Fig 1.
General location of the Djoser complex at Saqqara (inset) and drainage area of the Abusir wadi, west of the Gisr el-Mudir enclosure.
(Satellite image: Airbus Pléiades, 2021-07-02, reprinted from Airbus D&S SAS library under a CC BY license, with permission from Michael Chemouny, original copyright 2021).
Fig 2.
Drainage area of the Wadi Taflah, about 2 km south of the Djoser Complex.
(Satellite image: Airbus Pléiades, 2021-07-02, reprinted from Airbus D&S SAS library under a CC BY license, with permission from Michael Chemouny, original copyright 2021).
Fig 3.
Contour lines extracted from the 1:5,000 topographical map [52] “Le Caire, sheet H22”.
Fig 4.
a. The Gisr el-Mudir check dam (Satellite image: Airbus Pléiades, 2021-07-02, reprinted from Airbus D&S SAS library under a CC BY license, with permission from Michael Chemouny, original copyright 2021); b.: Digital Elevation Model generated from the 1:5,000 topographical map “Le Caire, sheet H22”.
Fig 5.
Cross-section of the Gisr el-Mudir’s west wall (location on Fig 4A., purple rectangle).
Figure adapted from [58].
Fig 6.
Elevation profiles along the eastern (red line) and western (black line) walls.
Fig 7.
a. West-east elevation profile of the Gisr el-Mudir structure. b: Schematic reconstitution of the profile with water flow.
Fig 8.
View of the Deep Trench area (red parts) south of Djoser’s complex.
Water from the Abusir Lake can follow two parallel circuits.
Fig 9.
View of compartment-1 of the rock-cut deep trench [78] (1943), 27m deep, 3m wide.
a: View from the west; b: View from the east. The workers in the background provide a sense of the structure’s immense scale and technicity.
Fig 10.
View of the operating structure of the deep trench, found to be a water treatment system.
View of the south face.
Fig 11.
Overview of Djoser’s complex subterranean layout, focusing on the Latvian mission’s discoveries (orange parts)–courtesy of Monnier [1].
Fig 12.
a.: Granite box of Djoser’s complex north shaft serving as an opening-closing system for the water flow coming from side tunnels -source: [113]. b.: Limestone piles supporting the box - source: [3]. c: Diagram of the North Shaft plug system. Redrawn from Lauer sketches [108].
Fig 13.
The identified building process of the step pyramid: A hydraulic lift mechanism.
Fig 14.
Sketch of the hydraulic lift principle.
The lift platform (red line), and extension support (orange line) during the unfolding of the lower element are represented. The associated holes are to be localized in further excavation of the upper part of the shaft.
Fig 15.
North Saqqara map showing the relation between the Abusir water course and the Step Pyramid construction process (Inset). The arrows figuring the flow directions are approximate and given for illustrative purposes based on the Franco-Egyptian SFS/IGN survey [52]. Satellite image: Airbus Pléiades, 2021-07-02, reprinted from Airbus D&S SAS library under a CC BY license, with permission from Michael Chemouny, original copyright 2021.