DJOSER. DIOSER-IT, TOSORTHROS, HORO NETJRIKHE

Dynasty: III ( 2700-2630 BC)
Years of reign: 29 (Manetone); 19 (Canon in Torino) [ 2680-2650 BC (Manetone)]
History placement: Ancient Reign 2700-2200 BC.

He is considered the founder of the III dynasty, though some recent cataloguing prefer to precede pharaoh Sanakht, and he is certainly the most important, up to the point that in the “Royal Canon in Torino” his name is specially written in red ink.
His main undertaking is the great pyramid in steps in Saqqara that dominates the city of Menfi.
It’s an imposing building that raises, with six steps of different height, up to 71 meters.
The building complex, brought back to light and restored in rather recent years, is among the most impressive sights that Egypt offers.
The pyramid in steps was originally created as a “mastaba” with a square base instead of oblong, but successive changes from the initial project gave it the remarkable aspect that we admire today.
Some bas-relief, in the labyrinth of underground corridors, represent the king in ritual attitudes and the exquisite delicacy of the work, show that the sculptors’ of the time were masters in this technique as in the roundish sculptural one in the noble statue of the sitting Djoser that belongs to the finds.
The estimate of the duration of Djoser’s reign is controversial, according to the Canon in Torino it was 19 years long, while according to Manetone, the years of reign were 29. The discovery, in the funeral complex, of a courtyard for the Jubilee celebration, has not been helpful, because it was usually celebrated for the thirtieth year of reign, but which even other pharaohs celebrated with great advance during their own reign.
In the pyramid in steps, Djoser is always defined with his Horo name (Netjrikhe), as it was then the custom (the family name was pointed out and enclosed in the cartouche only in the following dynasty).
Manetone, in his list, doesn’t cite any Djoser but mentions, as the second king, the name Tosorthos.
The only proof that identifies Djoser as Horo Netjrikhe and as Manetone’s Tosorthos is in a long rocky inscription of the tolomeo epoch in Sehel island (first cataract) where it’s narrated that king Netjrikhe Djoser, concerned for the famine that for seven years afflicted the country, asked advice to the wise Imhotep.
Knowing this way that the flood of the Nile was under control of the god of Elefantina island, Khum, the king pacified him giving him the wide area from lower Nubia called Dodecasheno by the Greeks, as a gift.