page_title: Pyramid of Sahure
section_title: Cult of Sekhmet
hierarchical_section_title: Pyramid of Sahure / Later history / Cult of Sekhmet
caption_attribution_description: English: Relief fragment of Sekhmet from the mortuary temple of Sahure. Taken from Ludwig Borchardt's Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sahur-Re (1910).
context_page_description: The Pyramid of Sahure is a late 26th century BC to 25th century BC pyramid complex built for the Egyptian pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty. Sahure built the inaugural pyramid in Abusir after his direct predecessor, Userkaf, built his sun temple in the same area. Sahure's successors, Neferirkare Kakai, Neferefre, and Nyuserre Ini all built their monuments in the general vicinity. The complex's early visitors, John Shae Perring, Karl Richard Lepsius and Jacques de Morgan, did not conduct a thorough investigation, perhaps they were discouraged by its ruined state. It was first properly excavated by Ludwig Borchardt between March 1907 and 1908, who penned the seminal work on the topic Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sahu-Re between 1910 and 1913.
  The monument consists of a main pyramid, mortuary temple adjacent the east face with a cult pyramid to its south, a valley temple on Abusir Lake, and a causeway linking the complex. The layout was developed by Sahure and adopted by succeeding kings of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty, thus representing a milestone in pyramid complex construction.
context_section_description: During the Eighteenth Dynasty, the south corridor of Sahure's mortuary temple became home to a cult of Sekhmet. Its early history is unknown, and though Borchardt suggested that the cult had its origins in the Middle Kingdom, there is no evidence to support this conjecture. The earliest attested royal connection to cult is Thutmose IV, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, followed later by Ay and Horemheb. Amenhotep III, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, has been connected to the temple through a faience object bearing his name, as have Seti I and Ramesses II, of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, through restoration inscriptions bearing their names. The renewed attention had a negative consequence as the first wave of dismantlement of the Abusir monuments, particularly for the acquisition of valuable Tura limestone, arrived with it. Sahure's mortuary temple may have been spared at this time due to the presence of the cult. The cult's influence likely waned after the end of Ramesses II's reign, becoming a site of local worship only.
  The Abusir necropolis and Sahure's cult garnered attention once again in the Twenty-Fifth and/or Twenty–Sixth Dynasties, as evidenced by the copying of relief art from the monuments. Taharqa, of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, had various reliefs replicated – such as images of the king crushing his enemies as a sphinx – from the mortuary temple's of Sahure, Nyuserre, and Pepi II for the restoration of the temple of Kawa in Nubia. In the late Twenty-Sixth to the early Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, a new period of dismantlement appears to have been visited on the monuments. Sahure's was once again spared, protected by the cult into the Ptolemaic Kingdom, though it had very reduced influence at this time. A third wave of dismantlement of the Abusir monuments is clearly attested in the Roman period by the abundant remains of mill-stones, lime production facilities, and worker shelters. At the beginning of the Christian era, Copts founded a shrine in the temple, as shown by pottery and Coptic graffiti dating to between the fourth and seventh centuries AD. Periodic farming of the monuments for limestone continued at least until the end of the 19th century AD.
caption: Relief fragment depicting Sekhmet from Sahure's funerary monument
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