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Plan of Teti's Pyramid at Saqqara in Egypt
Though there are more storerooms, the basic components and layout of the mortuary temple are also very similar to those of Djedkare and Unas. However, there is a small courtyard along the southern part of the east facade that was connected to the causeway. The actual entrance to the mortuary was in the middle of this courtyard and had a heavy, single paneled wooden door over a quartzite doorstep. The entrance corridor had a high, vaulted ceiling decorated with stars and lighted by only a small opening in the east wall. It had an alabaster floor and the walls were also decorated, though little remains of these reliefs.
This corridor leads to the mortuary temple courtyard that had eighteen pink granite pillars, all of which were square except for those in the corners. As usual, the king's name and titles were inscribed in deep relief. The ambulatory over the pillars was originally inscribed and had scenes painted in polychrome on bas relief. in the middle of the courtyard once stood a low stone alter.
To either side of the entrance hall and courtyard are symmetrically arranged storage annexes, and just behind the courtyard is the transverse corridor that we so frequently find dividing the outer part of the mortuary temple from the inner sanctums. The walls of the corridor were originally decorated with scenes showing the king and gods, the sed festival and the smiting of Egypt's enemies. From here, the five niche chapel is accessed from a low stairway in the middle of the west wall.
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Burial Chamber in Teti's Pyramid
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The royal sarcophagus
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Inscriptions in the bottom of the sarcophagus
This main pyramid has a core of five steps, with subterranean corridors and chambers similar to those of Djedkare's and Una's pyramids. Rather than in the wall, the entrance was in the pavement of the courtyard of the mortuary temple dug into the pavement along the pyramid's north wall. The entrance corridor had a barrier made up of three granite plugging blocks in the middle of its level section, and both the beginning and the end of the corridor was sheathed with pink granite.
The corridor connects with an antechamber with a right 90 degree turn towards the burial chamber. Both of these rooms had gabled ceilings made from three layers of huge limestone blocks. The top of the lowest level of the three layers was slightly above the base of the pyramid. The walls of the burial chamber are covered with limestone. Both the walls of burial chamber and antechamber are inscribed with the pyramid text and have astronomical ceilings (with stars).
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Pyramid Text from Teti's Pyramid
The sarcophagus stood on the west wall of the burial chamber along with the funerary equipment, but is now gone. On the southwest corner of the location where the sarcophagus stood is a small hole in the floor that must have once held a canopic chest. Though decorated with inscriptions, the sarcophagus was never finished. An arm and shoulder of a mummy who we presume to be Teti was found on the burial chamber floor. There was also fragmentary remains of an alabaster tablet with the names of the "seven sacred oils". To the east of the antechamber (left) is a serdab, with three deep niches.
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