The 'pyramid' of Sai : State of Research

Florence Thill (1)

1 STL - Savoirs, Textes, Langage (STL) - UMR 8163

This contribution is aimed at giving a first report on several seasons of investigations in the area of the 'pyramid' of Saï. This enigmatic monument lies at the northern part of the SAC5 New Kingdom cemetery and is lined, along its northwest edge, by a perplexing feature: a small cemetery for animals, excavated during the 1975 season, though not yet published. After a chronological review of the successive fieldwork campaigns between 1975 and 2010 and a report of their main finds, notably a sandstone stela picturing Amun as a ram exiting a thicket of papyrus, the paper presents a first attempt to interpret the fieldwork results. By integrating some architectural elements of the pyramid monument with noteworthy features on some funeral objects from the nearby New Kingdom elite cemetery, it seems possible to propose that a cult of the solar god, Ra or Ra-Horakhty, flourished in Sai during the New Kingdom. This cult might have developed within the broader context of the evolution of religious ideas in Egypt in Dynasty 18 and notably, as early as the reign of Thutmose III, the renewal of the solar cult which then flourished under his successors.

Mots clés: Nubian archaelogy

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Florence Thill. The 'pyramid' of Sai : State of Research. Neal Spencer, Anna Stevens and Michaela Binder. Nubia in the New Kingdom. Lived experience, pharaonic control and indigenous traditions , 3, Peeters, pp.193-211, 2017, British Museum Publications on Egypt and Sudan, 978-90-429-3258-6. ⟨halshs-01619183⟩