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Pyramids

ANCIENTEGYPT often receives queries from readers asking where they can find information on certain subjects and usually which are the best books. In an occasional series "so you want to know about" AE will try to help. In the first of this series, Aidan Dodson looks at published works on the ever-popular subject of "Pyramids".

The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Sakkara

The published literature on the pyramids is massive, and potentially bewildering, in its volume and complexity. Comprehensive lists of primary publications of all ancient Egyptian monuments are to be found in Porter and Moss 1933/1999 (and continuing), although many volumes are now of course out of date.

An indispensable large-scale compilation of technical data and plans concerning the pyramids themselves is provided in V. MARAGIOGLIO and C.A. RINALDI, L’architettura delle Piramidi Menfite, (Rapallo: Officine Grafische Canessa, 1963? 77?; its text is in Italian and English), continued until the end of the Old Kingdom in A. LABROUSSE, L’architecture des pyramides à textes, III (Cairo: IFAO 1996/2000).

As far as general treatments are concerned, a very brief summary is provided by P. WATSON, Egyptian Pyramids and Mastaba Tombs (Princes Risborough: Shire Egyptology, 1987).

Two long-lived classics are I.E.S. EDWARDS The Pyramids of Egypt (Harmondsworth: Penguin, various editions from 1947 to 1985) and A. FAKHRY The Pyramids (Chicago: University Press, 1961/72). Each takes a rather different approach, Edwards dealing in detail with only certain pyramids, but going into some depth regarding theoretical issues to do with the pyramid complex. Fakhry’s is a more straightforward monument- based work, reflecting its author’s status as a distinguished field archaeologist.

However, although still key texts, both are now becoming increasingly out of date, as is L. GRINSELL, Egyptian Pyramids (Gloucester: Bellows, 1947).

M. LEHNER The Complete Pyramids of Egypt (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997) and A. SILOTTI, The Pyramids (London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1997) include much more recent work, but both have notable omissions, while Silotti dilutes his book with a seemingly-random set of Old Kingdom private tombs.

Taking a similar approach, but far better, is Z. HAWASS, Treasures of the Pyramids (White Star, 2003).

Another recent work is M. VERNER, The Pyramids (London: Atlantic, 2001,) a worthy successor to Edwards’ volume, which is particularly good on the significance of the pyramid.

Finally, an up-to-date monument-by-monument guide, with photographs and basic plans, is A. DODSON, The Pyramids of Ancient Egypt (London: New Holland, 2003).

View of the Pyramids of Giza from the South

Professor VERNER is also responsible for a masterly account of the Abusir cemetery, where he has excavated for many years (Abydos: Realm of Osiris Cairo: American University Press, 2003).

A similar work on Saqqara is provided by J.-Ph. LAUER, Saqqara, Royal Necropolis of Memphis (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), while substantial volumes focus on the Sudanese pyramids (D. DUNHAM, The Royal Cemeteries of Kush, I-IV (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1950/63), but the remaining pyramid necropoleis currently lack equivalents, although a volume on Giza is promised by Hawass, and an elaborate technical study of the Old Kingdom private tombs of Giza was provided by G. REISNER, A History of the Giza Necropolis, I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942).

Otherwise, one is forced to fall back on the general pyramid books already mentioned, or search out the original excavation reports. These are in a range of languages, and also vary widely in readability: at the positive extreme are the works of WINLOCK; at the other are numerous other volumes and articles! Queenly pyramids are generally little treated, receiving only passing mention in most books, apart from MARAGIOGLIO and RINALDI’s work, and specific excavation reports. The exceptions are P. JANOSI. Die Pyramidenanlagen der Königinnen: Untersuchungen zu einem Grabtyp des Alten und Mittleren Reiches (Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996) which is a dedicated study of queen’s tombs during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and A. LABROUSSE, Les pyramides des reines. Une nouvelle nécropole à Saqqâra (Paris: Hazen, 1999), dealing with those of the Sixth Dynasty.

The various general books usually include a section on how the pyramids might have been built. Perhaps the most authoritative work on Egyptian building in general is D. ARNOLD, Building in Ancient Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). The same author’s The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001) is also useful. For the technology employed, the standard work is P. NICHOLSON and I. SHAW (eds.), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), while absolutely indispensable for understanding how stones were worked is D. A. STOCKS, Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt (London: Routledge, 2003). The latter proves once and for all how stones such as granite were cut and shaped, using stone tools and the combination of copper saws, drills and the key ingredient? – sand.

Rather more controversial discussions of pyramid building are to be found in P. HODGES, How the Pyramids were built (Shaftesbury: Element Books, 1989) and R. PARRY, Engineering the Pyramids (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2004).

The history of the exploration of the pyramids has been treated by various works, but key for the early years is L. GREENER, The Discovery of Egypt (London: Cassell, 1966). For the earlier Arab explorers, works from the ninth through sixteenth centuries are abstracted in R.W.H. VYSE, Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837, 3vv (London: James Fraser/John Weale/G.W. Nickisson, 1840/42), II: with some summarised (not necessarily correctly) in L. COTTRELL,. The Mountains of Pharaoh (London: Robert Hale, 1956).

The latter is a most readable account of pyramid exploration down to the 1930s, but lacking in detail (and on occasion accuracy), except for early work at Giza. For the pyramid explorers themselves, biographies are given for most in W.R. DAWSON, E.P. UPHILL and M.L. BIERBRIER. Who Was Who in Egyptology, 3rd edition (London: EES, 1995); some have left memoirs, for example G. JÉQUIER, Douze ans de fouilles dans la Nécropole Memphite (Neuchâtel: Secrétariat de l’université, 1940), and the long-posthumous De Mémoirs de Jacques de Morgan (Paris and Montreal: L’Harmattan, 1997).

Ongoing work can be traced through the annual summaries published by Jean Leclant and others in the journal Orientalia, and more regularly in Egyptian Archaeology and Salima Ikram in KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. The printed and on-line press also sometimes picks up snippets of Egyptological news, unfortunately often badly transmogrified in the transmission, with names and places mangled or wholly wrong! For reliable on-line news, one cannot beat Egyptology Resources (http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/egypt/), run by Nigel Strudwick, and providing links to most reputable Egyptolgical websites. It goes without saying that cyberspace hosts many sites whose engagement with Egyptological reality is tangential.

This list of books is by no means comprehensive, but should provide readers of AE with more than enough information (at least to begin with!).

Aidan Dodson is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Bristol. He is the author of eight books and over a hundred articles and reviews.

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