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by Don Asoka Wijewardhena

The old Kingdom of Egypt which had its beginning round about 2700 BC is considered by many scholars to be the greatest period of the whole of Egyptian civilization. It is also sometimes called the Memphis Kingdom, the capital being moved from Abydos to Memphis (Memphis, the capital of the 1st nome(province) of Lower egypt). During this initial period of Egyptian history the first civil and religious laws, writing and artistic canons all came into existence.

A painted relief on a tomb wall

The first great Pharaoh was Zoser at the beginning of the third dynasty. He was responsible for the construction of the first of the great stone monuments of Egypt, the pyramid at Sakkrah. He also appointed a prime minister who assisted him with the royal administration which had become very extensive and complicated. Zoser also organized numerous military expeditions, for example to Nubia beyond the first cataract and to Sinai.

The next dynasty, IVth, started with Snefru who constructed a new type of pyramid, one with perfectly smooth faces. As far as architectonic magnificence is concerned however he was surpassed by three other Pharaohs of the same dynasty: Cheops, Chefren, and Micernius the builders of the famous complex at Gizeh.

Unfortunately we know very little about them apart from the fact that Cheops organized a few military expeditions against Sinai. The fifth dynasty originated in the city of Heliopolis is therefore called the Heliopolitan dynasty because its first three Pharaohs are said to have been conceived by the wife of a priest of Ra. It was during this period that the Pyramid texts were composed and military expeditions against Asia and Libya carried out.

The most important personality of the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom was Pepi 11 who succeeded to the throne at the age of six and remained there for ninety four years.

His was the longest reign in Egyptian history. However at the end of the sixth dynasty the central government collapsed and power was divided up among the nomarchs or feudal princes who passed it from one to the other without the Pharaoh being able to intervene or oppose them in any way.

The new Kingdom which dates from about 1580 BC signaled the triumph of Egyptian arms over the whole of the then known world. It was a period of military power based not on defence but on conquest. It was also a period of great artistic achievements and of cultural activity in general.

Pyramids at the backdrop of Cairo city

An inscription on the pyramid in Egyptian characters records the amounts spent on horse-radish, onion and heads of garlic, and if I remember correctly what the interpreter who read me the inscription said, the sum involved was 1600 talents of silver (41,884 kilogrammes). If this is true how much must have been spent on the iron used, on other food-stuffs and on the clothing of the labourers? Four centuries after Herodotus the historian Diodorus of Sicily (1st century BC) visited Egypt and in his turn visited the pyramids which he considered to be among the seven wonders of the world.

At Giza the visitor is presented with one of the most beautiful sights created by the hand of man.

It is here that the Egyptian saying "Everybody fears time but time fears the pyramids" is most apposite.

Giza is the present name given to the great necropoli of Cairo and it consists of a plateau having an area of about two thousand square metres. The Sphinx together with the three Great Pyramids, those of Gheops, Chephren and Micerinus are found here. The latter has three small satellite pyramids. The three monuments are arranged diagonally but in such a way that none of them hides the sun from the other two. Typically each pyramid consists of a funerary temple in the valley. The complex of Cheops is almost completely destroyed while that of Chephren is largely extant.

The pyramid of Cheops is the largest of the three. It was originally 146 metres high, today it is only 137 metres high, its truncated summit being a platform 10 metres square. Today the pyramid has completely lost its external facing, thus revealing the enormous internal blocks of stone over which one must laboriously climb in order to reach the summit.

However the stupendous view from the top makes the effort involved well worthwhile. Chephren's pyramid is the only one which still has, at least at the top, the smooth external facing. Although it was lower than Cheop's today it is in fact the same height because it is not truncated. It originally had a red granite facing at the base.

Finally there is the smallest of the three, that of Micerinus, barely 66 metres high but of fairly regular dimensions. In the 16th century it still had its granite facing which today has completely disappeared. The burial chamber once contained a splendid sarcophagus of basalt, decorated in a manner common during the period of the Old Kingdom and called "palace faced".

Unfortunately it was lost off the coast of Portugal when the ship carrying it to England was wrecked. In front of Micerinus's pyramid there are three satellite pyramids, even smaller than those of Cheops. The one to the east, originally covered in red granite, was probably intended for the wife of the Pharaoh Kharmer-Nehty 11. The poor state of preservation of Micerinus's funerary complex is due to the fact that some parts of it were finished in rather more haste than anticipated using unfinished brick and as a result it rapidly decayed.

About 350 metres from Cheops's pyramid stands the Great Sphinx, known in Arabic as Abu el-Hol which means "father of terror". Seventy three metres long, this colossal statue represents a lion with a human head which some believe to be likeness of Chephren standing guard over his tomb. Originally the Sphinx was called Hor-em-Akhet, which means "Horus who is on the horizon", from which the Greeks derived the name Harmakis. Many times during the course of the centuries the body of the Sphinx has been completely covered by the sand leaving only its enigmatic features (5 metres high) uncovered.

Many times too men dug it out of the sand. The most renowned restoration was that of Tutomose IV who was ordered in a dream by Harmakis to uncover the Sphinx. The defacement of this mythical man-animal which is evident today is due in part to erosion by the wind and in part to the cannon of the Mamelukes who used it for target practice.

The necropolis at Sakkarah which stretches for eight kilometres is the largest in the whole of Egypt. It is also historically the most important because the principal dynasties are all represented, from the 1st to the Ptolemaic and the Persian. The necropolis is under the special protection of the God Sokar, hence the name of the locality, who is often represented as green with a hawk-headed appearance.

In the middle of the necropolis is the funerary complex of Zoser, the Pharaoh who founded the 111 dynasty, and around it can be found other pyramids and mastabas characteristic of the various eras.

The whole area is dominated by Zoser's huge step pyramid. To fully appreciate the importance and originality of this pyramid it is necessary to explain what is meant by a "mastaba" which in the Arabic language means a bench.

A mastaba was the burial chamber of the nobility and of court dignitaries and it was rectangular with slightly inclined walls. Zoser was the first Pharaoh to entrust an architect with the construction of a grandiose funerary complex. This architect, who was called Imhotep and whose name can be found inscribed in hieroglyphic characters on the base of a statue representing Zoser, was thus historically the first architect to receive official recognition and his ingenious structure was the first funerary pyramid to appear in the world.

Memphis is the ancient capital of the 1st "nome" or province of lower Eygpt, Mennof-Ra, which the Greeks called Memphis and which Herodotus claims was founded by Menes who united the two parts of Egypt. Of Memphis there remains today almost nothing except a few ruins. In the center of Memphis there must have existed the citadel "with the white walls" started by Imhotep. People of every nationality, of every race and of every religion must have lived and worked in this city.

It is really incredible that of all this great splendour there should be left almost nothing except an unending vista of ruins, truncated columns, walls and its of stone. With the rise and growth of Alexandria, Memphis was progressively abandoned and fell slowly, but inexorably, into ruins. During the course of excavations, started in the 19th century, the remains of the temple of Ptah, where the Pharaohs were crowned, and also a little chapel in honour of Ptah built by Seti 1, were brought to light.

In front of the temple there once stood a series of colossal statues of Ramses 11, only two of which remain today. One, in red granite, can now be seen in the square by the railway station in Cairo. The second is lying in all its glory on the ground in front of the temple.

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