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The valley temple was the first architectural component encountered when one entered the funerary complex.
Itwas considered the official entrance of the tomb, and mixed the structural components of both a temple and a portico.
Khufu's valley temple shows evidence of a basalt pavement, letting us know where the portico portion of the structure was located.
Such a partition is believed to symbolize both the subterranean and solar aspects of the afterlife.Khufu's causeway ran from the floodplain up to the plateau, linking together the valley temple and the mortuary temple. A traditional causeway presented itself as a paved path, enclosed by walls and often roofed.
Fragments discovered by archeologists indicate that the walls in Khufu's causeway, one of the longest known to us, were decorated with carvings and possibly paint. Depictions show a great variety of themes: stars on the ceiling accompanied by scenes of battles on the walls. Other engravings depicted the creation of the complex by illustrating craftsmen at work.
The most impressive private cemeteries of Giza are located east and west of Khufu's pyramid. The eastern cemetery was reserved for members of the royal family, while the western cemetery was mostly set aside for various court dignitaries. In both areas, private tombs, also known as mastabas, were aligned and laid out methodically in streets and avenues. This arrangement was probably an attempt at recreating the king's court for the afterlife.
To the east of Khufu's pyramid reside three smaller constructions: the three Queens' Pyramids. A stoping passage led from the ground surface to a burial chamber, cut out of the bedrock and lined with masonry. If it seems quite certain that these monuments were intended for queens' burials, the identity of the original occupants is hard to assess.
The northernmost pyramid was most likely meant for Queen Hetepheres, who is believed to have been Khufu's mother. However, in 1925 her actual tomb was discovered nearby, by accident. It was hidden at the bottom of a deep masonry pit, in an underground chamber. Within the concealed chamber, Egyptologists discovered the most complete royal funerary equipment dating from the Old Kingdom... though her body was missing.
Within the vicinity of Khufu's pyramid, Egyptologists have uncovered seven boat-pits. The exact function of such boat-shaped pits remains unconfirmed, though one can easily conjecture that it was symbolic in nature. The boat-pits being located at the eastern side of the pyramid, at the precise spot where the resuscitated king was supposed to reappear, could constitute evidence to support such an assumption.
The two southern boat-pits, each covered by a roof of huge limestone slabs, were discovered in 1954 by Kamal al-Mallakh, an Egyptian Egyptologist. Only one of them had been opened. 1224 boat parts made of cedar wood were retrieved one by one, and patiently reassembled by the master restorer Ahmed Youssef. This process took 28 years. Youssef worked by following lines of mortice and tenon joints, and by stitching parts together with vegetable ropes, all in order to keep the design as authentic as possible.
The Greek term pyramidion refers to the capstone of a pyramid, or the tip of an obelisk. In ancient Egyptian, both components were called benben. This word was also used for a specific kind of food: a cone-shaped offering made of bread. The pyramidion was intended to be a miniature reproduction of the pyramid, making it equal to the monument itself in symbolic importance.
A few pyramidia have been retrieved from pyramidal complexes.
The earliest, found in Dahshur, is undoubtedly a good example of Old Kingdom's pyramidia; it is made of limestone and has no inscriptions.
Some engraved pyramidia were recovered from private funerary chapels. Their inscriptions all related to the solar symbolism of the benben.(Behind the Scenes)
The pyramidia of the pyramids of Giza were never recovered. The reconstitution you see in the game is fictive, incorporating a golden pyramidion bearing inscriptions relevant to Khufu.
