King Unas pyramid
The King Unas pyramid was already very dilapidated in ancient times, but was restored for the first time in ancient times by the high priest of Ptah and the son of King Ramses II, Prince Chaemwaset.
He had the pyramid restored and put Unas’ name back on the monument. The pyramid had already been visited by John Shae Perring and Karl Richard Lepsius in the 19th century,
but it was the Italian archaeologists Gaston Maspero and Alessandro Barsanti who carried out the first thorough investigations. In the 20th century the complex was further explored by Cecil Firth and Jean-Phillipe Lauer.
The valley temple, like most temples, is very poorly preserved and most of the stones were reused in other monuments. Originally there was probably a quay and a harbor next to the valley temple.
The procession route is still partly preserved. The procession road is located to the east of the pyramid and does not run completely straight, but makes two side steps for construction reasons. In total she was 666 meters long.
The procession route is partly paved with material from older buildings. The walls of the procession road depict scrawny people, leading some to speculate that there may have been a famine during Unas’ reign. There is an image of this on the walls of the Causeway.
Unas was the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, and there may have been a brief period of social instability after his death, he died without a male heir. There is a theory that his Daughter Idut took over the government before marrying Teti who took over from her and founded the 6th and last dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
Another story is that the people in the picture were not Egyptians. And that there was a famine abroad and that the king helped.
The mortuary temple in the east has been badly damaged. The plan of the mortuary temple is very similar to that of Djedkare Isesi.
The procession road first led to a vestibule that then led to a central courtyard with the actual temple behind it.
The pyramid was called in ancient times ‘Perfect are the dwellings of Unas’ and it had an original height of 105 meters and its sides were 57.5 meters long. The pyramid is quite badly damaged and only the limestone cladding on the south side has been preserved.
As usual, the entrance to the pyramid is located in the north and two corridors lead to the subterranean complex. There is an antechamber that opened onto a chapel on the east and the burial chamber on the west. The rooms are decorated with texts and stars on the ceiling.
In this pyramid it is the first time that religious texts were applied to the walls, the so-called Pyramid texts. These texts were then placed in every pyramid during the 6th Dynasty.
But Unas’s texts contain verses and sayings that were not included in the later copies. The pyramid texts were intended to help the king overcome hostile forces and powers in the underworld and thus, together with the sun god Ra,
his divine father in the afterlife. The king went to the underworld every day and sailed across the heavens with Ra in a solar boat.
