The pyramid of Nyuserre (Egyptian: Mn-swt Nỉ-wsr-rꜥ, meaning “Enduring are the places of Nyuserre”) was a mid-25th-century BC pyramid complex built for the Egyptian pharaoh Nyuserre Ini of the Fifth Dynasty. During his reign, Nyuserre completed the unfinished monuments of his father, Neferirkare Kakai; his mother, Khentkaus II; and his brother, Neferefre, before commencing work on his pyramid complex. He chose a site in the Abusir necropolis between the complexes of Neferirkare and Sahure, which, restrictive in area and terrain, economised the costs of labour and material. Nyuserre was the last king entombed in the necropolis; his successors chose to be buried elsewhere. His monument encompasses the main pyramid, a mortuary temple, a valley temple on Abusir Lake, a causeway originally intended for Neferirkare’s monument, and a cult pyramid.
The main pyramid had a stepped core built from rough-cut limestone and encased in fine Tura. The stone thieves stripped down the casing, exposing the centre to the elements. Further human activity has reduced the once nearly 52 m (171 ft; 99 cu) tall pyramid to a mound of ruins, with a substructure that is dangerous to enter due to the risk of cave-ins: the mortuary temple’s unusual configuration and features adjoining the pyramid’s east face.
Replacing the usual T-shape plan, the mortuary temple has an L-shape, an alteration required due to mastabas to the east. It debuted the antechamber carrée, a square room with a single column, which became a standard feature of later monuments. It also contains an unexplained square platform, which has led archaeologists to suggest that there may be a nearby obelisk pyramid. This is unusual as obelisks were central features of Egyptian sun temples but not pyramid complexes.
Finally, the site’s northeast and southeast corners have two structures that appear to have been pylon prototypes. These became staple features of temples and palaces. In the southeast corner of the complex, a separate enclosure hosts the cult pyramid – a small pyramid whose purpose remains unclear. A long causeway binds the mortuary and valley temples. These two were under construction for Neferirkare’s monument but were repurposed for Nyuserre’s. The causeway, which had been more than half completed when Neferirkare died, thus has a bend where it changes direction from Neferirkare’s mortuary temple towards Nyuserre’s.
Two other pyramid complexes have been found in the area. Known as Lepsius XXIV and Lepsius XXV, they may have belonged to the consorts of Nyuserre, particularly Queen Reputnub, or of Neferefre. Further northwest of the complex are mastabas built for the pharaoh’s children. The tombs of the priests and officials associated with the king’s funerary cult are also nearby. Whereas the funerary cults of other kings died out in the First Intermediate Period, Nyuserre’s pyramid may have survived this transitional period and into the Middle Kingdom. However, this remains a contentious issue among Egyptologists.
Location
Nyuserre’s pyramid is situated in the Abusir necropolis, between Saqqara and the Giza Plateau, in Lower Egypt (the northernmost region of Egypt). Abusir was given great importance in the Fifth Dynasty after Userkaf, the first ruler, built his sun temple there. His successor, Sahure, inaugurated a royal cemetery with his funerary monument. Sahure’s immediate successor and son, Neferirkare Kakai, became the second king interred in the necropolis. Nyuserre’s monument completed the tight architectural family unit that had grown and centred on the pyramid complex of his father, Neferirkare, alongside his mother’s pyramid and brother’s mastaba. He was the last king to be interred in the Abusir necropolis.
On taking the throne, he undertook to complete the three unfinished monuments of his father, Neferirkare; his mother, Khentkaus II; and his brother, Neferefre, so their cost fell onto him. Unusually, Nyuserre’s mortuary complex is not seated on the Abusir-Heliopolis axis. Nyuserre’s monument needed to be placed southwest of Neferefre’s complex, deep into the desert, and at least 1 km (0.62 mi) from the Nile valley to maintain the axis. This would have been too expensive.
Nyuserre may still have wanted to remain with his family and so chose to insert his complex in the space northeast of Neferirkare’s complex, between its and Sahure’s pyramids, with steep terrain to the north. This site constrained the construction area to a region of around 300 m (984 ft 3 in.) square but allowed for maximum economy of the labour force and material resources. The Egyptologist Miroslav Verner succinctly describes Nyuserre’s siting as “the best compromise that the circumstances would permit”.
