Pyramid of Djedkare-Isesi

29.8508°N, 31.2192°E.

Late Fifth-Dynasty pyramid at South Saqqara, Egypt, built for pharaoh Djedkare-Isesi, who reigned approximately 2414–2375 BCE. Original base 78.75 metres per side; original height 52.5 metres at a 52° slope. The local Arabic name is Haram el-Shawaf — the Sentinel — because the eroded core still rises above the South Saqqara ridge and is visible from the valley below. Djedkare moved the royal cemetery away from Abusir, where his Fifth-Dynasty predecessors had clustered, and broke the sun-temple tradition that had defined the dynasty for a century — neither his reasons nor his theology are recorded. The substructure includes a descending corridor, three granite portcullises, an antechamber, a serdab with three niches, and a burial chamber that still contained fragments of the king's mummy when re-excavated in 1945; CT analysis published in 2019 estimated his age at death as roughly fifty. The mortuary temple has produced inscribed reliefs naming Queen Setibhor, whose own pyramid lies immediately to the north.

He ruled longer than any of his predecessors except Pepi II and left fewer texts than almost any of them.