ABSTRACT
The temples at the side of the Step-pyramid are the earliest known stone buildings in Egypt; they date to the IIIrd dynasty, and were erected by King Zoser the builder of the Step-pyramid. They are extremely important in the history of stone-building, and show the first efforts of Egyptian architects in that material. As early as the Ist dynasty granite and limestone had been used in the Royal Tombs at Abydos, though only for floors; actual stone building, i.e. the placing of stones one above the other to form a wall, does not appear to have been practised so early. Walls in the prehistoric and the earliest historic periods were of lattice smeared with mud, of wood, or of sun-dried brick, and it is not till the time of Zoser that stone building first appears. Manetho records that Tosorthros (now identified with Zoser) was the first to build a house of hewn stone. This might be a reference to the pyramid or to the temple or to its dependent mastaba-tombs; but the statement indicates that building in stone was so novel a method of construction as to be worthy of remark by those ancient recorders from whom Manetho drew his information.
