Heb Seds and Pyramid Design
This is going to be a series of articles as I want to consider each structure in turn.
So the separate posts ordered by time will be as follows :

Part 1 Khasekemwy’s Tomb
Part 2 Djoser’s Complex
Part 3 The Bent Pyramid
Part 4 The Red Pyramid
Part 5 The Great Pyramid
Part 6 Khafre’s pyramid
Part 7 The 5th and 6th Dynasties
Part 8 Summary and Conclusions

I have tried to back up the claims with evidence but some explanations may be speculative.
Please feel free to give constructive comments.

Introduction

Depicted on the walls of King Orsokon’s (22nd dynasty 923BC) Sed Festival Palace was Amon Re, king of the gods, promising this gift “I give thee millions of Sed Festivals, thy years of eternity ... on the throne of Horus”.

Orsokon lived 35 years. His remaining Heb Seds must have been after death !
The value of this gift was that the Heb Sed was regarded as the only way to achieve eternal life.

This article suggests how pyramids and their complexes were designed to achieve it.

A first assumption is that the pyramids could only become ‘effective’ as ‘Resurrection Machines’ with the addition of rituals and spells (magic). The Heb Sed falls into this category.
Dieter Arnold wrote that the meaning of buildings like the pyramids is other than simply “mortuary” insofar as the overall architectural program of these complexes not only provided a burial place for the king but more importantly supplied a framework for the rites that transformed the human and mortal king into an immortal and divine being.
The afterlife Heb Sed (Festival of the Tail) was a periodic repeat of a collection of rituals (and spells) designed to achieve this.

The main parts of it were :

• a revivication of the king
• ascension to the stars
• meetings and acceptance by the gods
• a run around markers wearing a bull’s tail to show fitness
• a double crowning before the stellar deities.

It is very likely that if a pyramid and its complex were completed within the king’s lifetime, then it was used for his Sed Festival while living. In one part of the Festival the king would lay in the sarcophagus, ritually die, and be reborn. Then he would do the run and the crowning. Not all parts would have been public.

Khasekemwy’s Tomb

In the royal cemetery at Abydos, Khasekemwy, the father of Djoser, built two structures in mudbrick.
One was his tomb and burial chamber, the other was the massive enclosure Shunet El Zebib.
There is little doubt that the Shunet El Zebib enclosure was for the purpose of his Heb Seds.
The Palermo stone confirms that he performed at least one during his lifetime.
And of all the grave goods that the King wanted to take to the afterlife, the enclosure was probably the most valued.

The huge enclosure represented the cosmos in the afterlife Heb Seds. It comprised two halfs, the northern sky and the southern sky.
The king’s run went across the whole enclosure where the resurrected king would take control of the two skies.
After this there would be a double crowning of north and south on a throne placed in a dais with steps up. This was attended by the stellar deities. The 14 stellar boats at Abydos ‘parked’ alongside the enclosures belonged to celestial gods who attended.

Nothing remains in the enclosure. There was a small brick chapel for his cult. All the structures for the Heb Sed were presumably made of wood and cloth and have decayed.
The tomb was just over 1km from the Enclosure in the cemetery. It was excavated by Dreyer in 1988 and has since been reburied under the sand. The tomb was constructed of mudbrick (except for the burial chamber) in a trench over 6 metres deep. It is thought there would have been a mound on the surface with the same shape.



It had a different shape to others at Abydos - long and thin with 20 dividing walls down its length.
Another internal wall went down its length to the burial chamber.
The two extensions at the south end was a chapel for offerings.

How was this linked to the enclosure so far away and how could the deceased king perform the afterlife rituals there from the tomb ?


Notice that the shape was uncannily similar to the stars surrounding the celestial pole in the north of the sky.
The stars in the shape were Kocab, Mizar, Pherkad, Alioth together with the pole star Thuban in the centre.
The rotating stars’ shape is shown vertical and I have drawn on the twenty equal divisions.

. . . .

The position of the burial chamber inside Khasekhemwy’s tomb is interesting. The chamber split the 20 divisions into 11 and 9.
Looking at the circumpolar ‘double’ above, the celestial pole also makes the same ratio split of 11 to 9 divisions between the top and bottom stars.

So, assuming this counterpart of the tomb in the stars is correct; in the Heb Sed the tomb became this star shape in the northern sky, the enclosure became the sky which thus enclosed these stars in its northern half.

The burial chamber ‘double’ was near the celestial pole of the sky where the king met and sought approval of the stellar gods and was crowned after his ascension.
From here, the resurrected king believed he would rule over heaven - forever.

With the star software it should be possible to date the tomb. The star shape appeared to move across the meridian over the years due to the precession of the stars.
To replicate the position of the meridian as seen in the tomb, the year that matches is 2600BC approximately.
Later than most chronologies, but exactly in line with Kate Spence’s.

In Part 2 we will see how King Djoser with the help of Imhotep took the ideas of his father, Khasekhemwy, much further in his complex at Saqqara.

Conclusion
According to the above explanations, the design of the tomb and the enclosure were greatly influenced by the Heb Sed requirements for the King’s afterlife.