The Step Pyramid of Djoser
The first large stone building anywhere, designed by a man remembered as a god.
- When
- Known to
- ± 30 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Imhotep builds Djoser's tomb at Saqqara around 2670 BCE as six diminishing mastabas stacked into a step pyramid 62 metres high — the first monumental structure in dressed stone. Its columns imitate bundled reeds and its stone doors are carved permanently open, translating perishable architecture into permanent material. Imhotep was later deified as a god of medicine and wisdom, an unusual afterlife for an architect.