The structure was discovered at the beginning of the 1980s by a Czech archaeological team led by Miroslav Verner, who noticed the levelled ground and the T-shaped burial trench.

[3] Deciphering the genealogy and chronology of the Fifth Dynasty has been a complex problem for historians due to the dearth and ambiguity of available historical sources.

[11] The development of the Abusir necropolis further supports this chronological re-arrangement: the pyramids of Sahure, Neferirkare, and Neferefre form a diagonal that links to Heliopolis, implying an order for those three rulers.

To follow the Abusir-Heliopolis diagonal, the succeeding ruler would have needed to site the pyramid 1 km (0.62 mi) from the Nile valley, and thus deep into the desert.

[6][4] Presuming this inferential assignment is correct, Verner suggests that Shepseskare may have been more closely related to Userkaf and Sahure, than to Neferirkare Kakai's bloodline.

Instead he chose an area northwest of the Pyramid of Sahure, halfway to the Sun temple of Userkaf, as his building site.