Excavation
In 1838, John Shae Perring, an engineer working under Colonel Howard Vyse, cleared the entrances to the Sahure, Neferirkare and Nyuserre pyramids. Five years later, Karl Richard Lepsius, sponsored by King Frederick William IV of Prussia, explored the Abusir necropolis and catalogued Nyuserre’s pyramid as XX. From 1902 to 1908, Ludwig Borchardt, working for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft or German Oriental Society, resurveyed the Abusir pyramids and had their adjoining temples and causeways excavated. Borchardt was the first and only major expedition at the Abusir necropolis and contributed significantly to archaeological investigation. His results at Nyuserre’s pyramid, which he had excavated between January 1902 and April 1904, are published in Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Ne-User-Re (1907). The Czech Institute of Egyptology has had a long-term excavation project at Abusir since the 1960s.
Mortuary complex
A digital reconstruction of Nyuserre’s pyramid complex: main pyramid, mortuary temple, cult pyramid, and part of the causeway
Old Kingdom mortuary complexes typically consist of five main components:
- (1) a valley temple;
- (2) a causeway;
- (3) a mortuary temple;
- (4) a cult pyramid;
- and (5) the main pyramid.
Nyuserre’s monument has all of these elements. Its main pyramid is constructed from seven steps of limestone, with a cult pyramid near its southeast corner and an unusual L-shaped mortuary temple adjacent to its eastern face. The valley temple and causeway were initially intended for Neferirkare’s monument but were co-opted by Nyuserre.
Main pyramid
Though Nyuserre reigned for around thirty years, his pyramid is more minor than Neferirkare’s and comparable to Sahure’s. Mindful of the cost to his family, he commissioned his pyramid to lie in the only available free space, not in the desert. It is, therefore, positioned against the north wall of Neferirkare’s mortuary temple, with the ground to the north falling steeply towards Sahure’s monument. A group of mastabas, built during Sahure’s reign, further hemmed the east. This combination of factors may have constricted the size of Nyuserre’s pyramid.
The Nyuserre’s pyramid comprises seven ascending steps anchored on cornerstones. This was encased with fine white Tura limestone, which most likely came from limestone quarries west of the village of Abusir, giving it a smooth-sided finish. On completion, it had a base length of 78.9 m (259 ft; 150.6 cu), sloping inwards at approximately 52° resulting in a summit height of around 52 m (171 ft; 99 cu) and a total volume of about 113,000 m3 (148,000 cu yd).
Nyuserre’s, as with each of Abusir’s pyramids, was constructed drastically differently from those of preceding dynasties. Its outer faces were framed using large – at Neferefre’s unfinished pyramid; the single-step contained blocks up to 5 m (16 ft) by 5.5 m (18 ft) by 1 m (3.3 ft) large – roughly dressed grey limestone blocks well-joined with mortar. The inner chambers were similarly framed but using significantly smaller blocks. Between the two frames, the pyramid’s core was then packed with rubble, filled with limestone chips, pottery shards, and sand, with clay mortars. While less time and resource-consuming, this method was careless and unstable and meant that only the outer casing was constructed using high-quality limestone.
The chambers and mortuary temples of the Abusir pyramids were ransacked during the unrest of the First Intermediate Period. In contrast, the dismantling of the pyramids themselves took place during the New Kingdom. Once the limestone casing of the pyramid was removed – for reuse in lime production – the core was exposed to further human destruction and natural erosion, which has left it as a ruinous, formless mound. Nyuserre’s monument underwent significant stone looting during the New Kingdom, during the Late Period between the Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Seventh Dynasties, and again during the Roman era.
The pyramid is surrounded by open courtyards paved with limestone blocks 0.4 m (1.3 ft) thick, while the brick layers can be up to 0.6 m (2.0 ft) wide. Unusually, the south wing of the courtyard is significantly narrower than the north wing. The enclosure wall of the pyramid courtyard was about 7.35 m (24 ft; 14 cu) high.
