In fact, we know almost nothing about the thousands of objects found in and around the step pyramid at Saqqara (the so-called pyramid of Djoser), which is believed to be the oldest stone pyramid in Egypt today.
Part of the exposition of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities and the step pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser in Sakkara.
She is the first of all built, which has no comparable analogues and predecessors. The pyramid and its surroundings are a unique place in terms of the number of art specimens and stone household utensils found. Although fragments of similar items were found by the Egyptian explorer William Petrie in the area of the Giza plateau.
The virtuoso works performed in granite raise a lot of questions today and testify not only to the high level of art and craft, but, possibly, to the more advanced technology of pre-dynastic Egypt.
There are a number of unresolved issues regarding these stone items.
The fact is that they bear undoubted traces of machining - circular grooves left by the cutter during the axial rotation of these objects during their production on some mechanisms such as a lathe.
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In the upper left image, these grooves are especially clearly visible closer to the center of objects, where the incisor worked more intensively in the final stage.
Also visible are the grooves left by a sharp change in the feed angle of the cutting tool.
Similar traces of processing can be seen on the basalt bowl in the right photo (Ancient Kingdom, kept in the Petri Museum).
Above: granite sphere (Saqqara, III Dynasty, Cairo Museum), calcite bowl (III Dynasty), calcite vase (III Dynasty, British Museum).
These stone spheres, bowls and vases are not only the household utensils of the ancient Egyptians, but also examples of the highest art ever found by archaeologists.
The paradox is that the most impressive exhibits date from the earliest period of ancient Egyptian civilization.
They are made from a wide variety of materials - from soft, such as alabaster, to the most "difficult" in terms of hardness, such as granite.
Virtuoso works made in granite raise a lot of questions today and testify not only to the high level of art and craft, but, possibly, to the more advanced technology of pre-dynastic Egypt.
Stone items like this vase on the left were made in the earliest period of Egyptian history and are no longer found in the later. The reason is obvious - the old skills were lost.
Some of the vases are made of very brittle schist stone (close to silicon) and - most inexplicably - are still finished, processed and polished to the point where the edge of the vase almost disappears to the thickness of a sheet of paper.
By today's standards, this is simply an extraordinary feat of an ancient master.
Other products, carved from granite, porphyry or basalt, are “completely” hollow, and at the same time with a narrow, sometimes very long neck, the presence of which makes the internal processing of the vessel obscure, provided that it is made by hand (right).
The lower part of this granite vase is processed with such precision that the entire vase (approximately 23 cm in diameter, hollow inside and with a narrow neck), when placed on a glass surface, after swinging, assumes an absolutely vertical position along the center line.
At the same time, the area of contact with the glass of its surface is no more than that of a chicken egg.
A prerequisite for such an accurate balancing is that a hollow stone ball must have a perfectly flat, uniform wall thickness. Nowadays, it is very difficult to make such a product even in a ceramic version. In granite it is almost impossible.
Such technological delights can amaze any manufacturer today - a rather large (60 cm in diameter or more) original product made of slate is exhibited in the Cairo Museum.
It resembles a large vase with a cylindrical center 5–7 cm in diameter, with a thin outer rim and three plates evenly spaced around the perimeter and bent towards the center of the "vase". This is an ancient example of amazing craftsmanship.
The images below show only four of the thousands of items found in and around the step pyramid at Saqqara.
Many of Saqqara's finds have symbols engraved on the surface with the names of the rulers of the earliest period of Egyptian history - from the pre-dynastic kings to the first pharaohs.
Judging by the primitive writing, it is difficult to imagine that these inscriptions were made by the same master craftsman who created these exquisite samples. Most likely, these "graffiti" were added later by those people who one way or another turned out to be their subsequent owner.
So who made them? And How? And where? And when? And what events happened to those people whose household utensils were buried in the oldest of the Egyptian pyramids?
No answer.