Models of the Pyramid Complex of King Sahure at Abusir. Made by Stegemann Brothers, Berlin, 1910; restored by Anne Heywood, The Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation, and Ronald Street, Molding Studio, Metropolitan Museum, 1998. Wood, plaster, sand, cardboard; H. of model of pyramid and pyramid temple 24 1/2 in. (62 cm); H. of model of valley temple 5 in. (12 cm); scale of both 1:75. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Dodge Fund, 1911 (11.165).

The larger model represents the pyramid temple and the front half of the pyramid, the smaller model shows the valley temple; the long causeway is cut away. The pyramid complex of Sahure is the earliest and best preserved example of a building type of which ten examples are known from the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty and one or two from the Twelfth Dynasty (reigns of Senwosret I and probably of Amenemhat II). The buildings vary so little that a common plan for the architecture and decoration must have existed. The model re-creates the vast undecorated limestone wall surfaces of an Old Kingdom temple, which enhanced the inaccessibility of the sacred space. Even the colonnades in the valley temple, with their red granite columns, were added to the exterior without offering direct access to the interior.