Editing Sahure (section)

=== Mortuary temple ===

[[File:Berlín Sahure 19.JPG|thumb|upright=1.33|alt=Relief showing two rows of people with hieroglyphic signs|[[Nome (Egypt)|Nome]] deities and personified agricultural estates marching into the mortuary temple of Sahure with offerings]]

Sahure's mortuary temple was extensively decorated with an estimated {{convert|10000|m2|sqft|abbr=on}} of fine reliefs.{{sfn|El-Shahawy|Atiya|2005|p=33}} This extensive decoration seems to have been completed within Sahure's lifetime.{{sfn|Strudwick|1985|p=64}}
The walls of the entire {{convert|235|m|ft|abbr=on}}-long causeway were also covered with polychrome bas-reliefs.{{sfn|Lehner|2008|p=143}}{{sfn|Mark|2013|p=271}} Miroslav Bárta describes the reliefs as "the largest collection known from the third millennium BCE".{{sfn|Bárta|2017|p=6}}

Many surviving fragments of the reliefs which decorated the walls of the mortuary complex are of very high quality and much more elaborate than those from preceding mortuary temples.{{sfn|Clayton|1994|pp=60–63}}{{sfn|Borchardt|1910|p=Plate (Blatt) 9}}
Several of the depictions are unique in Egyptian art. These include a relief showing Sahure tending a myrrh tree (''[[Commiphora myrrha]]'') in his palace in front of his family;{{sfn|El Awady|2006b|p=37}}{{sfn|El Awady|2009|loc=pls.
5–6}} a relief depicting Syrian brown bears and another showing the bringing of the [[pyramidion]] to the main pyramid and the ceremonies following the completion of the complex.{{sfn|Strudwick|2005|p=86}} The high craftmanship of the reliefs is here manifested by the finely rounded edges of all figures, so that they simultaneously blend in with the background and stand out clearly.{{sfn|Allen ''et al.''|1999|p=333}}
Reliefs are sufficiently detailed to permit the identification of the animals shown, such as [[hedgehog]]s and [[jerboa]]s,{{sfn|Evans|2011|p=110}} and even show personified plants such as corn represented as a man with corn-ears instead of hair.{{sfn|Eisler|Hildburgh|1950|p=130}}

The many reliefs of the mortuary, causeway and valley temples also depict, among other things, Sahure hunting wild bulls and [[hippopotamus]]es,{{sfn|Allen ''et al.''|1999|p=276}} Sahure being suckled by Nekhbet,{{sfn|Budin|2014|pp=45–46}}
the earliest depictions of a king fishing and fowling,{{sfn|El Awady|2009|loc=pl. 13}}{{sfn|Hsu|2012|p=281}} a counting of foreigners by or in front of the goddess [[Seshat]], which Egyptologist [[Mark Lehner]] believes was "meant to ward off any evil or disorder",{{sfn|Lehner|2008|p=143}} the god [[Sopdu]] "Lord of the Foreign Countries" leading bound Asiatic captives,{{sfn|Mumford|2006|p=55}} and the return of an Egyptian fleet from [[Asia]], perhaps Byblos. Some of the low relief-cuttings in red [[granite]] are still in place at the site.{{sfn|Brinkmann|2010a|loc=Book abstract, English translation [https://www.liebieghaus.de/en/exhibitions/sahure available online] and on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20190322004805/https://www.liebieghaus.de/en/exhibitions/sahure Internet archive]}}{{sfn|Brinkmann|2010b|loc=Video presentation of the exhibition}} Among the seminal innovations of Sahure's temple are the earliest relief depictions of figures in adoration, either standing or squatting with both arms raised, their hands open and their palms facing down.{{sfn|El-Khadragy|2001|p=187|loc=see footnote 2}}

The mortuary temple featured the first palmiform columns of any Egyptian temple,{{sfn|Lehner|2008|pp=142–144}} massive granite architraves inscribed with Sahure's titulary overlaid with copper, lion-headed waterspouts, black basalt flooring{{sfn|Hoffmeier|1993|pp=118–119}} and granite dados.{{sfn|Lehner|2008|pp=142–144}}