APOD: 2022 May 4 - Planets Over Egyptian Pyramid

A good Hump Day afternoon, Rallypoint, and welcome to the May 4th Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Planets Over Egyptian Pyramid." The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara provides the backdrop for today's APOD. From left to right you see Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn arrayed before the sunrise.

A 'mastaba' is a rectangular monument of dried clay brick that covered underground passages. Prior to Djoser's reign as Pharaoh, mastaba tombs were the customary form for graves. Djoser's vizier, Imhotep (c. 2667 BCE), conceived of building a more impressive tomb for his king by stacking mastabas on top of one another, progressively making them smaller, to form the shape now known as the Step Pyramid.

From the worldhistory.org article: "The pyramid and its surrounding complex was designed to be stunning and inspire awe. Djoser was so proud of his accomplishment that he broke precedent of having only his own name on a monument and had Imhotep's name carved as well. The complex consists of the Step Pyramid, the House of the North, the House of the South, the Serdab, the Heb Sed Court, the South Tomb, Temple T, and the Northern Mortuary Temple. All of these, with the surrounding wall, made up a complex the size of a city in ancient Egypt."