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Book Review The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient Mysteries Mark
Lehner

Article in Journal of Near Eastern Studies · July 2001

DOI: 10.1086/468917

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Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Ronald J. Leprohon
Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jul., 2001), pp. 191-193
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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JULY2001 BOOKREVIEWS 191

prominence of Maat and to private individuals other Ramesside pharaohs.Nor are they limited
appealing directly to the Aten in private texts of to-or even relatedto-the POM.
the Amarna period, seriously undermining Ass- There is a sense of tension between the humil-
mann's thesis that Maat was jettisoned as an ity inherentin Seti's posture in ritual scenes and
ethical standard after the Amarna period when the more traditional royal ideology expressed
Egyptians sought direct contact with the gods through the king's building program, which in-
without royal intermediaries.She also objects to cluded great royal colossi, obelisks, and temples
the notion of personal piety among the kings. dedicated to the cult of the deified ruler.2Such
Certainly,the increased frequencyof the POM in tension arose from Seti's position as the scion of
monumental reliefs and the importance of Maat a nascent dynasty who was aware-as were his
in the titularies and ideological statements of subjects-of his nonroyal pedigree. On the one
Ramesside kings shows that it had not declined hand, he sought to prove his worthiness to the
in importance. Instead the iconography of the gods throughpious actions on their behalf, often
POM shows a continuity with and evolution with an air of royal humility. At the same time,
from Eighteenth Dynasty examples. The do ut he consciously molded himself in the image of
des relationship of god and king as expressed in his great Eighteenth Dynasty predecessors, es-
the Ramesside ir.f di Cnhformula indicates that pecially Amenhotep III. Against this historical
the king was able to influence the actions of the background, we find a greatly increased occur-
gods, in contrastto Assmann'snotion of personal rence of the POM in temple reliefs, including a
piety, which held that all mortals were powerless new variant by which the royal name was first
over divine will. equated with Maat and offered up to the gods by
Teeter'srebuttalof Assmann'sinterpretationof Seti I.
personal piety in the Ramesside age is well In sum, this well-written and importantwork
founded and convincingly argued. This is not to contributes greatly to our understandingof the
say, however, that there was no sense of personal functions and ideology of the POM ritual, the
piety in this age, only that the role of Maat, far offering formulas in ritual texts, and to a clarifi-
from diminishing, flourishedin Ramesside times. cation of the role of Maat and personal piety in
With regard to her observations on the king's the wake of the Amarna period. It should serve
relationship to the gods at this time, although I Egyptology well for many years to come.
generally agree with her conclusions, I would
take issue with her conclusion that there was PETERBRAND
never a sense of royal humility before the gods in
Toronto
the Ramesside period: "nordoes the king assume University of
humble postures (bending or kneeling before the
god) any more than he did in previous eras" 2 See my article "The 'Lost' Obelisks and Colossi
(p. 85). This is true of most Ramessides but not of Seti I,"JARCE34 (1997): 101-14.
for Seti I and Ramesses IV. Under Seti I, in par-
ticular, it is common to find the king bowing,
kneeling with an inclined torso, or crouched in a
semiprostratestance before the deity.1These pos- The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient
tures are, I believe, indicative of an official atti- Mysteries. By MARK LEHNER. London:
tude of royal humility toward the gods on Seti's Thames and Hudson, 1997. Pp. 256 + 556
part. With the exception of some examples of figs. $34.95.
Ramesses IV in the KarnakHypostyle Hall col- Yet another outstanding offering in the Com-
umns and in the temple of Khonsu,however, such plete series,1 this book concentrateson the pyra-
postures are rare or absent from the reliefs of mids. One can well imagine the challenge faced
1 See N.
1 Cf.
Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun:The
Calverley and Broome, Abydos, vols. 1-4, King, The Tomb,The Royal Treasure(London, 1990);
passim. This iconography is discussed in my doctoral and N. Reeves and R. H. Wilkinson, The Complete
thesis The Monumentsof Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt's
and Art Historical Analysis (Leiden, 2000). Greatest Pharaohs (London, 1996).
192 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES VOL. 60 No. 3

