Saqqara, Dahshur and Abusir

Saqqara, Dahshur and Abusir are usually treated as excursion destinations, an add-on for a second day. This misses the point.

If you are looking for the pyramid of Saqqara, you are usually looking for the oldest of all, which hits the start of this sequence exactly. These fields lie south of Giza on the same desert edge, and together they form a series. It begins with a stepped tower, then an attempt that went wrong, then a successful second try, then Giza, and finally something significantly smaller. The entire process takes about 150 years, and the structure most people know as the symbol of Egypt stands right in the middle of it.

This is the real reason to go, and it is stronger than any argument about crowds or entrance fees. If you only see Giza, you see a result without a backstory. If you know the sequence, you see something different on the plateau: not a miracle, but the point at which a construction task was mastered completely for the first time.

This page goes through the sequence one by one, placing practical information where it fits best, and concludes by stating which of the sites is truly worth visiting and which is not.

A note on transport upfront, because it dictates planning: There is no public transport to these sites. All three fields are remote, connected by the desert road south of Giza, and you cannot get there or back without a vehicle. This is why these places are sold almost exclusively as day trips, and not due to lack of demand.

GetYourGuide

Day trip with Giza, Saqqara and Dahshur

★ 4.5(397 Reviews)

• Includes exactly the combination argued for on this page, i.e., Dahshur instead of another city stop
• Entrance to the Giza Plateau is included, as well as pickup from your accommodation
• About seven hours, German-speaking guide available
• Clarify before booking which Saqqara tickets are included, especially the Serapeum

from 91 €

Check included stops and tickets

Saqqara: The beginning, and the ticket question

The beginning is in Saqqara, and it is older than most assume.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser was created around 90 years before the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It consists of six stacked levels and is essentially a stacked mastaba in its core, i.e., the further development of a flat burial form that already existed. If you have seen it, you understand the structures in Giza differently because you know the intermediate stage.

Practically, Saqqara is the most demanding of the three sites, specifically regarding tickets. The official overview does not list a single ticket, but a whole series: for the area, for the Djoser Pyramid, for individual tombs, for the Serapeum, plus a comprehensive combo ticket that costs many times the simple area ticket. If an excursion program mentions entrance for Saqqara, it almost never means everything.

The Serapeum is the area most often missing. It consists of underground galleries containing the sarcophagi of the Apis bulls, and it is the most impressive part of the complex. Ask explicitly for it before booking, rather than assuming it is included.

And a timing detail that determines the day: Officially, Saqqara closes at 4 p.m., one hour earlier than Dahshur. If you plan to visit both in one day, therefore drive to Saqqara first.

Dahshur: Failure and success side by side

Dahshur is the place where the development becomes visible, because failure and success stand side by side there.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities describes the process with remarkable openness. According to their description of the site, Sneferu, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty, chose the rock plateau of Dahshur for his first pyramid to compete with the Djoser Pyramid in Saqqara, but failed to complete it. From this first attempt came a bent shape, and at some distance he then built a complete pyramid, the Red Pyramid.

Thus, within a few hundred meters, there stands a textbook example: a structure whose inclination had to be changed during work, and next to it, the first pyramid in history with continuously smooth surfaces. The patron of these two was the father of the patron of Giza. According to common volume estimates, he piled up more stone mass overall than his son, just distributed over several attempts.

For visitors, Dahshur is interesting for a second reason: Both large pyramids are accessible, the entrance fee is far below that of Giza, and there are hardly any people there. If you skip the interior of Giza due to crowds, quotas, or price, you get the same experience here under more pleasant conditions. The site is open daily until 5 p.m.

Incidentally, besides the two famous ones, there are other pyramids from the Middle Kingdom standing there, including the Black Pyramid, the tip of which lies in the museum today. They are in poor condition and incidentally explain why little remains of some structures.

Meidum and Abusir

A fourth site belongs here for the sake of completeness, even though hardly anyone visits it: Meidum, significantly further south. Today, a three-tiered tower stands there, surrounded by a mountain of rubble. Whether the casing fell off during construction or long afterwards is disputed. For the sequence, however, the site is still important because it shows that the step from the stepped form to the smooth surface was not self-evident. As an excursion destination, it is only worthwhile for travelers who specifically follow this architectural history; the journey is long and there is little on site besides the structure itself.

Abusir remains, and here the information differs from the other two.

Abusir is the field of the Fifth Dynasty, i.e., the time after Giza. The pyramids there are significantly smaller and less well-preserved because they were built with less effort. The site is still interesting, however, because what was saved in mass went into decoration: Into the temple complexes, into reliefs, into an administration from which papyrus archives have been preserved. So the sequence does not end with a break-off, but with a shift.

Practically, however, there is a restriction you should know before planning. Abusir does not appear in the list of excavation sites of the Supreme Council of Antiquities; queries under various spellings returned nothing. The site thus does not belong to the usual visitor operation, and descriptions from individual providers offering a visit cannot be verified against any official statement. If you want to go, clarify access beforehand, rather than standing in front of a closed site.

Scientifically, however, the site is well documented. The Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague has been excavating there for decades and publishes continuously. If you are interested in what came after Giza, you will find more there than in any travel guide.