Substructure
The pyramid’s substructure mimics the basic design earlier Fifth Dynasty kings adopted. It is accessed by a north-south, downwards-sloping corridor with an entrance on the pyramid’s north face. The corridor was lined with fine white limestone, reinforced with pink granite at both ends and followed an irregular path. It is inclined up to the vestibule, where two or three large granite blocks act as a portcullis blocking the passage when lowered. Immediately behind, the corridor deflects to the east and declines by about 5°. It then terminates at the antechamber – connected to the burial chamber – almost directly underneath the pyramid’s summit. Damage to the interior structure caused by stone thieves makes accurate reconstruction of its architecture impossible.
The burial- and ante-chambers and access corridor were dug out of the ground and then covered rather than being constructed through a tunnel. The ceiling of the chambers was formed by three gabled layers of limestone beams, which dispersed the weight from the superstructure onto either side of the passageway, preventing collapse. Each stone in this structure was about 40 m3 (1,400 cu ft) in size – averaging at 9 m (30 ft) long, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) thick, and 1.75 m (5.7 ft) wide – and weighed 90 t (99 short tons). Limestone fragments were used between each layer of blocks to create a filling, which helped shift the structure’s weight on top of it, particularly in earthquakes. This was considered the optimal roof construction method at the time.
Stone thieves have plundered the underground chambers of much of its high-quality limestone, considerably weakening the structure and making entering dangerous. Borchardt could not find any fragments of interior decoration, the sarcophagus or other burial equipment in the debris-filled chambers of the substructure, much of which was rendered inaccessible by the rubble. The Abusir pyramids, for the last time at the end of the 1960s, by Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi. They refrained from speaking while working, fearing that even the slightest vibration could cause a cave-in.
Valley Temple
Nyuserre co-opted the valley temple and causeway under construction for Neferirkare’s monument. At Sahure’s valley temple, there were two-column adorned entrances, though Nyuserre’s columns contrast with Sahure’s in that they represent papyrus stalks instead of palm trees. The main entrance was on a portico with two colonnades of four pink granite columns. The second entrance, found in the west, could be accessed via a staircase landing on a limestone paved portico adorned with four granite columns. Each was shaped to resemble a six-stemmed papyrus and bore the names and titles of the king as well as images of Wadjet and Nekhbet.
The temple was paved with black basalt, with walls made from Tura limestone and reliefs decorated with red granite dado. Its central chamber – containing three red granite encased niches, one large and two small, in its west wall that may have held statues of the king – held significant religious importance. Two side rooms had black basalt dado, and the southernmost room contained a staircase leading to a roof terrace. Few remnants of the wall reliefs, such as one depicting massacres of Egypt’s enemies, have been preserved. Several statues were placed in the temple, such as one of Queen Reputnub and one of a pink granite lion. The chambers preceding the causeway were angled to meet it, and limestone figures of enemy captives appear to have stood at the temple’s exit at the causeway’s base.
In 2009, the Czech Archaeological Mission revisited Nyuserre’s valley temple and causeway to conduct trial digs at the two sites. A north-south-oriented wall was excavated at 32 m (105 ft) south of the valley temple. The wall had been made from white limestone and mortared together with pink mortar. The east face of the wall was found to be inclined at about 81°. Stone robber activity was indicated in the south section of the unearthed wall. A combination of factors, including shape, artistry and elevation, suggest that the excavated wall is a part of the valley temple harbour’s embankment. Based on Borchardt’s expeditions in combination with their 2009 findings, the Egyptologist Jaromír Krejčí estimates that the harbour was at a minimum 79 m (259 ft) long, with a potential length of around 121 m (397 ft), and a width of at least 32 m (105 ft).
Causeway
The causeway’s foundation had been laid about two-thirds of the way from the valley temple to the mortuary temple when Neferirkare died. When Nyuserre took over the site, he had it diverted from its original destination to its new one. As a result, the 368 m (1,207 ft) long causeway travels in one direction for more than half its length and then bends away to its destination for the remainder. Construction of the building was complicated because, over its height, it had to surmount a difference in elevation of 28 m (92 ft) and negotiate uneven terrain. This elevation difference gave the structure a slope of 4°30′ and required that its latter part be built with a high base. Sections of this base were reused in the Twelfth Dynasty to build tombs for priests who had served Nyuserre’s funerary cult.
