Abusir

The Abusir pyramid complex is located on the Western Desert plateau at the edge of the cultivated plain, with the Giza Pyramids to its north, and Saqqara to its south, and served as one of the main elite cemeteries for the ancient Egyptian capital city of Memphis [1]. The locality of Abusir took its turn as the focus of the prestigious western burial rites operating out of the then-capital of Memphis during the Old Kingdom Fifth Dynasty [1]. Abusir was the origin of the largest find of Old Kingdom papyri to date — the Abusir Papyri [1]. In the late nineteenth century, a number of Western museums acquired collections of fragmentary papyri from the administrative records of one Abusir funerary cult, that of king Neferirkare Kakai [1]. Also found at Abusir were substantial remains of a Ramesside temple, perhaps built by Ramses II [1].