abstract
| - Djoser or Zoser was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.
- Netjerikhet Djoser (Turin King List "Dsr-it"; Manetho "Tosarthros") is the best-known Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty, for commissioning the official Imhotep to build his Step Pyramid at Saqqara. The painted limestone statue of Djoser in the Cairo Museum is the oldest known Egyptian life-size statue. Today at the site in Saqqara in which it was found, a plaster copy of the statue stands in place of the original at the museum. The statue was found during the Antiquities Service Excavations of 1924-1925. In contemporary inscriptions, he is called Netjerikhet, meaning body of the gods. Later sources, which include a New Kingdom reference to his Step Pyramid, help confirm that Netjerikhet and Djoser are the same person. While Manetho names one Necherophes, and the Turin King List names Nebka, as the first ruler of the Third dynasty, many Egyptologists now believe that Djoser was the first king of this dynasty, pointing out that the order in which some predecessors of Khufu are mentioned in the Papyrus Westcar suggests that Nebka should be placed between Djoser and Huni, and not before Djoser. More significantly, the English Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson has demonstrated that burial seals found at the entrance to Khasekhemwy's tomb in Abydos name only Djoser, rather than Nebka. This proves that Djoser buried and, hence, directly succeeded Khasekhemwy and not Nebka. (Toby Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge, 1999, pp.83 & 95)
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