Imhotep · Science

The Step Pyramid: The First Mountain of Stone

The leap from mudbrick tomb to a man-made mountain of dressed stone at Saqqara - the first monumental stone building in history, and the engineering problem it solved. Imhotep is credited as its architect, and here the securely-known evidence, not the legend, does the teaching.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that the Step Pyramid was the first monumental building in dressed stone, a stack of ever-smaller mastabas rising in six steps at the centre of a vast stone mortuary complex, and that building it meant solving new problems of quarrying, coursing, and design. Explain what made it a turning point, and what w…

Leads to Manetho.

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