Page 33 - اثار مصر الفرعونية2

The entrance to the pyramid was found on the north side,
opening at ground level in the pavement of the court beneath a
small entrance chapel. A passage slopes down to meet a corridor
and horizontal passage which was originally blocked by three
granite slabs. The antechamber lies beneath the centre of the
pyramid, with a room containing three niches to the east and the
burial chamber to the west. Following the plan of other pyramids
of this period the roof of the burial chamber was gabled but the
ceiling was painted with golden stars on a deep blue background
to represent the night sky. White alabaster lined the walls of the
burial chamber. This was incised and painted on the west wall,
with designs in black, white, yellow, blue and red intended to
imitate the wooden structure covered by reed wall hangings of a
royal palace or a niched archaic mastaba. More notably, Unas
was the first king to have texts inscribed on the walls of his final
resting place.

Columns of beautifully carved blue painted hieroglyphs on
the remaining walls of the burial chamber, antechamber and parts
of the passages depict 283 'spells' which were part of a body of
texts known today as the "Pyramid Texts". These texts,
comprising almost 800 known "spells" or 'utterances', describe
the different stages of royal rebirth and were intended to
safeguard his or her journey from death to the Netherworld,
presumably to be read by the deceased. It is thought that the texts

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