The Fifth Dynasty of Egypt – The Cult of Ra, the Sun God

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We are smack dab in the middle of the Old Kingdom period during the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. This was an uncertain time for the ancient civilization. There is no denying that the Great Pyramid Builders of the Fourth Dynasty left behind an impressive and long-lasting legacy, which is still admired to this day. However, we also can’t ignore the fact that they depleted Egypt’s resources with their massive construction projects. Even during the Fourth Dynasty, after Khufu and Kafra, the pyramids were already starting to shrink, a sign that Egypt simply did not have the materials and workforce to maintain the same grand scale forever.

This placed the Fifth Dynasty pharaohs in a conundrum. You see, pyramids were still very much in vogue, and no self-respecting pharaoh would have been ready to journey to the afterlife without one. On the other hand, stone didn’t grow on trees, so the Fifth Dynasty had to compromise and make do with what they had. But that was okay because the pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty had found a new focus: the worship of Ra, the sun god.

The first pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty was Userkaf, who reigned during the early 20th century BC. This is when we start to become more informed about the pharaohs of Egypt because they began writing more down, but the information is still severely limited compared to pharaohs from later dynasties. For example, Userkaf’s parentage, ascension to the throne, and relationship with the previous king are all uncertainties. Tradition portrays him as part of the same royal family as the pharaohs before him. Perhaps he was the son of Neferirkare, the daughter of Pharaoh Djedfre. There is zero information on Userkaf’s father, but given that he came to rule over Egypt, it would not be crazy to assume that the previous pharaoh, Shepseskaf, could have been his father. After all, they share the same naming convention, and scholars believe that the transition of power between the two was peaceful because many important administrators from Shepseskaf’s time were in office when Userkaf became pharaoh.

That does beg the question, though, of why exactly Userkaf would trigger the start of a new dynasty and not simply continue the previous one. For that, you can blame a scholarly priest named Manetho. He was the one who came up with the dynastic divisions, but he lived thousands of years later during the Third Century BC. Modern historians have kept using his system more out of convenience than accuracy, but they are well aware that sometimes these separations seem a bit random, such as in this case. If anything, the division might have more to do with Userkaf’s predecessor than with him since Shepseskaf was somewhat of a maverick who broke away from the traditions established by the previous pharaohs of his own dynasty. Most significantly, he did not build a pyramid for himself, instead preferring to commission a mastaba, which was a smaller proto-pyramid with a flat roof that the pharaohs from the First Dynasties used as tombs. He also moved away from Giza, instead building his mastaba at Saqqara, which again served as an acropolis for some of the older pharaohs.

We don’t know why he did any of this; he probably had a good reason. Since his Fourth Dynasty was all about the pyramids, was it simply that his nation had been left too impoverished by his predecessors to afford the resources for such giant construction projects? Or was it because the pyramid was strongly associated with the cult of Ra, and Shepseskaf felt that this minor deity was becoming too powerful? Ultimately, it didn’t really matter since none of his changes stuck around after he was gone. During the Fifth Dynasty, it looked like pyramids and sun gods were back on the menu, and it all started with Userkaf.

If the Fourth Dynasty is most notable for the magnitude of its pyramids, then the Fifth is defined by the worship of Ra and his emergence as the most powerful deity in the Egyptian pantheon. It seems that Userkaf had a short and obscure reign of only seven to eight years, but that time was enough for him to complete two important constructions that set the tone for the pharaohs who followed him. First up was his own pyramid, which he built at Saqqara, close to the step pyramid of Djoser from the Third Dynasty. The Pyramid of Userkaf, which nowadays lies in ruins, was a far cry from the grandeur and opulence of the colossal structures we see at Giza. It was less than 50 meters tall, yet another sign that the construction projects of Khufu and his successors forced the Fifth Dynasty pharaohs to temper their expectations. For comparison, the Great Pyramid of Giza was almost 150 meters tall, roughly three times the height of Userkaf’s pyramid. However, it seems that the mortuary temple was quite nice, with rich and elaborate wall reliefs, so it could be that Userkaf simply chose a quality-over-quantity approach to his final resting place. Or it could be that he was more interested in building something else: a sun temple that he dedicated to Ra, a practice that would be repeated by almost all the other Fifth Dynasty kings.

Also of note was the fact that the temple was constructed at Abusir, a new location that many of the Fifth Dynasty rulers used as the spot for their eternal tombs. Every now and then, pharaohs like to switch up their burial sites for various reasons and start a new metropolis. While we don’t know any specific reason why the Fifth Dynasty rulers switched from Giza to Abusir, it’s not hard to imagine that they probably did not want their final resting places to be permanently overshadowed, both figuratively and literally, by the Great Pyramids of the guys who came before them.

