Gisr el-mudir

Gisr el-Mudir, (Arabic for "enclosure of the chief"), also known as the Great Enclosure, is the oldest known stone structure in Egypt, located at Saqqara only a few hundred metres west of the Step Pyramid and the Buried Pyramid. The function of the space is not yet clear.

The structure consists of a rectangular wall oriented north-south and measuring about 650 metres x 50 metres. The walls consist of two outer walls made of roughly hewn limestone about 15 metres apart; the space between them is filled with crushed stone, gravel and sand. In the northwestern corner, the walls survive to a height of 4.5 - 5 metres (over 15 courses of stone). The style of construction suggests an original height of around 10 metres. In the south the state of preservation is clearly worse than in the north. Since the west wall of the structure is 30 metres shorter than the east, the south wall probably consisted of two parallel walls forming an entranceway. This pattern recurs in the larger funerary complex of Djoser's step pyramid.

The walls were probably completed and in the inclosed area no remains of a construction have been found, so there cannot have been a pyramid or mastaba at the centre, since these constructions would have had to have been erected before the completion of an enclosure wall. A small building may have existed in the northwest corner of the space, since numerous limestone, pink granite, and basalt fragments were found there.John Shae Perring demonstrated that a small hill which was once found in the centre of the enclosure was the leftover debris from the excavation of a tomb in the Greek period.

Spoliation of stone for new construction afflicted Gisr el-Mudir much less than other buildings in the area, probably because of the poor quality of the stone used in its construction.

To the north and northeast of Gisr el-Mudir are the remnants of similar structures.

Already in the investigation of Saqqara by John Shae Perring in 1837, the outline of the enclosure was detected. It was also noted by Karl Richard Lepsius (1842-1846) and Jacques de Morgan (1897), but it was not excavated.

...
Wikipedia