by the author:how to avoid repeating the infor- mid Texts spells inside the pyramid of Unas;5
mation already given in the plethora of books and an explanation of the shape of the pyramid.
dealing with the pyramids written for scholars The second major section is a marvelous ac-
as well as nonspecialists.2 Lehner has handled count of the early travelers to pyramid sites-
this skillfully by giving his readers an informa- some even dating back to Pharaonic Egypt-
tive account that could only have been written medieval legends and attempts at breaching the
by someone with the extensive experience and Great Pyramid, and on to the first endeavors by
knowledge that come from having spent so many Europeans at interpretingthe pyramids. This is
years in the field surveying, examining, and ask- followed by a survey of the Napoleonic expedi-
ing ever more questions about this subject. tion, Belzoni and his contemporaries, Lepsius
The book begins with introductory remarks and Mariette,and the subsequentbirthof a schol-
on the geography of the Nile Valley, the pyra- arly field. Much of this is well-traveled territory,
mid as a mortuarytemple, a quick history of the but the authormust be congratulatedfor his vivid
development of the pyramids, and a description prose andhis choice of illustrativematerial,from
of the standard pyramid complex, along with charming sketches of the Sphinx dating back to
useful sidebars on ancient Egyptian chronology, the mid-sixteenth century to useful photographs
a chart giving us a cross-section of each of the of modern excavations. One minor quibble: on
Old and Middle Kingdom pyramids along with p. 47, the text on the medallion struck to honor
its name and measurements,3and a map show- the now famous phrase about the forty centuries
ing the location of the major pyramids. These looking down upon Napoleon's men does not
opening statements are followed by four major contain the vocative "Soldiers."
sections: "Tomb and Temple," "Explorers and The third major section, a chronological cata-
Scientists,""The Whole PyramidCatalogue,"and logue of all the pyramidsin Egypt and the Sudan,
"The Living Pyramid." perforce occupies the bulk of the book. This is
The first section of the book, on the religious where the author'svast knowledge of the subject
beliefs underlying the pyramids, is divided into really comes to the fore. The catalogue begins
five subsections. The first, on mummificationand with the origins of the pyramidat Hieraconpolis
on the concepts of the ka, the ba, and the akh, in the Early Dynastic period and goes on to the
will be useful to students of ancient Egyptian early royal tombs at Abydos. The latter descrip-
religion who do not possess more detailed and tion relies heavily on the recent work done at the
less easily available studies on the subject.4Next site by G. Dreyer, W. Kaiser, and D. O'Connor
comes an account of the burial rituals-along and exemplifies the strengthof the book: by vis-
with a wonderful representation of an ancient iting the sites and talking with the excavators,
Egyptian funeral from the Sixth Dynasty tomb of Lehner has avoided rehashing old information
Qar at Giza-followed by a description of the and has, instead, provided fresh new material to
ancient Egyptians' view of the Underworld;re- his narrative.
marks on the Pyramid Texts and the categories The catalogue of pyramidsis well known and
of spells found therein, including a useful iso- need not be repeated here, but a few comments
metric drawing showing the location of the Pyra- may be in order. In the subsection on the late
Fourth Dynasty, the drawing of Queen Khent-
kaues shown on p. 138 is misleading. The repre-
2 One immediately thinks of the various editions of
sentation of the queen wearing a uraeus and a
I. E. S. Edwards's The Pyramids, easily available in
paperback (London, 1947-91), which must surely
false beard from her tomb at Giza should not
stand in the library of every person interested in an- show what seems to be a leaf-like attachmentto
cient Egypt. the back of the vulture headdress, since this is
3 Echoing the chart shown in J. Baines and J.
simply a breakin the stone, as the photographin
Milek's Atlas of Ancient Egypt (New York, 1980), M. Verner,Forgotten Pharaohs, Lost Pyramids:
pp. 140-41; and Edwards, The Pyramids, rev. ed.
(London, 1991), pp. 289-90. Abusir (Prague, 1994), p. 129, clearly shows. I
4 For example, S. D'Auria and P. Lacovara, eds., remain unconvinced by the attempts to show, on
Mummies and Magic: The Funerary Arts of Ancient
Egypt (Boston, 1988), mentioned in the bibliography 5 Cf. a similar drawing in S. Quirke, Ancient Egyp-
on p. 246. tian Religion (London, 1992), p. 153.
 JULY 2001 BOOK REVIEWS 193

p. 167,NebhepetreMentuhotep'smortuarytemple and the supplying of the royal mortuarycult. A

