, composed primarily of limestone block debris framed by yellow limestone blocks, and then encased with white limestone blocks – the same method of construction as used in the main pyramid. It had a base length of converging at 56° towards the apex high. From the north face, a bent corridor – initially descending, then switching to an ascent – leads into the miniature pyramid's sole chamber: an east–west oriented burial room slightly below ground level. The chamber was found void of any content, and its walls had been severely damaged by stone thieves.
The purpose of the cult pyramid remains unclear. Its burial chamber was not used for burials, but instead appears to have been a purely symbolic structure. It may have hosted the pharaoh's "ka" (spirit), or a miniature statue of the king. It may have been used for ritual performances centering around the burial and resurrection of the "ka" spirit during the "Sed" festival.
Necropolis.
There is a largely unexplored necropolis found through the side-entrance on the transverse corridor's southern end. It is thought to be the burial ground of Sahure's consort, Meretnebty, and son, Netjerirenre.
Later history.
Funerary Cult.
The funerary cults at Abusir remained active through to the reign of Pepi II at the end of the Sixth Dynasty, but their continuation beyond this time is a matter of dispute between Egyptologists. Daily services, including the provisioning of offerings before the false door of the offering hall and at the statues of the chapel, were held in the mortuary temple. Reliefs on the walls of the temple's side entrance depict processions of individuals with offerings entering into the temple accompanied with detailed instructions for the butchers and porters. Sahure's funerary domains were also depicted on the reliefs of the causeway. Portrayed are processions of offering bearers bringing foodstuffs and leading animals into the temple. More than 200 funerary domains of Lower Egypt are shown on these blocks accounting for the most extensive record of such funerary domains yet discovered. Priests who served Sahure's funerary cult include Tepemankh II, who also served numerous other kings from Sneferu to Userkaf; Nykure, priest of the cult of Sahure and of the sun temple of Nyuserre; Senuankh and Nenkheftka, priests of the cults of Userkaf and Sahure; Kaemnefret, priest in Sahure's pyramid and in Neferirkare's pyramid and sun temple; Kuyemsnewy and Kamesenu, priests of the cults of Sahure, Neferirkare, and Nyuserre.
Cult of Sekhmet.
From at least the reign of Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the south corridor of Sahure's mortuary temple became home to a cult of Sekhmet. The cult's early history is unknown. Borchardt has suggested that it originated in the Middle Kingdom, but there is no evidence to support this conjecture. The earliest attested royal connection to the cult is Thutmose IV of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Further attestations include Ay and Horemheb, Amenhotep III through a faience object with his name, and Seti I and Ramesses II through restoration inscriptions bearing their names. The renewed attention had a negative consequence as the first wave of dismantlement of the Abusir monuments, particularly for the acquisition of valuable Tura limestone, arrived with it. Sahure's mortuary temple may have been spared at this time due to the presence of the cult. Its influence likely waned after the end of Ramesses II's reign, becoming a site of local worship only.
The Abusir necropolis and Sahure's cult garnered attention again in the Twenty-Fifth to Twenty–Sixth Dynasties. Taharqa had various reliefs replicated – such as images of the king crushing his enemies as a sphinx – from the mortuary temple's of Sahure, Nyuserre, and Pepi II for the restoration of the temple of Kawa in Nubia. The cult of Sekhmet is also mentioned in a graffito found in the temple from Ahmose II's reign. In the late Twenty-Sixth to the early Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, another period of dismantlement appears to have been visited on the monuments. Sahure's was again spared, protected by the cult into the Ptolemaic Kingdom, though it had very reduced influence at this time.
A third wave of dismantlement of the Abusir monuments is attested in the Roman period by the abundant remains of mill-stones, lime production facilities, and worker shelters. At the beginning of the Christian era, Copts founded a shrine in the temple, as shown by pottery and Coptic graffiti dating to between the fourth and seventh centuries AD. Periodic farming of the monuments for limestone continued at least until the end of the 19th century AD.