Huni (2599—2575)

Head of Huni's Statue

King Huni was the fifth king of the third Dynasty. He ruled the country from 2599 BC to 2575 BC. The king is fast for the construction of a fort at Elephentine Island as well as a pyramid at Meidum. His wife was Queen Meresankh I. She was the mother of his heir, Snofru. The famous sage Kagemi was a Vizer of Egypt during Huni's reign.  Huni is considered as the last king of the third Dynasty. In the Turin Kinglist he directly preceedes Snofru, the founder of the 4th Dynasty. The same Kinglist references him with a reign of 24 years, but there are no contemporary sources that sustain this number. The Horus-name of Huni is not known. The equation of Huni with the Horus Qa-Hedjet is tempting but not based by the archaeological record. The remains of several small pyramids built by Huni have been found broken throughout Egypt. The nature of these pyramids is not fully understood, but they appear to be concerned to royal estates and domains, the means by which the central government was able to exert economical state over the total country.

The premise that Huni built the Pyramid at Meidum is based solely on the desire to have a large repository ascribed to this king. His name is not got in or near the monument, which does it rather outside that he was its builder. It is, however, more future that it was Snofru, the first king of the 4th Dynasty, who built this pyramid, since his name has been found in the pyramid's vicinity. Huni was the fifth king of the 3rd Dynasty. He ruled the country from 2599 BC until 2575 BC. The king is responsible for the structure of a fort at Elephentine Island as well as a pyramid at Meidum. His wife was Queen Meresankh I. She was the mother of his heritor, Snofru. The famous rose Kagemi was a Vizer of Egypt during Huni's rule.

King Huni was the last Egyptian King of the third Dynasty. His Horus-name, usually written within a serek, is not known, and regrettably not so much of his acts is known disdain the fact that ha obviously had a reign of some a quarter of a century. His name is present at the royal canons of Sakkara and Turin, but not in the Abydos-list. An inscription with the name Nswth or Nswth Hun(i) is identified from Aswan in Upper Egypt. Other form of the name - Swtenh, Nisuteh or Nswt H(w), is engraved on the Palermo Stone by fifth dynasty king Neuserre, who gave a monument to him.

Monuments of Khaba

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

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.

Khaba (2603-2599)

Cartouche of Khaba

King Khaba was the fourth king during the third Dynasty. Egyptologists discovered his named sliced into the walls of Sahure's tomb. The name was as well found at the stone roll in Naqada. The pyramid at "Zawiet el-Aryan", in the desert of Giza, is believed to be his resting place. Even less is known about Sekhemkhet's possible successor, Khaba. In the Turin King-list, this king, whose name has been learned as "erased", is credited with a reign of a mere 6 years. The fact that his name was marked as "erased" in the Turin King-list may maybe indicate some dynastic problems. It may also be that the composer of the Turin King-list was incapable to read the name. Khaba is conceived to have built his funerary monument in Zawyet el-Aryan, about 7 kilometers north of Saqqara. It was left incomplete at an early stage of its constructing

Khaba credibly died before the finishing of his monument and the work on the site was left for all potential. The construction is a square with a 78,5 m long side at the base, and located on the highest part of the area high the cultivated Nile valley. With only 200 metres to the flood lain in the valley it's the pyramid in Egypt that is placed best the cultivated land. With the intended five steps it would have been about 45 meters in height if it hade been completed but today only 17 metres remain previous the sand. Under ground huge galleries (very alike looking those from the pyramid of Sekhemkhet) were hewn out but the burial bedroom did not contain anything, not even a sarcophagus, when it was entered in the late 1800s.

Facts that indicates that it was built in the middle or at the end of the dynasty is the increasing ability of the Egyptians to manage to handle larger and larger stones, culminating during the end of the Old Kingdom. Khaba's memorial is built with stones of bigger size (for the pyramid's core) than Djoser's, indicating it's younger. The construction has also an almost complete orientation North-South that most elder repositories (including substructures) don't have. It's disputed to put Khaba as the founder of the third dynasty and the reigns of his and Sekhemkhet's were brief ones and generally judged to be after king Djoser's. The traditional episode of kings for the dynasty set is among most Egyptologists: Sahnakht-Djoser-Sekhemkhet-Khaba-Huni brought with those who are only known from names in king lists or fragmentise and have left no repositories to history.