The Amazing Ancient Egyptian SLIDING DOOR Sarcophagus | Ancient Architects

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe now to get the latest ancient history news and independent research from around the world. When you think of the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the famous Step Pyramid of Xhosa comes to mind, as well as the man responsible for its construction, the genius Imhotep. King Xhosa, whose Horus name was Netjeriket, was the founder of the dynasty, the first king. At the bottom of the huge vertical shaft below the pyramid is an enormous sarcophagus that's made of a number of large granite slabs with a granite plug on top. For a sarcophagus it really is a bizarre construction and there is also a similar granite box in the southern tomb which is also located in the Xhosa pyramid complex. But Xhosa and his incredible pyramid isn't the subject of this video. Instead I'm looking at his successor, a man rarely mentioned in YouTube videos and TV documentaries. And that's probably because his legacy is not like that of Xhosa. This king, the second of the Third Dynasty, had the Horus name Sekhemket, but was also known as Xhoserti, and was maybe the brother or eldest son of Xhosa. He too planned a stepped limestone pyramid, but for some reason, maybe the king's sudden death, this pyramid was never completed. Only the first step, the first of what is thought to have been six or seven, was completed. And so the tomb of this king was shaped like a large square mastaba. Today this structure has an unflattering name, the Buried Pyramid, and even though tourists can go and see it, nobody is allowed inside. You enter the subterranean passages from the north, where a corridor slopes down for 200 feet. Halfway down you meet a vertical shaft that comes down from above, opening to the surface and, according to experts, its entrance would lie at the second step of the pyramid, if of course the pyramid was completed. From the bottom of the vertical shaft, there is another passage that goes back northwards, where you reach a u-shaped gallery with 136 unfinished magazines. But if you continue south, the main passageway splits into more galleries, forming another u-shape with even more unfinished magazines. These surround the central burial chamber. The burial chamber measures 8.8 by 5.2 meters, with a height of 4.5 meters. Strangely, the chamber was unfinished, but a nearly completely arranged burial was found during excavations. Now, if you think the sarcophagus of Djoser is bizarre, well, the one of his successor is even more so, and it's unlike anything discovered before. The sarcophagus in the burial chamber is made of one solid piece of polished alabaster, and it has one unusual feature. There is no lid on top. Instead, the opening is on the front side, and it's sealed by a sliding door. And interestingly, this door was still plastered with mortar when the sarcophagus was found. When opened, the sarcophagus was found to be empty, and to this day, nobody knows if the site was ransacked after the king's burial, or whether the king was buried elsewhere. The man who first found the structure in the 1950s, Zachariah Ghonim, was certain the tomb was undisturbed ever since it was originally closed up. There was no forced entry, and precious objects like a gold shell-shaped container were still lying in the burial chamber, which would have surely been taken if the structure was robbed. So, where was the body? Ghonim said he was fairly certain that the chamber he discovered beneath the unfinished pyramid was in fact a dummy tomb or ritual tomb. He said that no other interpretation fitted the facts. He said that if he was correct, it would explain why other Old Kingdom kings, for example Sneferu, built two tombs, aka the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. In the Djoserty Pyramid Complex, just like in the Djoser Pyramid Complex, there are in fact two tombs, one under the pyramid and a south tomb. In the southern tomb is a vertical pit and chamber, and a wooden coffin was discovered, but it only contained the remains of a two-year-old child. Animal bones, stone vessels and gold jewellery were also discovered, and there were signs that this tomb was robbed. Did the 3rd Dynasty kings have a burial chamber and a dummy chamber within their pyramid complex? And therefore, does this explain why the pyramid complexes of Djoser and Djoserty had two tomb structures inside? Maybe, or maybe the physical remains of the kings are elsewhere. The fact we've never found the bodies of Djoser and Djoserty, as well as kings like Huni, Sneferu, Khufu, Khafre, Menkaure and so on, does make me wonder if there is a lost Old Kingdom Valley of the Kings still hidden beneath the sand. Maybe the human remains were taken out of each respective pyramid when the priests said the resurrection process had taken place. I don't know, but the remains of the kings is a mystery. In the tomb of Khufu's mother, Queen Hetaperes I, we find a closed sarcophagus and even a canopic chest with organic remains inside, but the actual body of the queen was nowhere to be found. For Djoserty, we find a sealed sarcophagus and even priceless gold artefacts, but nobody was ever discovered. Some speculate the royal mummies of the Old Kingdom were removed in the First Intermediate Period, just before the onset of the Middle Kingdom, but the truth is, nobody knows. Whatever the fate of Djoserty's remains, it's this sarcophagus that really got my attention. It really is something quite incredible and unique, and that is what I wanted to highlight more than anything in this video. Just look at how well crafted the sliding door actually is, with precision grooves on each side, so the stone door locked in place. When shut, the door is almost hidden, blending in with the rest of the box, so from the outside it does look like a solid mass. The sarcophagus itself is made from one lump of hollowed out alabaster, and yes this is a soft stone, but this is a style of stonework we don't often see in Ancient Egypt. A box with a sliding door, with only one way inside, and the opening is on the smallest face as well. There are no inscriptions on the box, but there was something organic on top, which originally was thought to be the decayed remains of a wreath, but it turned out to be bark and decomposed wood. The tomb and the remains of King Sekhemket, aka Djoserty, are a real Ancient Egyptian mystery, and I'll be taking a closer look at more early dynastic discoveries and mysteries in the coming weeks. Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ancient Architects. 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