Egypt - The Third Dynasty - (2686 - 2575 BC)

The Old Kingdom - The Age of the Pyramids

The Pharaohs of the Third Dynasty were the first to have actual pyramids constructed as shrines to their deaths. Although crude, these step pyramids were the predecessors to the later Pyramids of Giza and others. The first of these pyramids was designed by Imhotep for Dzoser. Prior to, and during the construction of the step pyramids, rulers were buried in a structure called Mastaba.

The Mastaba were non-pyramidal shaped structures which did not contain walls or stone art and closely resembled burial mounds, with long shafts leading down into the tomb area.

Sanakhte and Dzoser, the first two Pharaohs of this Dynasty, began exploitation of the Sinai Peninsula, which was rich in turquoise and copper. Little else was done by the kings during this dynasty



Sanakht - Nebka - Strong Protection

Sanakht was the founder of the 3rd Dynasty, and was the older brother of King Djoser. His name is listed in the 'Abydos Book of Kings', the 'Turin Canon' and the 'Westcar Papyrus'. His tomb at Saqqara was incorporated into the Step Pyramid.

The Turin Canon, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is a unique papyrus, written in hieratic, currently in the Egyptian Museum at Turin, to which it owes its modern name.

It is broken into over 160 often very small fragments, many of which have been lost. When it was discovered in the Theban necropolis by the Italian traveller Bernardino Drovetti in 1822, it seems to have been largely intact, but by the time it became part of the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, its condition had severely deteriorated.

The importance of this papyrus was first recognised by the French Egyptologist Jean-Fran�ois Champollion, who, later followed by Gustavus Seyffarth took up its reconstruction and restoration.

Although they succeeded in placing most of the fragments in the correct order, the diligent intervention of these two men came too late and many lacunae still remain. 

Written during the long reign of Ramesses II, the papyrus, now 1.7m long and 0.41m, comprises on the recto an unknown number of pages that hold a list of names of persons and institutions, along with what appears to be the tax-assessment of each.

It is, however, the verso of the papyrus that has attracted the most attention, as it contains a list of gods, demi-gods, spirits, mythical and human kings who ruled Egypt from the beginning of time presumably until the composition of this valuable document. 

The beginning and ending of the list are now lost, which means that we are missing both the introduction of the list -if ever there was such an introduction- and the enumeration of the kings following the 17th Dynasty.

It is not known for certain when after the composition of the tax-list on the recto an unknown scribe used the verso to write down this list of kings.

This may have occurred  during the reign of Ramesses II, but a date as late as the 20th Dynasty cannot be exclude.

The fact that the list was scribbled on the back of an older papyrus may indicate that itwas of no great importance to the writer.

We are also left in the dark as to what source or sources our laborious scribe used to write down the list. Did he simply copy an already existing papyrus? And if so, to what reason? And what has happened to the original? How was that compiled? Or did the scribe, probably having access to the archives of the temples, compile the list himself, using ancient tax-notes, decrees and documents? The latter possibility seems the less likely and would infer that the Turin Canon is indeed a unique document. 

There are several other lists that enumerate the predecessors of a king, such as the lists in the temples of Seti I and Ramesses II at Abydos -to name but two-, so what makes the Turin Canon so exceptional?

The other lists, although very valuable for the study of Ancient Egyptian chronology as well, are nothing more than an enumeration of some of the "ancestors" of the current king. Often the current king, or one of his contemporaries, is seen in adoration before the cartouches or representations of the king’s "ancestors".

The current king is in fact represented as the good heir who pays respect to his long line of 'The word' can not be taken literally, as the current king was in no way a descendant of most of his predecessors.

Such lists had a more cultic and political reason for being, for indeed they confirmed that the current king was the rightful heir of the kings that had ruled Egypt for many centuries.

These cultic lists are more a subjective choice of predecessors than an actual enumeration of all kings: they will in most cases include kings such as Menes and Mentuhotep II, for they have played a pivotal role in the history of Ancient Egypt.

Other less important kings, usurpers or kings that were considered to be illegitimate, such as the kings connected to the Amarna-revolution, were omitted from the lists

The Turin Canon, on the other hand, does a lot more than simply list some kings: it groups them together and it mentions the duration of their reigns. What's more, it even takes note of some kings that are omitted from the cultic lists, such as the otherwise quite unpopular Hyksos!