capped by a podium instead of the older recon- final subsection on the legacy of the pyramid
structionwith a pyramid.Unless the pyramidde- examines some more modern uses of the pyra-
terminative following the name of the funerary mid shape, from ancient Rome to the twentieth
estate in the owner's title on the Twelfth Dynasty century.
stela of the Chief Lector Priest of Nebhepetre's The book ends with a touristic account of the
mortuarytemple6is simply a convention, the ear- best way to visit pyramids in Egypt today, fol-
lier reconstructionshould be taken seriously.7On lowed by an excellent bibliographyinto which an
p. 180, the remarkson AmenemhatIII'spyramid- unfortunatenumberof typographicalerrorshave
ion from Dahshur,that the good condition of the crept. Most are simple omissions of agreement
pyramidionmakes us question whether it was, in of numberand gender, particularlyin the French
fact, ever set in place, might explain the erasures entries (for example, passim, correct Institute
of the divine element in the occurrences of the franqaisto InstitutFranqais),but a few that could
theophoric royal name Amenemhat (a fact not possibly mislead readerswho wish to look up the
mentioned in the book).8 If, as suggested by Leh- titles in a computer database should be pointed
ner, the capstone was kept in the king's mortuary out: p. 246, for Wilson, JEA 3 (1944), read
temple after the pyramid itself was abandoned, JNES 3 (1944); p. 250, for W. Helck, Unter-
perhaps this made it easier for Akhenaten'smen suchungen zu den Beamtiteln... (Gltickstadt,
to do their work later on. 1954), read ... Beamtentiteln ... ; p. 251, for
The last section of the book, "The Living H. Jacquet-Gordon, Les nomes des domaines
Pyramid,"will fascinate those interested in the fune'raires... (Cairo, 1962), read Les noms....
logistics of building a pyramid. After introduc- Lavishly illustrated and well written, with
tory remarkson the transportationand quarrying information that is easy to find, Lehner's book
of stone, the author then goes on to describe his is bound to become the standardwork on pyra-
efforts at building a small pyramid (9 m wide mids for a long time to come. Scholars who feel
and 6 m high), an experiment done for a NOVA they have read everything they need to know
television program.A fascinating tale ensues of about pyramids will ignore this book at their
moving stones to the site and then upward to peril. The amount of new information in its
build the pyramid. Following this are descrip- tightly packed 256 pages repays careful reading.
tions of the various tools used by the ancient The book should be on the bookshelf of every-
Egyptian quarrymen,how to survey the sites and one remotely interested in ancient Egypt as well
align the pyramids properly, and the difficult as on the reading list of every university course
question of the kinds of ramps used to raise the dealing with the period.
stone to such astonishing heights. Next comes a
discussion of the workforce and its organization RONALDJ. LEPROHON
in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, the pyramidas
an importantfactor within the Egyptianeconomy, University of Toronto

6 This is the title of

Tetu, one of two men named on Catalogue of the Monuments of Ancient Egypt
CG 20088, for which see K. Lange and H. Schdifer,
Grab- und Denksteine des Mittleren Reiches im Mu- from the Museums of the Russian Federation,
seum von Kairo, vol. 1 (Cairo, 1902), pp. 105-7, pl. 8. Ukraine, Bielorussia, Caucasus, Middle Asia
7 See also the reference to the mortuary temple and the Baltic States. By OLEGBERLEVand
of Mentuhotep II in Pap. Abbot 3:14 (= T. E. Peet, SVETLANA HODJASH. Orbis Biblicus et Orien-
The Great Tomb-Robberiesof the Twentieth Dynasty
talis, Series Archaeologica 17. Fribourg,Swit-
[Oxford, 1930], pl. 2; and G. Miller, Hieratische
Lesestiicke fiir den akademischen Gebrauch, vol. 3
zerland: Presses Universitaires; Gdttingen:
[Berlin, 1961], pl. 18:14), where the complex is clearly Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Pp. xiii +
called a mr, with the pyramiddeterminative. 328 + 208 pls. 120 Swiss francs.
8 Personal observation. The pyramidion is illus-
Rare is the museum in even a remote town
trated on p. 34 of the book under review, but see also
the excellent photograph in W. Formanand S. Quirke, that does not possess at least one ancient Egyp-
Hieroglyphs and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (Nor- tian scarab or shabti. These minor collections
man, Oklahoma, 1996), p. 73. are always of interest to Egyptologists in search

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