The 2009 Czech Archaeological Mission’s trial dig was conducted 150 m (490 ft) west of the valley temple and 30 m (98 ft) from where Borchardt had conducted his excavations. Borchardt could examine the causeway at its termini and a point just east of its bend, but he did not have it wholly excavated due to the expected costs. The causeway was 7.77 m (25.5 ft) wide, with walls 2.2 m (7.2 ft) thick and yellow core masonry encased by white limestone with mud mortar. Borchardt had found its inner walls vertically parallel, while the outer walls declined at an angle of 75.5°. The causeway had an embankment with a core made from horizontally layered yellow and grey limestone blocks that were joined primarily with grey mortar but also with pink mortar.
The embankment core was encased with fine white limestone blocks inclined at 55° and joined using lime mortar. Although the embankment was excavated to a depth of 10 m (33 ft) below the crown of the causeway, uncovering 12 layers of casing, Krejčí believes that the building’s base is ~3 m (9.8 ft) deeper still. Based on the excavation results, Krejčí concludes that the building must have had a base at least 21 m (69 ft) wide. The key finding of the dig was that causeways “represented huge, voluminous constructions”. Despite the efforts, the team failed to uncover any relief fragments.
The causeway’s interior walls were lined at the base with black basalt, above which they were lined with Tura limestone and decorated with reliefs. It had a ceiling that was painted blue with a myriad of golden stars evoking the night sky. One notable considerable figure relief from the causeway has been preserved. It depicts seven royal sphinxes pinning the king’s enemies under their paws.
Mortuary Temple
The basic design of Nyuserre’s mortuary temple differs from others built in the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Verner describes the layout of a typical mortuary temple for the period as resembling the letter “T” and contrasts this with the “L” shaped structure of Nyuserre’s. This alteration resulted from the presence of mastabas built to the east during Sahure’s reign. Despite this aesthetic difference, the temple retained all of the fundamental elements established by Sahure’s mortuary temple and incorporated new features concurrently.
The initial entry point to the temple is angled towards the southeast. This is followed by a long entrance hall flanked on both the north and the south by groups of five storage rooms that comprise the bulk of the storage space in the temple. The entrance hall was initially vaulted and had black basalt paving and limestone walls covered in reliefs with red granite dado on the side walls. Fragments of the wall reliefs from the temple are often exhibited in German museums. For example, the Egyptian Museum of Berlin displays an intricate wall relief from the temple relating to a scene from the throne room. In the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, the ruler Taharqa had reliefs from various Old Kingdom mortuary temples, particularly those of Nyuserre, Sahure and Pepi II, reproduced for restoring the temple of Kawa in Nubia.
The hall terminates in a courtyard paved with black basalt and a roofed ambulatory supported by sixteen six-stemmed papyrus pink granite columns. The courtyard was designed to communicate the image of a marshy papyrus grove, a place which, for ancient Egyptians, signified renewal. To evoke this image, the bases of the columns, for example, were decorated with wavy bas-reliefs, which produced the illusion of papyrus growing in water.
The middle portions of the columns were decorated with various inscriptions detailing material such as the king’s name and titles and the courtyard’s protection by the gods Wadjet and Nekhbet. These columns supported the ambulatory of the courtyard. The ambulatory ceiling was decorated with stars representing the night sky of the underworld. In the courtyard’s centre was a small sandstone basin for collecting rainwater. Once, a highly decorated alabaster altar was located in the northwest corner of the enclosure. The west exit of the yard leads into the transverse (north-south) corridor.
The temple takes a northerly direction from the transverse corridor, resulting from the L-shape. In the northwest corner of the transverse corridor separating the public, outer, and intimate inner parts of the temple is a deep niche occupied by a giant pink granite statue of a lion that symbolically guards the pharaoh’s privacy. Beyond the transverse corridor lies the chapel, which had been displaced southwards, another result of the temple shape. It is damaged to the point that an accurate reconstruction cannot be made, but it is known that the chapel contains five statue niches. Connected to the chapel was another group of storage rooms.
