[7][a] During his reign, Nyuserre had the unfinished monuments of his father, Neferirkare Kakai, mother, Khentkaus II, and brother, Neferefre, completed, before commencing work on his personal pyramid complex.

He chose a site in the Abusir necropolis between the complexes of Neferirkare and Sahure, which, restrictive in area and terrain, economized the costs of labour and material.

The casing was stripped down by stone thieves, leaving the core exposed to the elements and further human activity, which have reduced the once nearly 52 m (171 ft; 99 cu) tall pyramid to a mound of ruins, with a substructure that is dangerous to enter due to the risk of cave-ins.

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

[25][b] On taking the throne, he undertook to complete the three unfinished monuments of his father, Neferirkare; his mother, Khentkaus II; and his brother, Neferefre,[2] so their cost fell onto him.

[28] To maintain the axis, Nyuserre's monument would have needed placement south-west of Neferefre's complex, deep into the desert and at least 1 km (0.62 mi) from the Nile valley.

[28][29] This site constrained the construction area to a region around 300 m (984 ft 3 in) square, but allowed for maximum economy of the labour force and material resources.

[7] In 1838, John Shae Perring, an engineer working under Colonel Howard Vyse,[31] cleared the entrances to the Sahure, Neferirkare and Nyuserre pyramids.

[32] Five years later, Karl Richard Lepsius, sponsored by King Frederick William IV of Prussia,[33][34] explored the Abusir necropolis and catalogued Nyuserre's pyramid as XX.

[32] From 1902 to 1908, Ludwig Borchardt, working for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft or German Oriental Society, resurveyed the Abusir pyramids and had their adjoining temples and causeways excavated.

[50] The core of the pyramid, between the two frames, was then packed with a rubble fill of limestone chips, pottery shards, and sand, with clay mortaring.

[53] Once the limestone casing of the pyramid was removed – for reuse in lime production[54] – the core was exposed to further human destruction and natural erosion which has left it as a ruinous, formless mound.

[55] Nyuserre's monument underwent significant stone looting during the New Kingdom, during the Late Period between the Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Seventh Dynasties, and again during the Roman era.

The ceiling of the chambers were formed by three gabled layers of limestone beams,[41] which disperse the weight from the superstructure onto either side of the passageway preventing collapse.

[63] Borchardt was unable to find any fragments of interior decoration, the sarcophagus or other burial equipment in the debris-filled chambers of the substructure, much of which was rendered inaccessible by the rubble.

[64] The Abusir pyramids were entered for the last time at the end of the 1960s by Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi, who refrained from speaking while working for fear that even the slightest vibration could cause a cave-in.

[75] A combination of factors, including shape, workmanship and elevation, suggest that the excavated wall is a part of the valley temple harbour's embankment.

[93] The hall terminates in a courtyard paved with black basalt and with a roofed ambulatory that was supported by sixteen six-stemmed papyrus pink granite columns.

The middle portions of the columns were decorated with various inscriptions detailing material such as the king's name and titles and of the courtyard's protection by the gods Wadjet and Nekhbet.

In the north-west corner of the transverse corridor separating the public, outer, and intimate, inner, parts of the temple is a deep niche occupied by a large pink granite statue of a lion which served to symbolically guard the pharaoh's privacy.

[94] North of the chapel is the antichambre carrée – so named by the architect Jean-Philippe Lauer in reference to its square shape – decorated with various reliefs, an elevated floor, and a central column.

[99] The offering hall was set along the east–west axis for religious reasons,[j] and located in its traditional place in the centre of the east face of, and adjoining, the main pyramid.

[43] Excavations by a Czech team at the mastaba of Ptahshepses', the vizier to the pharaoh and head of all royal works,[35][115] discovered a large pink granite pyramidion, taken from an obelisk, resting next to a similar square platform in the south-western corner.

[43] Borchardt erroneously ascribed the structure found in the south-east corner of the complex to Nyuserre's consort; it was, in fact, the cult pyramid.

The pyramid was constructed during Nyuserre's reign, as evidenced by Ptahshepses' name[l] appearing on blocks amidst many other masons' marks and inscriptions.

[124] Inside the wreckage of the burial chamber lie the remnants of a pink granite sarcophagus, shards of pottery, and the mummified remains of a young woman, between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age.

[35] He argues that the reunification of Egypt and subsequent stabilization at the end of the Eleventh Dynasty allowed the mortuary cults of Abusir to reform temporarily before soon dying out permanently.

[140] He argues that archaeological trace evidence found near Nyuserre's monument – such as tombs found east of the mortuary temple dated to the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom which may be associated with the royal cult through onomastica, titles, and other textual writings;[141] the writings on the false door of Ipi, dated to the First Intermediate Period, bearing Nyuserre's birth name; and an inscribed block belonging to an overseer in the nearby pyramid town of Neferirkare, found by the alternate entrance to the mortuary temple[142] – support the survival of cultic activity honouring Nyuserre from the Fifth Dynasty to the Middle Kingdom.

[143] Restoration work to the pavement of Nyuserre's mortuary temple, and an inscription from an anonymous ruler dating to the end of the Old Kingdom are further indicators of activity at the funerary monument.

The northeastern sector, located just north of the mortuary temple, established between the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom,[141][161] contains tombs of individuals associated with the funerary cult of the king.