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Userkaf was followed on the throne by Sahure, and once again, the circumstances behind his ascension remain a mystery. Although most scholars believe that Sahure was either the son or younger brother of the previous pharaoh, which is a pretty safe bet. Whatever the succession, it occurred peacefully. From a construction perspective, Sahure mirrored his predecessor closely. He too built a pyramid and a sun temple, both at Abusir, thus abandoning the old necropolises of Saqqara and Giza completely. His pyramid was also of modest dimensions, even a little smaller than that of Userkaf, but once again, it had a snazzy mortuary temple.

Sahure’s reign was almost double the length of Userkaf’s, and it seems that he spent a lot of that time traveling to meet his neighbors, sometimes bringing his army along for the ride. A military campaign against Libya is mentioned in the reliefs of Sahure’s mortuary temple, as are several forays into the Sinai Peninsula. Sahure plundered the local mines and returned to Egypt with shipments of copper and turquoise. In order to do this, Sahure had to vanquish a new foe, one we had never seen mentioned before: the land of Punt. Ancient history is full of these small and obscure kingdoms that never became big or enduring enough to leave behind evidence of their existence, and today they are simply remembered as names in a different culture’s historical record.

There is another one that is mentioned for the first time during the reign of Sahure: the Land of Punt. This ancient kingdom was probably bigger and certainly more important to the Egyptians than the Mentuhotep because it was a one-stop shop for myrrh, incense, electrum, ebony, malachite, gold, resins, and all other sorts of rare and shiny commodities. Numerous references to expeditions to Punt were found from multiple pharaohs going all the way up to the reign of Hatshepsut during the New Kingdom, a thousand years after Sahure. So it seems that this civilization stuck around for a good while. Given how rich and long-lived it was, it is a little surprising that Punt left behind almost no traces of its existence today. Archaeologists aren’t even sure of its location, although they believe it was probably somewhere in the Horn of Africa, southeast of Egypt.

Sahure was succeeded by Neferirkare, and we find ourselves in the exact same situation as before, where we’re not sure if the new pharaoh was the son or younger brother of the previous one. Although scholars seem to lean towards the latter. Also like Sahure, Neferirkare was responsible for one pyramid and one sun temple at Abusir. Word on the street is that his temple was the biggest and best of the bunch, but it has yet to be located, showing us that ancient Egypt still has mysteries waiting to be uncovered.

The Pyramid of Neferirkare is also worth mentioning. It seems that the pharaoh had regained some of the ambition and grandiosity that defined the Fourth Dynasty because he definitely wanted to go out in style. Or maybe it was simply a sign that Egypt’s coffers were starting to fill up once more, and the pharaoh could afford to splurge again on his final resting place. Either way, Neferirkare’s pyramid was the biggest thing at Abusir. In fact, at a height of approximately 72 meters, it would have been taller than the Pyramid of Menkaure, which is the smallest of the three main pyramids of Giza.

Another unique aspect of Neferirkare’s pyramid was that it started out as a step pyramid, which basically consists of multiple mastabas of decreasing size placed on top of each other. These had not been used since the Third Dynasty, so perhaps Neferirkare was the original trendsetter who wanted the retro look to be cool. The step pyramid was also 20 meters shorter, so maybe the pharaoh saw that one finished and decided that it needed to be bigger. Unfortunately for Neferirkare, he never saw the finished product. He might have had the resources and the ambition, but he didn’t have the health to see the construction to the end. He died after approximately a 10-year reign with his pyramid unfinished. But luckily for him, some of his successors liked him enough to complete his tomb.

As far as Egyptologists are concerned, the Pyramid of Neferirkare was one of the most significant structures of ancient Egypt, not because of its size or how it was built, but because of what they found inside it. The Abusir complex contains one of the largest collections of Old Kingdom documents in the world. Most notably, they are the earliest known documents that were written in hieratic script. While we’re sure you’ve all heard of hieroglyphics, the famously intricate writing system used in ancient Egypt, that was actually reserved mainly for formal documents, religious texts, wall inscriptions, and things like that. Nobody had time to draw birds and eyes of Horus just to write a receipt or a recipe. So the Egyptians created hieratic, which was a simpler and faster cursive script. It was used for almost 2,000 years until it was replaced by an even simpler script known as demotic.

His contributions to our understanding of ancient Egypt aside, nothing else of note is known about Neferirkare. But if it makes you feel any better, we know even less about the two pharaohs who followed him since they only stuck around for a short time before passing away. The first was Shepseskare. Egyptologists are actually uncertain where exactly he fits in the timeline, but after Neferirkare seems to be the best bet. He wasn’t the previous pharaoh’s son, so he most likely was his brother. This means that he was probably pretty old when he took the throne, which could explain why his reign only lasted for a few months. As you might imagine, Shepseskare did not get the chance to make much of an impression. It seems like every dynasty has at least one guy who survives as nothing more than a name on a wall somewhere. But we can say about Shepseskare is that he probably started work on his pyramid. There is an unfinished platform at Abusir, and by the process of elimination, Egyptologists surmise that it belonged to him. However, construction on it only lasted for a few weeks, and unsurprisingly, the pharaohs who came after him felt no obligation to continue his work since it meant almost starting from scratch, and they had their own eternal souls to worry about. Therefore, Shepseskare is the only ruler of the Fifth Dynasty without any kind of tomb.