North of the chapel is the antechamber carrée – so named by the architect Jean-Philippe Lauer about its square shape – decorated with various reliefs, an elevated floor, and a central column. This chamber is one of two new features introduced into temple design. This particular feature became a permanent element of the layout of future mortuary temples until the reign of Senusret I. Antecedents to the antechamber carrée have been traced to the mortuary temples of Sahure, Neferirkare, and Neferefre. It is entered through the north wall of the five-niche chapel, except for the pyramid belonging to Setibhor, the only chamber designed to enter from this side.
The floor and column base was made from limestone, and the floor was elevated by one cu (0.52 m; 1.7 ft), but the central column has not been preserved. The room measured ten cu (5.2 m; 17 ft) square, with this size becoming the standard for most antechamber carrées of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. In the room’s northwest corner, Borchardt found a fragment of a limestone statue fixed to the floor using mortar. Borchardt also found several relief decorations nearby, which may have originated in the room. These fragments depicted anthropomorphised deities with animal heads, including Sobek and Horus, and three other deities (one with a human head) with was-sceptres and ankh symbols.
The antechamber carrée leads into the sacrificial, or offering, hall via a vestibule left out in later renditions. The offering hall was set along the east-west axis for religious reasons and is located in its traditional place in the centre of the east face of and adjoining the main pyramid. The offering hall was an altar for performing ritual sacrifices with a false granite door. As with the entrance hall, the walls of the offering hall were decorated with reliefs; these depicted scenes related to the ritual sacrifices performed there.
Similarly to the ambulatory of the courtyard, the hall’s vaulted ceiling was decorated with bas-relief stars evoking the night sky of the underworld. Under the east wall was a canal connected to a drainage system east of the temple. North of the offering hall was a final group of storage rooms. Lastly, an alternate entrance point sits near the intersection between the outer and inner sanctuaries that can be accessed from the outside.
The mortuary temple displays two other significant innovations. One architectural modification can be incorporated into the temple’s design and has markedly influenced ancient Egyptian architecture. Tall tower-shaped buildings with slight slopes were erected on the temple’s north- and southeast corners. The tops of these towers formed a flat terrace, topped with a concave cornice, which could be accessed via a staircase. Verner refers to these towers as the “prototype of pylons”, which became staple features of later ancient Egyptian temples and palaces.
The second expansion is more complex and, as yet, unexplained. In the northeast corner of the temple, adjoining the wall, Borchardt discovered a square platform with sides approximately 10 m (33 ft) in length. Excavations by a Czech team at the mastaba of Ptahshepses’, the vizier to the pharaoh and head of all royal works, discovered an enormous pink granite pyramidion, taken from an obelisk, resting next to a similar square platform in the south-western corner. Verner proposes several hypotheses for the square platform in Nyuserre’s mortuary temple:
- (1) A similar pyramidion may have once occupied the square platform; evidence supporting this conjecture is a large granite obelisk found in the pyramid complex – obelisks were the architectonic midpoints of sun temples but not discovered in mortuary temples, making this discovery unique – and stone blocks containing the inscription “Sahure’s sacrifice field”.
- (2) The blocks could be remnants of the building material used for Sahure’s sun temple or taken from it. This led to conjecture
- (3) that the sun temple may be located near Nyuserre’s complex
- and (4) that Nyuserre may have dismantled or usurped the sun temple for himself.
Cult Pyramid
Borchardt erroneously ascribed the structure found in the southeast corner of the complex to Nyuserre’s consort; it was, in fact, the cult pyramid. It had a base length of approximately 15.5 m (51 ft; 29.6 cu) and a peak of about 10.5 m (34 ft; 20.0 cu). The pyramid has its enclosure and bears the standard T-shaped substructure of passage and chambers.
The pyramid’s single chamber was built by digging a pit into the ground. The chamber walls were made from yellow limestone and joined with mortar. The entrance to the chamber was cut at an oblique angle, partly recessed into the masonry and partially sunk into the ground. Very little of the interior structure has been preserved, and nearly none of the chamber’s white limestone casing is retained, save for a block in the southwest corner.
The purpose of the cult pyramid remains unclear. It had a burial chamber not used for burials and appeared to have been a purely symbolic structure. The burial chamber may have hosted the pharaoh’s ka (spirit) or a miniature statue of the king. It may have been used for ritual performances centred around the ka spirit’s burial and resurrection during the Sed festival.