Despite the fact that it begins with an enumeration of gods, demi-gods, spirits and mythical that were supposed to have ruled Egypt before the reign of Menes, it was not a cultic list and it does not serve the purpose of showing the current king as the good heir to his ancestors.

The king list of the Turin Canon was originally divided over an unknown number of columns or sheets, of which only 11 remain. Columns I to V comprised 25 or 26 lines of text, column VI at least 27 and columns IX and X at least 30.

The increasing number of lines as the Canon reaches its end seems to indicate that the scribe realised that he would not have sufficient space on his papyrus to write down all the royal names known to him in 25- or 26-line columns.

Most lines give the name of a particular king, written in a cartouche, followed by the number of years he ruled, and in some cases even by the number of months and days.

The number of years credited to some kings of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty is so high, that, in those particular cases, they are most likely not correct. It has sometimes been postulated that this high number of years does not reflect the length of a reign but the age at which the king died.

Although this possibility can not entirely be overruled, it is strange that the writer should choose to note the age of a king in one case and the length of his reign in another.

I would rather suspect that, although these kings actually lived, they were considered more as mythological and therefore were credited with a longer-than-human reign.

For the kings of the first three dynasties, a name is written in a cartouche as well, despite the fact that cartouche-names were not used prior to the rule of the last king of the 3rd Dynasty, Huni.

The cartouche-name used for these kings is often similar to the names used for the same kings in the cultic king-lists, but they are quite different from the Horus-name by which they were known officially during their reign. If the names used in the Turin Canon for these kings reflect their birth names, then the writer of the Canon or the writer of the original upon which the Canon was based, must have had access to this kind of information.

The kings are grouped together logically based on the city where they took up residence. These groups do not (entirely) correspond to the dynasties into which the kings were placed by Manetho.

This indicates that the notion of dynasties was not present before the 19th or 20th Dynasty.

Most groups comprise a line of summation that totals the number of years that this particular group has ruled.

These summations are sometimes written on 1 line, sometimes divided over 2 lines and sometimes written in 1 line that is so long that it encroaches the next column. In some cases a group is introduced by a heading.

The fact that there are far less headings than summations may rather be the result of the fragmentary state of the Canon than an inconsistency on the part of the scribe who wrote or copied the list.

A total of 16 groups can be distinguished

1. I,x - I,21: Ptah and the Great Ennead
2. I,22 - II,3 : Horus and the Lesser Ennead
3.I I,4 - II,8 : the spirits
4. II,9 : a mythical group of kings
5. II,10 : another group of mythical kings
6. II,11 - III,26/27 : 1st to 5th Dynasty
7. IV,1 - IV,14/15 : 6th to 8th (?) Dynasty
8. IV,15/17 : 1st to 6th (or 8th ?) Dynasty
9. IV,18 - V,10 : 9th and 10th Dynasty
10. V,11 - V,18 : 11th Dynasty
11. V,19 - VI,3 : 12th Dynasty
12. VI,4 - X,12/13 : 13th and 14th Dynasty
13. X,14 - X,21 : 15th Dynasty (Hyksos)
14. X,22, X,30 (?) : a group of non-identified kings
15. XI,1 (?) - XI,15 : a group of probably Theban kings contemporary with the Hyksos (17th Dynasty
16. Unplaced fragment 4: a group of non-identified kings

Despite its incomplete and fragmentary nature, and despite the fact that the placing of the fragments has been contested from time to time, the Turin Canon is one of our most important sources of knowledge about the chronology of Egypt between the 1st and 17th Dynasties.



The first somewhat reliable account of an actual magician's performance being presented solely as an amusing entertainment, can be found within the ancient Egyptian writings of the Westcar Papyrus.

Named after Henry Westcar (who aquired it during his visit to Egypt sometime around 1824 - 1825), the papyrus was passed to Richard Lepsius, a German Egyptologist.

