Instead, these were replaced by a small settlement of mudbrick houses south of the monument from where cult priests could conduct their daily activities, rather than the usual pyramid town near the valley temple.

The monuments to Neferirkare's consort, Khentkaus II; and his sons, Neferefre and Nyuserre Ini, are found in the surrounds.

[18] Abusir assumed great import in the Fifth Dynasty after Userkaf, the first ruler, built his sun temple and, his successor, Sahure inaugurated a royal necropolis there with his funerary monument.

[25][d] The Abusir diagonal is a figurative line connecting the north-west corners of the pyramids of Neferirkare, Sahure and Neferefre.

The Egyptologist Miroslav Bárta said the location was chosen partly because of its relation to the administrative capital[e] of the Old Kingdom, Inbu-Hedj[f] known today as Memphis.

[34][35] Providing that the location of ancient Memphis is accurately known, the Abusir necropolis would have been no further than 4 km (2.5 mi) from the city centre.

[36] South-west of Abusir, workers could exploit a limestone quarry to gather resources for the manufacture of masonry blocks used in the construction of the pyramid.

[37] In 1838, John Shae Perring, an engineer working under Colonel Howard Vyse,[38] cleared the entrances to the pyramids of Sahure, Neferirkare and Nyuserre.

[39] Five years later, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, sponsored by King Frederick William IV of Prussia,[40][41] explored the Abusir necropolis and catalogued Neferirkare's pyramid as XXI.

[39] It was Lepsius who proposed the theory that the accretion layer method[g] of construction was applied to the pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty.

[46] In 1902–1908, the Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt, working for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft or German Oriental Society, resurveyed those same pyramids and had their adjoining temples and causeways excavated.

[56][57] The discovery of considerable remains of stone vessels – mostly broken or otherwise incomplete – in the pyramid temples of Sahure, Neferirkare, and Neferefre bears testament to this development.

[64] An enormous brick enclosure wall was built around the perimeter of the pyramid and mortuary temple to complete Neferirkare's funerary monument.

[68] The first build contained six carefully laid steps[60][j] of high quality limestone blocks[77][3] reaching a height of 52 m (171 ft; 99 cu).

Similarly, there was an inner frame built of smaller blocks, and making up the walls of the rectangular trench destined for the underground chambers of the tomb.

The core was indeed modelled into steps, but these were built in horizontal layers and only the stone blocks making up the outer surface were of high quality and well joined together.

[77][79] This expansion project was completed in rough order with small stone fragments intended to be cased in red granite.

[60][61] This left large portions of the mortuary temple susceptible to erosion from rain and wind, where stone would have given it significant durability.

A limestone block, discovered in the 1930s by the Egyptologist Édouard Ghazouli, depicts Neferirkare with his consort, Khentkaus II, and eldest son, Neferefre.

[64] Rather, the cult pyramid was replaced with a small settlement, called Ba Kakai,[k] of mudbrick lodgings for priests, south of the monument.

[85] Under normal circumstances, the priests tending to the deceased pharaoh's funerary cult would have lived in a 'pyramid town' built in the vicinity of the valley temple, situated on the Abusir Lake.

[113] Borchardt initially thought a ruined structure on the southern side of Neferirkare's complex to be an unimportant mastaba, and surveyed it only briefly.

[114][115] Perring had previously discovered griffonage on a limestone block from the site of Neferirkare's tomb which mentioned "the King's wife Khentkawes".

[116][n] Originally built with a base length of 65 m (213 ft; 124 cu), slightly shorter than that of Sahure's pyramid, and with only a single step completed, the plan had to be altered to accommodate the remains of the king.

[118] For this reason, the pyramid was hastily converted into a squared mastaba[75][117][119] and completed with the application of limestone facing at a slope of 78° and a clay and desert stone capping.

[98] Upon taking the throne, Nyuserre undertook to complete the three unfinished monuments of his closest family members: his father, Neferirkare; his mother, Khentkaus II; and his brother, Neferefre.

[92] The causeway connecting the valley temple to the mortuary complex was originally intended for Neferirkare's pyramid, but Nyuserre had these diverted, to serve his monument.

[3][123][124] The Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal says that "this was the most important known collection of papyri from the Old Kingdom until the 1982 expedition of the Egyptological Institute of the University of Prague discovered an even richer cache in a storeroom of the nearby mortuary temple of Neferefre.

[124] They recount all aspects of the management of the funerary cult of the king including the daily activities of priests, lists of offerings, letters, and inventory checks of the temple.

[127] For example, the fragmentary evidence of the papyri indicates that goods for Neferirkare's funerary cult were transported by ship to the pyramid complex of the king.