Egypt's 4,600-year-old pyramid of Zoser: a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 1

The company tasked with preserving the pyramid of Zoser was instead recently accused of ruining it.
The company tasked with preserving the pyramid of Zoser was instead recently accused of ruining it. © Mohamed El-Shahed/AFP

The pyramids at Giza are infinitely more famous than Zoser’s. The pyramids at Dahshur are bigger. But none of them might have been built had Zoser’s not come first, in about 2600 BC.

For his step-pyramid is not only the first of its kind. It is also the world’s oldest large-scale stone monument to survive more or less in tact (the nearby Gisr el-Mudir may have been even broader, but did not survive antiquity). Its experimental construction was therefore a major turning-point in the evolution of stone architecture.

The pyramid of Zoser: a ‘revolutionary idea that changed the course of human history’.
The pyramid of Zoser: a ‘revolutionary idea that changed the course of human history’. - It’s also a glimpse, perhaps, of the world’s first starchitect. No one was ever explicitly named as the pyramid’s designer, but the widely-held belief is that it was a man called Imhotep, whose name is found on a statue near the entrance to the pyramid. Imhotep’s abilities appear to have been extraordinary: other records show he was a doctor and high priest, as well as the king’s chief carpenter, head sculptor, and second-in-command. Years after his death, he was given the status of a god.As Jeffreys says: “Imhotep becomes himself an iconic figure, not only architect – and possibly not one at all in the technical sense – but an early power merchant. How else could the labour for the pyramid be arranged and organised on a national scale?”The ambition of his creation nods to the growing power and bureaucracy of the world’s first nation-state. To build Zoser’s pyramid, Egypt needed not just workers, but managers and civil servants. In previous generations, historians think the royal family might have dealt with most of the country’s administration. But the expansion of Memphis’s burial grounds forced the creation of “a more structured bureaucracy, opened up, for the first time, to career professionals drawn from a wider section of society and promoted on merit”, writes Toby Wilkinson in The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. “As Egypt embarked on pyramid-building, the pyramids were building Egypt.” © Danita Delimont/Alamy

Guardian Cities is kicking off a special series delving into the evolution of cities across the globe, by looking at 50 buildings which tell incredible stories about urban history. From the Zoser pyramid of Memphis, the first purpose-built capital city some 5,000 years ago, through to the world’s first skyscraper in Chicago and the occupied half-built Tower of David in Caracas, our history of cities in 50 buildings will explore how technology, religion, politics and culture have shaped urban development through time.