This text, which is often referred to as simply "p.Westcar", dates back to approximately 1700 - 1800 B.C. (believed to be written during the Middle Kingdom period), although the events it documents are estimated to have happened about a millenium earlier, which is roughly 4700 years ago (during the 4th Dynasty reign of King Kheops).

The information available concerning the p.Westcar seems to differ, depending upon the source. Ironically, the lesser accurate depictions seem to be within magic history books.

According to "The Illustrated History Of Magic" the author states "The hieroglyphics were inscribed about 1700 B.C.". Although the date coincides with the most popular claims, the idea that the Westcar Papyrus was originally written in "inscribed hieroglyphics" appears to be untrue.

A common knowledge among egyptologists seems to be that the original text was written in hieratic (the cursive, handwritten script). It has been transcribed into standard hieroglyphs (normally used for inscriptions and other formal situations) for practical deciphering purposes.

The Westcar Papyrus is only "somewhat" reliable, since much of the textual content of the papyrus is missing.

Of that which does exist, much of the text was written incompletely, stopping and starting in mid stream of so-called "sentences".

This has caused many Egyptologists to believe that the p.Westcar was perhaps copied from another source, and perhaps done so by a child, or one who was unskilled in the hieratic writing style.

The Westcar Papyrus does not provide any evidence that the magic alluded to actually occurred, but only tells the tales of such magic supposedly being performed before royalty.

And since the tales are believed to be written at least "second-hand" in nature, about events which occured 1000 years earlier, no actual eyewitnesses could have ever been consulted.

Therefore, the validity of these tales could be based on nothing more than hearsay, and could have easily been invented for the purposes of merely entertaining the reader.



Djoser - Zoser - Netjerykhet - Divine of the Body - (2667-2649 BCE)

The second king of the 3rd Dynasty was Netjerykhet, the son of Khasekhemwy. He ruled for almost two decades - is accredited with building the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.

The king's vizier, Imhotep, was the architect of that great tomb, and of the magnificent Funerary Complex of Djoser at Saqqara. Egypt experienced a seven year famine during Djoser's reign, so he sought the counsel of Imhotep and one of his governors, Medir, and agreed to travel to Elephantine at Aswan.

Once there he erected a temple to the god Khnum, who was said to controlled the flow of the Nile.

The famine ended, miraculously enough, and people believed it was due to this act of faith. He led several campaigns against Asiatic peoples in Canaan and extended his influence over the copper mines in Sinai where some graffiti and his serek were found at Waddi Maghara.



Sekhemkhet - Djoser Teti - (2648 - 2640 BCE)

The third king of the third Dynasty. His name is carved on a cliff near Wadi Maghara. The king has an unfinished pyramid at Saqqara with an alabaster coffin inside.



Khaba - The Soul Appears - 2603-2599 B.C.

Khaba was the fourth king during the 3rd Dynasty. Egyptologists discovered his named carved into the walls of Sahure's tomb. His name was also found at the stone bowl in Naqada. The Layer Pyramid at Zawiet el-Aryan, in the desert of Giza, is believed to be his resting place.

The Zawiyat el-Aryan Pyramids

These pyramids are about halfway between Giza and North Saqqara. There aretwo pyramids located here and can only be reached by riding through the desert. The most southern of the two is probably a 3rd Dynasty (2686 - 2613 BC) step pyramid. The granite of the other is probably from the 4th Dynasty (2613 - 2494 BC). This pyramid appears to have been abandoned after its foundations had been laid.



Huni - The Smiter - 2599 -2575

Huni was the fifth and last Egyptian King of the 3rd Dynasty. Not much is clear about his reign as much of his work was completed by his son and heir King Snefru.

The writing of the name Huni is found in the Turin Papyrus and Saqqara king list, but not in the Abydos king list.

Huni is responsible for the construction of a fort at Elephantine Island Aswan. ~~ Images

His wife was Queen Meresankh I was the mother of Snefru.

Huni built a Pyramid at Meidum on the edge of the Faiyum. However, it is still in dispute whether the Pyramid of Meidum was started by Huni and later finished by the Pharaoh Snefru, or whether Snefru started the Pyramid of Meidum. Unique to the pyramid; however, is the first square ground plan. This was an architectural invention which lasted well into the future of Egyptian pyramids.




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