His successor made a slightly bigger impact, but not by much. His name was Neferirkare, and there is actually evidence to suggest that he was the eldest son of Neferirkare and his queen, Kenthos II. He was around for a couple of years, enough to start work on his pyramid at Abusir. There is also word that he built a sun temple, but for the moment, it remains purely hypothetical. Either it exists and we haven’t found it yet, or it was never finished and possibly repurposed by another pharaoh. As far as his pyramid was concerned, only the first step of Neferirkare’s tomb was completed by the time he died. Again, his successor did not finish it, but he did improvise and turned it into a mastaba. So at least something was completed.

The next pharaoh felt some kind of duty towards him. That’s not surprising given that the historical records suggest that the next pharaoh was Neferirkare’s younger brother. His name was Nuserre, and he would go on to have the longest reign so far, serving as pharaoh for at least two and a half decades. This gave him enough time to work not only on his own building plans but also to finish or renovate a few projects from earlier pharaohs, such as the solar temple of Userkaf, Neferirkare’s aforementioned mortuary temple, the pyramid of Neferirkare, who by most accounts would have been Nuserre’s father, and even the valley temple of Menkaure from the Fourth Dynasty.

As far as his own constructions were concerned, Nuserre followed the traditional Fifth Dynasty formula: one sun temple, one pyramid at Abusir, plus the extra features like mortuary temples, queens’ pyramids, valley temples, etc. Strangely enough, his own pyramid was on the smaller side, even though he had plenty of time to make it as big as he wanted. Even in his glory days, it rose to just slightly above 50 meters. This was probably due to the pyramid’s odd location. All of the previous ones were situated on the same axis with plenty of space between them, but Nuserre chose to squeeze his pyramid between those of Sahure and his father. This allowed him to do a clever bit of recycling by taking the unfinished causeway and valley temple that reached the Nile River, which were originally intended for his father’s pyramid, and divert them to his own, thus saving a fair bit on materials and labor. Maybe Nuserre was just practical and frugal, or maybe this was a sign that Egypt was still hurting financially following the exorbitant excesses of the Fourth Dynasty. Or maybe Nuserre simply had other priorities.

His pyramid might not have been anything to write home about, but his sun temple was a different matter. He built it at Abu Garab, a short distance from Abusir, and made it entirely of stone, which was a costly endeavor, but it ensured that the winds of time would not be able to huff and puff and blow it down as easily as the others. That included a giant obelisk and a boat replica, also made of stone, which might have had some kind of symbolic or ceremonial significance. It’s fair to say that Nuserre was the most prolific builder of the Fifth Dynasty. Despite the long length of his reign, he spent most of his time on construction and renovation projects, so he really didn’t have much time for anything else.

We’re going to venture into murky waters following the death of Nuserre. His successor is very poorly attested in the historical record, and the few things that we do know about him only make him more mysterious. For starters, you’ll notice that his name does not end in “Ra,” in reference to the sun god, a divergence from all other Fifth Dynasty pharaohs except for Userkaf. Does this mean that Menkaure wasn’t a Ra devotee? Well, maybe and maybe not, since ancient texts say that he still built a temple to worship the sun god. If it exists, it has yet to be found because Menkaure chose to abandon Abusir. We don’t know what prompted this move, but Nuserre was the last ruler to be buried there because the pharaohs who followed him decided to pack up and go back to Saqqara. Menkaure built his pyramid at Saqqara as well; at least that’s what we assume. Its location is also up in the air a bit, and it wasn’t until 2008 that some ruins known as the Headless Pyramid were tentatively identified as belonging to the pharaoh, although it is not exactly a settled matter yet.

Menkaure had a short reign of eight to nine years, but his successor went in the complete opposite direction and enjoyed the longest reign of the Fifth Dynasty, possibly even exceeding 40 years, according to some king lists. His name was Jedkara, and although he is well attested in the historical record, his relationships with his predecessors and his successor are unspecified. Scholars usually take the safe approach and assume that he was the son or younger brother of the guy who came before him since there’s no sign of him being usurped.

Just like Menkaure, Jedkara began to stray from the traditions established by the other pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty. For starters, he did not build a sun temple at all, and this wasn’t due to a lack of time or resources; he chose not to do it, perhaps a sign that the worship of Ra had fallen out of fashion with the new pharaohs. He also favored Saqqara over Abusir as the location for his pyramid