Through the Eras

Architecture and DesignSTATUE NICHES FOR THE NAMES OF THE KING.The equation of five statue niches in the pyramid templewith the five names of the king presents a good exampleof the way that architecture confirms the presenceof later historical phenomena in the Fourth Dynasty. Itis certain that by the Twelfth Dynasty (1938–1759B.C.E.) each Egyptian king had five official names andtitles. Parts of each of them are known as early as theFirst Dynasty, yet they are not attested all together asone official name until the Twelfth Dynasty. The nameswere associated with different deities, including Horus,the two goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet, the Horus ofGold (another form of Horus), the king’s birth name(called the praenomen) associated with the king as he incorporatesin his person both Upper and Lower Egypt,and finally the name that proclaimed the king to be theson of Re. The five niches strongly suggest that the officialnames were grouped together into the official titlesof the king in the Fourth Dynasty, roughly 600 yearsbefore textual evidence exists. Yet this “fact” remains aninference from architecture. No actual examples of thefive official titles of the king from the Fourth Dynastyare known.FIVE STORAGE CHAMBERS. Most Egyptians livingduring the Old Kingdom were members of one of thefive za, called a phyle in English. A phyle was a group ofworkers assigned for one-fifth of the year to work for thestate. The work included construction and any otherkind of service that a temple needed. The evidence forthe existence of the phyles comes in its fullest form fromthe Abu Sir Papyri, a daily journal of workers’ activitiesat the pyramid of King Neferirkare written in the FifthDynasty (2472–2462 B.C.E.). Supplementary written evidencefor the existence of the phyles is found at theGreat Pyramid. The names of the different phyles werewritten on individual blocks. Scholars believe that thesupervising scribe wrote the name of the phyle responsiblefor moving the block on it. Because there were fivephyles, scholars infer that each of the five storerooms inthe pyramid temple belonged to one of the phyles.THE VALLEY TEMPLE OF KHAFRE’S GIZA COM-PLEX. Khafre’s valley temple, like his pyramid temple, isthe best-preserved valley temple in Giza. It measures 44.6by 44.5 meters (146.3 by 145.9 feet) and fronted on thedock of a canal excavated by the Egyptian archaeologistZahi Hawass in 1995. Like the pyramid temple, its constructionmaterial consisted of monolithic limestoneblocks cased in either granite or Egyptian alabaster (calcite).The valley temple contained 23 statues of KingKhafre, including the famous statue of him with the Horusfalcon hovering on his shoulders, now in the CairoMuseum. Herbert Ricke and Siegfried Schott, earlytwentieth-century German Egyptologists, believed thatthe statues were critical to a ritual repeated daily thatlasted 24 hours of every day. Dieter Arnold, the Germanarchaeologist, suggested that the valley temple relates tothe now 500-year-old tradition of a site in the funerarycomplex where the deceased king could receive the statuesof visiting gods as a continuation of the Jubilee Festival(sed ) in the next world. Egyptologists have largelyabandoned Ricke’s older theory that the pyramid templeand pyramid functioned only for the funeral service.THE GREAT SPHINX. Though the Great Sphinx isactually a work of sculpture rather than architecture, itis integral to the architectural plan of Khafre’s pyramidcomplex at Giza. It was the first truly colossal work ofsculpture created by the Egyptians. The body is 22 timeslarger than a real lion, which it represents. The carvedhuman face of the Great Sphinx is thirty times largerthan an average man’s face. The face hovers twenty meters(66 feet) above the ground. The lion’s body combinedwith the king’s head was an important symbol ofthe king’s ability to protect the country from its enemies.In front of the Great Sphinx stood a temple thatmight not have been completed in Khafre’s time. Partof the difficulty in interpreting its original meaning isthat both King Amenhotep II (1426–1400 B.C.E.) andKing Thutmose IV (1400–1390 B.C.E.) restored it duringthe New Kingdom. All of the inscriptions date tothis later period, leaving no textual evidence contemporarywith the original building of the structure. Ricke,however, interpreted Amenhotep II’s building with 24columns as a place for sun worship with each columnrepresenting an hour of the day. The New Kingdom associationof the Great Sphinx with the sun-god Reharakhty(“Re-Horus on the Horizons”) adds to thepossibility that Ricke had the correct interpretation ofthe building. Mark Lehner added to the argument theobservation that on the day of the summer solstice, theshadows of the sphinx and pyramids merge to form thehieroglyphs used to write Reharakhty’s name. This factsuggests that the name was original to the Old Kingdomand not a New Kingdom addition.MENKAURE’S PYRAMID COMPLEX AT GIZA. KingMenkaure, son of King Khafre and grandson of KingKhufu, built the third pyramid at Giza. It is the smallestof the three kings’ pyramids, but the most completelypreserved. Its base dimensions are 102.2 by 104.6 meters(335 by 343 feet). It is thus roughly 103 meters(around 414 feet) shorter on each side than Khufu’sGreat Pyramid. Menkaure’s pyramid is 65 meters (213.3feet) high, 81 meters (around 268 feet) shorter than the26 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)