Egypt - The Step Pyramid

This was one of the earlier attempts The Egyptians had at pyramid building.
You can visit it in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis.

The Step Pyrmid was built ca. 27th century BC during the third dynasty for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by his vizier, Imhotep. Imhotep was a brilliant architect.

The design was a revolution. It started off as a standard mastaba tomb — a flat-roofed rectangular monument with sloping sides  made of dried clay brick. These usually covered underground passages where the deceased was entombed.

For reasons we don't know,  Imhotep decided to expand the original structure by stacking mastabas (each smaller than the last) on top of each other. This evolved into a 197-foot-high (60 meters) pyramid, with six layers.

 It is estimated that there is 11.6 million cubic feet (330,400 cubic meters) of stone and clay.

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