The Pyramid of Sahure at Abusir

Sahure was the second king of ancient Egypt's 5th Dynasty. He was a son of queen Khentkaus I, who, in her tomb at Giza, is said to have been the "mother of two kings". His father probably was Userkaf. There are no wives or children known to him and no children of his appear to have outlived him, since he was succeeded by his brother, Neferirkare.

Sahure's pyramid complex was the first built at the new royal burial ground at Abusir a few kilometres north of Saqqara (though Userkaf had probably already built his solar temple there) and marks the decline of pyramid building, both in terms of size and oe quality, though many of the surviving fragments of reliefs which decorated the temple walls of both Sahure's and other Fifth Dynasty's kings are of high quality.

Additional pictures:

• Basalt carving
• Causeway
• Ramp into Sahure pyramid

When it was excavated in the first years of the 1900s, a great amount of fine reliefs were found to an extent and quality superior to those from the dynasty before. Some of the low relief-cuttings in red granite are masterpieces of their kind and still in place at the site. The construction of the pyramid was, on the other hand (like the others from this dynasty), made with an inner core of roughly hewn stones in a step construction held together in many sections with a mortar of mud.