Abusir Pyramids and Sun Temples of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty

The Abusir pyramids are the royal tombs of Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty, built between about 2490 and 2350 BC on the desert edge between Giza and Saqqara. Together with the nearby sun temples dedicated to the god Ra, they show how kingship and religion changed after the age of the giant Giza pyramids. Abusir is also the find-spot of the Abusir papyri, the oldest large set of temple administrative records known from Egypt.

Background: after the giant pyramids

The Fourth Dynasty had produced the Great Pyramid and its neighbours at Giza. The Fifth Dynasty, which ruled from roughly 2494 to 2345 BC on a common chronology, kept building pyramids but on a smaller scale. Kings now placed great emphasis on the sun god Ra, and several of them included his name in their own, such as Sahure (“he who is close to Ra”).

The dynasty’s founder, Userkaf, was buried at Saqqara but built the first sun temple near Abusir. His successor Sahure then chose Abusir itself for his pyramid, and three of the following kings followed him there. The name Abusir comes from the Egyptian Per-Usir, “House of Osiris”, by way of later Greek and Arabic forms.

The pyramids

The Pyramid of Sahure was originally about 47 metres high. It is famous less for its size than for its temples, whose finely carved reliefs showed the king hunting, ships returning from voyages abroad and foreigners bringing goods. Many blocks are now in museums in Cairo and Berlin.

The Pyramid of Neferirkare Kakai was the largest at Abusir, planned to rise to about 72 metres. It was begun as a step pyramid and later enlarged, but its outer casing was probably never completed. The Pyramid of Neferefre (also spelled Raneferef) was abandoned at an early stage after the king’s short reign and finished as a low, flat-topped structure.

Nyuserre, who ruled for perhaps 25 to 30 years, built his pyramid at Abusir and took over the unfinished valley temple and causeway of Neferirkare. Around the royal tombs lie the pyramids of queens, including that of Khentkaus II, and the mastaba (a flat-topped tomb) of the vizier Ptahshepses, one of the largest private tombs of the Old Kingdom.

The sun temples

Texts of the period mention six sun temples, built by kings from Userkaf to Menkauhor. Only two have been located: Userkaf’s temple at Abusir and the well-preserved temple of Nyuserre at Abu Gurab, a short way to the north.

A sun temple had a valley building, a causeway and an upper court with a massive squat obelisk on a raised base, open to the sky. Nyuserre’s temple had a great alabaster altar and reliefs of the seasons, sometimes called the “Room of the Seasons”. Food offerings from the sun temples were sent on to the kings’ mortuary temples, linking the cult of the dead king with the cult of the sun.

The Abusir papyri

In 1893 local diggers found papyrus fragments in the mortuary temple of Neferirkare, which reached museums in Cairo, Berlin, London and Paris. From the 1970s onward the Czech Institute of Egyptology, led for many years by Miroslav Verner, found further archives in the temples of Queen Khentkaus II and of Neferefre.

These papyri, mainly from the reigns of Djedkare Isesi and Unas, record duty rosters for priests, monthly inventories of temple furniture and ritual objects, and daily deliveries of bread, beer and meat. They show a working temple organisation with rotating groups of staff, and give rare detail on how the Old Kingdom state ran its royal cults.

Excavation

The German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt excavated the main pyramid complexes between 1902 and 1908, producing detailed studies of their temples. The Czech mission has worked at Abusir since the 1960s and has uncovered further tombs of royal family members and officials. Its work helped to clarify the order of kings in the middle Fifth Dynasty, which had long been uncertain.

Timeline

• c. 2494 BC: Userkaf founds the Fifth Dynasty and builds the first sun temple near Abusir.
• c. 2487-2475 BC: Sahure builds the first royal pyramid at Abusir.
• c. 2475-2455 BC: Neferirkare Kakai begins the largest Abusir pyramid.
• c. 2445-2421 BC: Nyuserre completes his pyramid and builds the sun temple at Abu Gurab.
• c. 2414-2375 BC: Under Djedkare Isesi, the Abusir temple archives are kept, while the king himself is buried at Saqqara.
• 1893: Papyri are found in Neferirkare’s mortuary temple.
• 1902-1908: Ludwig Borchardt excavates the Abusir pyramids.
• 1960s onward: The Czech Institute of Egyptology begins long-term work at Abusir.

Why it matters

Abusir shows the Old Kingdom after its peak of pyramid building, when royal power was expressed through temples, the sun cult and administration. Its papyri give a rare view of daily temple life, and the dynasty’s final reign, that of Unas, produced the first Pyramid Texts. Compare it with the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Step Pyramid of Djoser to see how royal tombs changed over two centuries, and with the Palermo Stone, the annals written in this same dynasty.