Editing Egyptian pyramids (section)

==Historical development==
[[File:Mastaba-faraoun-3.jpg|right|thumb|The [[Mastabat al-Fir’aun]] at [[Saqqara]]]]

Preceded by assumed earlier sites in the Eastern [[Sahara]], [[tumuli]] with megalithic monuments developed as early as 4700 BCE in the Saharan region of [[Niger]].<ref name="Hassan">{{cite book |last1=Hassan |first1=Fekri |title=Droughts, Food and Culture |chapter=Palaeoclimate, Food And Culture Change In Africa: An Overview |page=17 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/0-306-47547-2_2 |year=2002 |publisher=Springer |doi=10.1007/0-306-47547-2_2 |isbn=0-306-46755-0 |access-date=25 May 2021 |archive-date=12 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512161107/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/0-306-47547-2_2 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Fekri Hassan]] (2002) indicates that the megalithic monuments in the Saharan region of Niger and the Eastern Sahara may have served as antecedents for the mastabas and pyramids of [[ancient Egypt]].<ref name="Hassan" /> During [[Predynastic Egypt]], tumuli were present at various locations (e.g., [[Naqada]], [[Helwan]]).<ref name="Hassan" />

From the time of the [[Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)|Early Dynastic Period]] (c. 3150–2686 BCE), Egyptians with sufficient means were buried in bench-like structures known as [[mastaba]]s.<ref>[http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/burialcustoms/mastaba.html Burial customs: mastabas]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517063335/http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/burialcustoms/mastaba.html|date=17 May 2011}} Burial customs: mastabas. University College London (2001) Retrieved 14 April 2005.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/burialcustoms/earlydynastic.html |title=Early Dynastic burial customs |publisher=Digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk |access-date=2012-11-16 |archive-date=22 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722231319/http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/burialcustoms/earlydynastic.html |url-status=live }}</ref> At Saqqara, Mastaba 3808, dating from the latter part of the 1st Dynasty, was discovered to contain a large, independently built step-pyramid-like structure enclosed within the outer palace facade mastaba. Archaeological remains and inscriptions suggest there may have been other similar structures dating to this period.<ref>Archaic Egypt, Walter B. Emery, pp. 144–145.</ref>

The first historically documented Egyptian pyramid is attributed by Egyptologists to the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh [[Djoser]]. Although Egyptologists often credit his vizier [[Imhotep]] as its architect, the dynastic Egyptians themselves, contemporaneously or in numerous later dynastic writings about the character, did not credit him with either designing Djoser's pyramid or the invention of stone architecture.<ref>A History of Ancient Egypt: From the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid, John Romer, pp. 294–295.</ref> The [[Pyramid of Djoser]] was first built as a square mastaba-like structure, which as a rule were known to otherwise be rectangular, and was expanded several times by way of a series of accretion layers, to produce the stepped pyramid structure we see today.<ref>''The Pyramids'', Miroslav Verner, pp. 109–124.</ref> Egyptologists believe this design served as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens.<ref>Quirke, Stephen (2001). ''The Cult of Ra: Sun Worship in Ancient Egypt''. Thames & Hudson, pp. 118–120.</ref>

Though other pyramids were attempted in the 3rd Dynasty after Djoser, it was the [[4th Dynasty]], transitioning from the [[step pyramid]] to true pyramid shape, which gave rise to the great pyramids of [[Meidum]], [[Dahshur]], and Giza. The last pharaoh of the 4th Dynasty, [[Shepseskaf]], did not build a pyramid and beginning in the [[5th Dynasty]]; for various reasons, the massive scale and precision of construction decreased significantly leaving these later pyramids smaller, less well-built, and often hastily constructed. By the end of the [[6th Dynasty]], pyramid building had largely ended and it was not until the Middle Kingdom that large pyramids were built again, though instead of stone, [[mudbrick]] was the main construction material.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Old Kingdom of Egypt |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Old_Kingdom_of_Egypt/ |website=[[World History Encyclopedia]] |access-date=2020-05-27 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423193856/https://www.worldhistory.org/Old_Kingdom_of_Egypt/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Long after the end of Egypt's own pyramid-building period, a burst of pyramid-building occurred in what is present-day [[Sudan]], after much of Egypt came under the rule of the [[Kingdom of Kush]], which was then based at [[Napata]]. Napatan rule, known as the [[25th Dynasty]], lasted from 750 BCE to 664 BCE. The Meroitic period of Kushite history, when the kingdom was centered on [[Meroë]], (approximately in the period between 300 BCE and 300 CE), experienced a full-blown [[Nubian pyramids|pyramid-building revival]], which saw about 180 Egyptian-inspired indigenous royal pyramid-tombs constructed in the vicinity of the kingdom's capital cities.{{Sfn|Lehner|1997|p=194}}

[[Al-Aziz Uthman]] (1171–1198), the second Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt, tried to destroy the Giza pyramid complex. He gave up after only damaging the [[Pyramid of Menkaure]] because the task proved too large.{{Sfn|Lehner|1997|p=41}}