Other significant structures
Conjectural: wives’ tombs
Nyuserre’s wife, Reputnub, was not buried within the pyramid complex of Nyuserre. Two small pyramids found on the southern margin of the pyramid cluster, Lepsius XXIV and Lepsius XXV, are conjectured to belong to his consorts. These structures are severely damaged, and Verner expects no exceptional finds to be made during excavations.
The first of these pyramids, Lepsius XXIV, consisted of the pyramid, mortuary temple and small cult pyramid. The pyramid was constructed during Nyuserre’s reign, as evidenced by Ptahshepses’ name appearing on blocks amidst many other masons’ marks and inscriptions. Extensive damage to the tomb’s structure due to stone thieves in the New Kingdom has left the facility in ruins, though some details can be discerned. The mortuary temple was built on the east face of the pyramid, confirming that the tomb belonged to a queen. Its destruction has laid the interior bare for archaeologists to study. Inside the wreckage of the burial chamber lie the remnants of a pink granite sarcophagus, shards of pottery, and the mummified remains of a young woman between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age.
The mummy is fragmented, likely due to the activities of tomb robbers and stone thieves. Her name was not found inscribed anywhere in the complex, leaving the mummy’s remains unidentified. Dating suggests that the mummy was either the consort to Nyuserre or his short-lived pharaoh’s brother, Neferefre. Queen Reputnub is a potential candidate for the mummy’s identity, though the possibility of other wives remains feasible. Unusually, this mummy has undergone excerebration, a procedure which Verner states was not known to have been conducted before the Middle Kingdom. Professors Eugen Strouhal, Viktor Černý, and Luboš Vyhnánek challenge this, stating that some mummies from the Eighth Dynasty and one from the Sixth Dynasty are confirmed to have undergone the procedure.
The sister tomb, Lepsius XXV, is near Lepsius XXIV. A superficial study of the tomb revealed that it was built during Nyuserre’s reign. Excavations were conducted by Verner’s archaeological team between 2001 and 2004. Verner had initially believed that the mortuary temple for this tomb was built on the western face of the pyramid instead of the usual eastern one. His later excavations revealed that the pyramid lacked a mortuary temple altogether. It was revealed that the monument consisted of two pyramid tombs placed adjacent to each other. Both tombs are oblong-shaped, though the eastern tomb is larger than the western one. The tombs are oriented along a north-south axis. The owners and relations of these tombs remain unknown.
Mastaba of the Princesses
To the northwest, Nyuserre’s pyramid is a tomb constructed for three of the ruler’s children, which Borchardt identified as the “Mastaba of the Princesses”. The superstructure of this tomb was built by packing rubble to create a thick wall and enclosing it with yellow limestone blocks, with its facade further encased with fine white limestone. This valuable outer layer has been stripped, with only a fragment left on the doorway. Despite this, the tomb’s layout – with its four burial chambers and cult rooms – has been well preserved.
The false doors of the burial chambers are the only decorative remnants found, though Borchardt speculates that these might have been the only ornamentation. Within the cult rooms, traces of red paint had survived, indicating that the walls were decorated to imitate granite. The northernmost false door bears the titles of Khamerernebty, a daughter of King Nyuserre and a priestess of Hathor. The second false door bears the name of Meritjots. It, too, contains inscriptions and a carving of the subject but is of inferior craftsmanship. The retained fragments indicate that the block was painted red to imitate granite, whilst the carved writings were painted green. The third false door was left entirely blank, whilst the last false door, similar to the second, is inscribed only on the lintel and bears the name of Kahotep.
Later history
Nyuserre was the last king to build his funerary monument at Abusir. His successors, Menkauhor, Djedkare Isesi and Unas, chose to be buried elsewhere, and Abusir ceased to be the royal necropolis.
Funerary cult
The Abusir Papyri records evidence indicating that the funerary cults at Abusir remained active at least until the reign of Pepi II in the late Sixth Dynasty. However, the continuation of these cults following the Old Kingdom is a significant debate among Egyptologists. Verner believes that these cults ceased activities by the First Intermediate Period. He argues that the reunification of Egypt and subsequent stabilisation at the end of the Eleventh Dynasty allowed the mortuary cults of Abusir to reform temporarily before soon dying out permanently.
