1- Tomb of Khaba at Zawyet el-Aryan:
Zawyet el-Aryan is placed to the South of Giza and North of Abusir and Abu Gorab. There are 2 bare pyramids at Zawyet el-Aryan. The best one is dated to the third Dynasty and would have been a Step Pyramid had it been complete. The other pyramid was built somewhere during the 4th Dynasty, but it is not known for particular by which king. The 2 oldest known Step Pyramids were constructed at Saqqara, set to the South of Zawyet el-Aryan, by the Horus Netjerikhet and his successor Sekhemkhet, both of the 3rd Dynasty. Another king of that dynasty chose to build his funerary memorial at some distance North of Saqqara. He also chose to make his repository near the floodline. In this, he departed from the cut set by Netjerikhet and Sekhemkhet, who established their pyramids well into the desert.
The personal identity of the builder of the Step Pyramid at Zawyet el-Aryan is not known with certainty. His name is not mentioned in the monument itself. However, vases found in a nearby mastaba mention the name of the Horus Khaba, an serious third Dynasty king. As it was regular for members of the nobility to be buried near their king, this has been taken as evidence that the bare Step Pyramid at Zawyet el-Aryan was built for Khaba. Had this pyramid been complete, it would have risen up in 5 steps to a height of some 45 ms. There were no hints of outer casing, an reading that indeed, this monument was never finished. Although it is somewhat simpler, the substructure is similar to that of the Step Pyramid of Sekhemkhet. It base consists of a gentle corridor dug in the ground, taking to a burial chamber of 3.63 by 2.65 ms and a height of 3 metres.
2- Pyramid of Khaba at Zawyet el-Aryan:
The pyramid of Khaba at the southern end of the situation is known as the 'Layer Pyramid' and has been ascribed to king Khaba of Dynasty III, probably a replacement of Sekhemkhet. The pyramid was investigated by the Italian archaeologist Alessandro Barsanti in 1900, but the owner of the structure was unknown until Reisner's American Expedition unearthed the pyramid and some of the mastaba tombs in the area in the future part of the 20th century. Here he got fragments bearing the name of Khaba as well as some pieces of pottery bearing the name of Narmer, which led him to suggest a Dynasty II date for the structure. The southern pyramid at Zawyet el-Aryan is locally called 'Haram el-Meduwara' or the 'round pyramid', due to its broken condition and smaller size. The base of the pyramid was about 84 meter square and the subtructure is very similar to that of Sekhemkhet's raw pyramid at Saqqara. Khaba's pyramid was conceived as a step pyramid with a centre built with sloping layers of masonry. Only the lower part of the first step remains of what may have been intended to be a five, 6 or 7 stepped structure, its height today rising to only 16 metre. No trace of a limestone case from the pyramid has been discovered which tends to put up the view that the pyramid was never complete.
The subterranean chambers were recorded near the north-east tree where a staircase continues in a westwards direction as a passage which then turns south at the bottom of a vertical shaft. Another bare passage takes from higher in the shaft in the same direction. The lower passage leads to another staircase and an empty burying chamber. On the northern side of the vertical shaft there were thirty two store-rooms which also raised to be empty. The area has never been thoroughly investigated and is now remote because it is within a military partition. Reisner's American team excavated a large mastaba to the northwest of the Layer Pyramid, identified as Mastaba Z-500 and it was here that the Horus name of Khaba was discovered on alabaster vases. Although these artefacts, in addition to the stylistic dating of the pyramid lead many Egyptologists to attribute the monument to Khaba, the owner is by no means certain.
Zawyet el-Aryan is placed to the South of Giza and North of Abusir and Abu Gorab. There are 2 bare pyramids at Zawyet el-Aryan. The best one is dated to the third Dynasty and would have been a Step Pyramid had it been complete. The other pyramid was built somewhere during the 4th Dynasty, but it is not known for particular by which king. The 2 oldest known Step Pyramids were constructed at Saqqara, set to the South of Zawyet el-Aryan, by the Horus Netjerikhet and his successor Sekhemkhet, both of the 3rd Dynasty. Another king of that dynasty chose to build his funerary memorial at some distance North of Saqqara. He also chose to make his repository near the floodline. In this, he departed from the cut set by Netjerikhet and Sekhemkhet, who established their pyramids well into the desert.
The personal identity of the builder of the Step Pyramid at Zawyet el-Aryan is not known with certainty. His name is not mentioned in the monument itself. However, vases found in a nearby mastaba mention the name of the Horus Khaba, an serious third Dynasty king. As it was regular for members of the nobility to be buried near their king, this has been taken as evidence that the bare Step Pyramid at Zawyet el-Aryan was built for Khaba. Had this pyramid been complete, it would have risen up in 5 steps to a height of some 45 ms. There were no hints of outer casing, an reading that indeed, this monument was never finished. Although it is somewhat simpler, the substructure is similar to that of the Step Pyramid of Sekhemkhet. It base consists of a gentle corridor dug in the ground, taking to a burial chamber of 3.63 by 2.65 ms and a height of 3 metres.
2- Pyramid of Khaba at Zawyet el-Aryan:
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| The Pyramid of Khaba |
The subterranean chambers were recorded near the north-east tree where a staircase continues in a westwards direction as a passage which then turns south at the bottom of a vertical shaft. Another bare passage takes from higher in the shaft in the same direction. The lower passage leads to another staircase and an empty burying chamber. On the northern side of the vertical shaft there were thirty two store-rooms which also raised to be empty. The area has never been thoroughly investigated and is now remote because it is within a military partition. Reisner's American team excavated a large mastaba to the northwest of the Layer Pyramid, identified as Mastaba Z-500 and it was here that the Horus name of Khaba was discovered on alabaster vases. Although these artefacts, in addition to the stylistic dating of the pyramid lead many Egyptologists to attribute the monument to Khaba, the owner is by no means certain.