Userkaf

The origin of Userkaf is uncertain. He was probably a member of a side branch of the Fourth Dynasty family. Some Egyptologists think his mother was a Neferhetepes, perhaps a daughter of Djedefre. Others see him as a son of Menkaure or of Queen Khentkaus I. His wife was most likely another Neferhetepes, who was buried in a small pyramid next to his, and she was the mother of his son and successor Sahure. The change of dynasty seems to have been peaceful, because officials served under both Shepseskaf and Userkaf.

A story in the Westcar Papyrus, written down many centuries later, tells of the birth of the new dynasty. Rededjet, the wife of a priest of Ra, gave birth to three sons fathered by the sun god himself, and goddesses helped at the birth. The boys were to become pharaohs and replace the family of Khufu. The tale is not history, because Userkaf, Sahure and Neferirkare were not brothers, but it shows how the Fifth Dynasty was remembered: as the dynasty of the sun.

Userkaf built his pyramid at Saqqara, right next to the north-east corner of the enclosure of Djoser. It was about 49 metres high with a base of about 73 metres, much smaller than the pyramids of Giza, and its core of rough stone has collapsed into a heap. Because there was no room to the east, his mortuary temple was built on the south side. Its walls were covered with fine painted reliefs, including some of the earliest scenes of birds and hunting in the marshes.

Around his fifth year Userkaf began a new kind of building at Abusir, a few kilometres north of Saqqara: a temple for the sun god Ra, called Nekhenre. It stood on raised ground, with an open courtyard and an altar under the sky. The temple was enlarged in several phases after his death, and its great obelisk was added later. Five of his successors built sun temples of their own. A stone vessel inscribed with the name of Userkaf's sun temple was found on the Greek island of Kythera, the oldest evidence of contact between Egypt and the Aegean world.

The Palermo Stone lists the gifts of Userkaf year by year. He gave land and daily offerings of bread, beer, cattle and geese to Ra, to Hathor, to the gods of Heliopolis and to the old shrines of Buto in the Delta, and in his sixth year he founded a temple of Horus. The annals also record workers brought from foreign lands for his pyramid. A royal decree from Tihna in Middle Egypt arranged the estates that supported a cult of Hathor. Such endowments made the temples richer and gave the priests a growing role in the state.

Two remarkable portraits of Userkaf are kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. A colossal head of pink granite from his mortuary temple at Saqqara shows him with the royal headcloth and the cobra on his brow. Apart from the Great Sphinx, it is the largest royal head preserved from the Old Kingdom. A smaller head of greywacke, about 45 centimetres high, was found in his sun temple and shows a young pharaoh wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt.

Userkaf ruled only about seven years, but he set the pattern of the Fifth Dynasty: a modest pyramid, a temple for the sun beside the royal tombs and rich gifts to the gods. Under his successors the sun cult of Ra reached its height.