Djoser (Netjerikhet)
2667 BCE–2648 BCE · Old-Kingdom · Saqqara
Djoser was the first king of Dynasty 3, reigning around 2667-2648 BCE (Shaw's conventional dates) at the start of the Old Kingdom. His own monuments give his Horus-name as Netjerikhet; the familiar name 'Djoser' comes from later tradition. He is celebrated as the builder of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the world's first monumental building in dressed stone, a stepped tower of six mastabas set within a vast walled funerary complex. Tradition, recorded much later, credits the design to his official Imhotep, the historical vizier-architect who was venerated as a sage and eventually deified. The famous Famine Stela, which links Djoser and Imhotep to a seven-year famine, is a far later Ptolemaic-era text and cannot be read as a contemporary record of the reign. Djoser's monument marks a decisive leap in royal scale and ambition that shaped the whole Old Kingdom.
Did you know?
The world's first skyscraper was made of stone
Around 2667 BCE the architect Imhotep raised the Step Pyramid at Saqqara for King Djoser — widely regarded as the earliest monumental stone building on Earth. It went up roughly 4,700 years ago, more than a century before the Great Pyramid of Giza.
How we know
Step Pyramid of Djoser, Saqqara, c. 2667–2648 BCE (Shaw chronology); Imhotep credited as architect; earliest monumental stone building; predates Khufu's Great Pyramid (c. 2560 BCE) by ~a century (2667−2560=107). Age today: 2667+2026=4,693 → ~4,700 years ago.
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Saqqara
What they did here
Site of his Step Pyramid complex, the first monumental stone building.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.