Saqqara and Dahshur

The six tiers of Djoser's Step Pyramid under white clouds at Saqqara.

Gary Ku from New Haven, CT, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

03Cities and regions

The necropolis of Memphis

Before Giza there was Saqqara. About 30 km south of Cairo stretches the burial ground of Memphis, the first capital of a united Egypt, and at its centre the Step Pyramid of Djoser, the first pyramid ever built in Egypt and the country's earliest colossal building in cut stone. It went up in the 27th century BC as six stacked tiers, originally 62.5 m tall, inside a long enclosure wall full of ceremonial courts and buildings, and reopened to visitors in 2020 after a 14-year restoration. Further south at Dahshur you can watch the builders learning. The Bent Pyramid rises at 54 degrees, then switches to 43 degrees above 47 m, and still keeps large patches of its smooth outer casing. The Red Pyramid that followed was built at the gentler angle from the ground up, becoming the first successful smooth-sided pyramid; at 105 m it is the third-largest in Egypt. These sites are far quieter than Giza, and close by lie the ruins of Memphis at Mit Rahina, today an open-air museum.

0.5 m
Original height of the Step Pyramid: about 30 km
Distance from Cairo: 0 m
Height of the Red Pyramid: 0 years
Restoration of the Step Pyramid

Highlights

The Red PyramidAbout a kilometre north of the Bent Pyramid, named for the reddish limestone exposed once its white casing was gone.
MemphisEgypt's capital in the Old Kingdom, whose ruins near the village of Mit Rahina are now an open-air museum.