Jaromír Málek distinguishes surviving estates, which form the economic foundation of the funerary cult, and the survival of the cult itself, and notes that reliable evidence for the continuation of these cults is absent, except for the cults of Teti and, possibly, Nyuserre. Ladislav Bareš suggests that only Nyuserre’s cult persisted through the period, albeit in a significantly reduced form.
Antonio Morales considers two forms of cultic activities: the official royal cult and popular veneration of the king. He believes that in the case of Nyuserre, both forms of cultic worship survived the transition from the Old Kingdom throughout the First Intermediate Period and into the early Middle Kingdom.
He argues that archaeological trace evidence found near Nyuserre’s monument – such as tombs found east of the mortuary temple dated to the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom which may be associated with the royal cult through onomastica, titles, and other textual writings; the writings on the false door of Ipi, dated to the First Intermediate Period, bearing Nyuserre’s birth name; and an inscribed block belonging to an overseer in the nearby pyramid town of Neferirkare, found by the alternate entrance to the mortuary temple – support the survival of cultic activity honouring Nyuserre from the Fifth Dynasty to the Middle Kingdom. Restoration work to the pavement of Nyuserre’s mortuary temple and an inscription from an anonymous ruler dating to the end of the Old Kingdom are other indicators of activity at the funerary monument.
The tombs of two estate chiefs and overseers of the mortuary temple, Heryshefhetep I and II, may indicate the continuity of Nyuserre’s cult. The tombs of these two officials are given plausible dates between the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties – the Herakleopolitan period – of the Eleventh Dynasty. If the two priests lived during the Herakleopolitan period, then that would indicate that Nyuserre’s funerary cult and the estates of his pyramid were functioning and intact during the First Intermediate Period. Moreover, if this is the case, Nyuserre’s cult survived to at least the Twelfth Dynasty under the priest Inhetep. The false door from the tomb of a female priest or official, Satimpi, found near the causeway, may also be dated to the First Intermediate Period. The burial of priests in this period may be another indicator of the maintenance of his cult.
Burials
From the end of Nyuserre’s reign to the Middle Kingdom, the areas around his monument’s causeway and the mortuary temple became home to other tombs. Djedkare Isesi buried various members of his family and officials on the slope southeast of the mortuary temple. The royal family members planted there are Khekeretnebty with her daughter Tisethor, Hedjetnebu, Neserkauhor, and the officials Mernefu, Idut and Khenit. There is also a tomb whose owner remains unidentified. This cemetery gradually expanded east toward the edge of the Nile valley, reaching its peak in the Sixth Dynasty. Still, this time, Abusir was being used only as a local cemetery. Many of the tombs discovered here belong to employees of the mortuary cult, such as those of Fetekta and Hetepi, who administered the stores.
Southeast of the mortuary temple lies the tomb of Inemakhet and Inhetep I. Inside, an inscription reading “honoured before Osiris, lord of life, and Iny, lord of reverence,” was discovered on some funerary equipment. Two other tombs bearing similar names, those of Inhetep II and Inhetepi, are also in the area. The revered status of Nyuserre is evidenced in the onomastica of these buried individuals who took their names from Nyuserre’s birth name, Ini.
To the north of Nyuserre’s monument is a cemetery split into two regions. The northwestern sector contains tombs built at the end of Nyuserre’s reign. The northeastern industry, located just north of the mortuary temple, established between the First Intermediate Period and the early Middle Kingdom, contains tombs of individuals associated with the funerary cult of the king. Other burials of the priests of Nyuserre’s cult are concentrated around the eastern facade of the mortuary temple and at the upper end of the causeway.
The monument site was used for occasional burials in the Late Period. East of the mortuary temple, German Egyptologists unearthed thirty-one Greek burials dated between c. 375–350 BC, from 1901 to 1904. This dating is disputed, and an alternate view argues that the tombs were built after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt. According to Verner, the construction of these tombs marks the end of the history of the Abusir cemetery.
