Djoser

Also Known As: also Zoser; in his own lifetime he was called by his Horus name Netjerikhet, divine of body; the name Djoser, usually read as holy or sacred, is first attached to him centuries later; the Greek-writing priest Manetho calls him Tosorthros
Region/Culture: North Africa
Mythos: Egyptian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Heroes and Mortals
Mythical Attributes: Djoser is the king remembered for raising the first pyramid in stone and, in a legend carved more than two thousand years after his death, for ending a seven-year famine by winning back the favour of the god who releases the Nile.
Role in Mythos: He stands in Egyptian memory as the model of the good early king, the ruler whose reign later priests and scribes reached for when they wanted an ancient precedent.
Relation to Humans: He was a real man who ruled Egypt in the Third Dynasty, around the twenty-seventh century before the common era, and thousands of people cut and hauled stone for his tomb. Later generations came to that tomb as visitors and pilgrims, and the priests of Elephantine used his name to back their claim to land and revenue.

On the north side of the pyramid at Saqqara there is a stone box with no door. It is tilted back a little, like a man leaning in a chair, and two round holes are drilled through its front wall at the height of a seated face. Behind the holes, in the dark, a limestone king sat for some four and a half thousand years with his right fist against his chest, looking out at the northern stars that never set. When the excavators opened the box in the 1920s he was still there. His eyes were gone, levered out long ago for their rock crystal, but the rest of him was whole: the wide cheekbones, the full mouth, the heavy wig under the striped cloth, the cloak pulled tight as if against the cold.

The men who carved him did not call him Djoser. In every inscription from his own reign he is Netjerikhet, divine of body. The name the world uses appears much later, written by Middle Kingdom sculptors and by New Kingdom sightseers who scratched their admiration on the walls of his chapels. One of the king lists goes further and writes his entry in red ink, a mark of honour given to almost no one else on the papyrus. By then he had been dead for a very long time and had turned into something more useful than a man, a founding figure.

The reason is the building behind the statue. Egyptian kings before him were buried under low flat-topped tombs of mud brick. His was begun the same way, in the desert above Memphis, and then somebody had the idea of setting a smaller platform on top of the first, and another on that, until six steps of pale limestone rose about sixty metres over the plateau. It was the first monument of its size ever built in cut stone. A base of one of the king’s statues names the official responsible, Imhotep, with a string of titles that includes chief of sculptors. Around the pyramid ran a wall ten metres high with fourteen gateways carved into it, and only one of them opened. Inside stood a small city of chapels and pavilions, most of them solid stone all the way through, with doors carved half ajar that no living person could walk into. The court was for a dead king’s use, forever.

One of those courts was laid out for the Sed festival, the jubilee at which an ageing ruler proved he was still fit to hold the country. Reliefs in the blue-tiled chambers under the complex show him at it. The king is bare-chested, crowned, a flail in one hand, caught in full stride between two sets of boundary markers. He is running a lap of his kingdom. The carving is so shallow that it only shows properly when a lamp is held to one side.

Deeper still the builders cut more than five kilometres of galleries and filled them with some forty thousand stone vessels, many inscribed for kings older than Djoser. Robbers got into the granite burial vault anyway. They left very little of him.

The story that made him a figure of legend was cut into a granite boulder on the island of Sehel, near the first cataract, in the time of the Ptolemies. It is written as a letter from the king himself, dated to his eighteenth year. The Nile has not risen for seven years. Grain is short, children cry, old men sit on the ground with their legs drawn up, and the temples are shut. The king, grieving on his throne, asks the wise Imhotep where the flood is born and which god rules it. Imhotep goes to the House of Life, unrolls the old books, and comes back with an answer. The river rises at Elephantine, from two caverns, and the one who draws the bolts there is Khnum, the ram-headed potter who shapes people on his wheel.

So Djoser orders offerings, and that night he dreams. Khnum stands over him, kindly, and says who he is: the maker of the king’s own body, the one with his hands on the flood. He promises that the river will pour again and the banks will be green. The king wakes with his heart light, and what he does next is the point of the whole inscription. He issues a decree giving Khnum’s temple the land on both banks for a stretch south of Elephantine, along with a tenth of everything that passes through it, the harvest, the catch, the game, the gold and ivory coming up from Nubia.

It is a land deed with a miracle attached. The priests who had it carved wanted an ancient royal promise behind their income, and they picked the most venerable king they could think of. Nobody at Djoser’s own court wrote down a famine. What the stone does show is how he was remembered more than two thousand years on, as the pious king of the old days who listened to a learned man and then to a god.

That memory also marks out what an Egyptian king could and could not do. Djoser could turn a hillside into a mountain, call up labour from the length of the valley and have his face cut in stone to outlast his bones. He could not make the water rise by one finger’s width. In the legend he does not command the river at all. He asks a scholar, feeds a god, and gives away a slice of his own revenue, and only then does the flood come. Even the afterlife he built so carefully depended on other people. The statue in the box needed incense and bread carried to it, and the two holes in the wall were there so that he could smell them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Djoser?

Djoser was a king of Egypt’s Third Dynasty who ruled around the twenty-seventh century before the common era. In his own lifetime he was called Netjerikhet, and the name Djoser was attached to him by later generations. He is best known for the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first monument of its size built in cut stone.

What is the legend of Djoser and the seven-year famine?

The legend of Djoser and the famine is told on the Famine Stela, a granite inscription on Sehel Island near the first cataract of the Nile. It says the Nile failed to flood for seven years, and that Djoser asked Imhotep which god controlled the river. After Djoser made offerings, the god Khnum appeared to him in a dream and promised to release the flood.

Is the Famine Stela a real record from the reign of Djoser?

The Famine Stela is not a record from the reign of Djoser. It was carved in the time of the Ptolemies, more than two thousand years after he died. It ends with a royal grant of land and a tenth of all goods to the temple of Khnum, and the priests of Khnum used Djoser’s name to give that claim an ancient authority.

Who built the Step Pyramid of Djoser?

The Step Pyramid was built for Djoser at Saqqara, above the city of Memphis. A statue base from the site names the official Imhotep, whose titles include chief of sculptors, and he is credited with the design. The pyramid rises in six steps to about sixty metres and stands inside a walled enclosure of stone chapels and courts.

What does the statue of Djoser look like?

The statue of Djoser is a life-size seated figure in limestone, found in a sealed stone box on the north side of his pyramid. It shows a broad-faced king in a close cloak, wearing a striped royal cloth over a heavy wig and a long false beard. The eyes, once inlaid with rock crystal, were removed by thieves in antiquity.