Unas was a Pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

 of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

, and the last ruler of the Fifth dynasty

Fifth dynasty of Egypt

The fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties III, IV and VI under the group title the Old Kingdom. Dynasty V dates approximately from 2494 to 2345 BC.-Rulers:...

 from the Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...

. His reign has been dated as falling between 2375 BC and 2345 BC. Unas is believed to have had two queens, Nebet

Nebet (queen)

Nebet was an Egyptian Queen, the wife of King Unas. She lived during the time of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt. She was a mother of the Crown Prince Unas-ankh.-Tomb:...

 and Khenut

Khenut

Khenut was a Queen of Egypt, the wife of King Unas. She lived during the time of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt.-Burial:Khenut was buried in a Double-mastaba with another queen named Nebet next to the Pyramid of Unas in Saqqara...

, based on their burials near his tomb.

With his death, the Fifth dynasty came to an end, according to Manetho

Manetho

Manetho was an Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos who lived during the Ptolemaic era, approximately during the 3rd century BC. Manetho wrote the Aegyptiaca...

; he probably had no sons. Furthermore, the Turin King List

Turin King List

The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is a hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio at Turin...

 inserts a break at this point, which "gives us some food for thought," writes Jaromir Malek, "because the criterion for such divisions in the Turin Canon invariably was the change of location of the capital and royal residence." However, there are several instances of uninterrupted continuity between the Fifth and the sixth dynasties

Sixth dynasty of Egypt

The sixth dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties III, IV and V under the group title the Old Kingdom.-Pharaohs:...

: Kagemni, the vizer of Unas's successor Teti

Teti

Teti, less commonly known as Othoes, was the first Pharaoh of the Sixth dynasty of Egypt and is buried at Saqqara. The exact length of his reign has been destroyed on the Turin King List, but is believed to have been about 12 years.-Biography:...

, began his career under Djedkare Isesi

Djedkare Isesi

Djedkare Isesi in Greek known as Tancheres from Manetho's Aegyptiaca, was a Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. He is assigned a reign of twenty-eight years by the Turin Canon although some Egyptologists believe this is an error and should rather be thirty-eight years...

 and Unas. Teti's queen, Iput

Iput

Iput I was a Queen of Egypt, a daughter of King Unas, the last king of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt. She married Teti, the first Pharaoh of the Sixth dynasty of Egypt. Their son was Pepi I Meryre.-Life:...

, is believed to have been the daughter of Unas, which shows Teti, Nicolas Grimal argues, "made no conscious break with the preceding dynasty." Jimmy Dunn adds that "a pink granite gateway in Unas' mortuary temple bears the inscription of the names and titles of Teti, indicating that part of the temple was completed after Unas's death." The break between the two dynasties may have been more as an official act than in fact.

The causeway of Unas's pyramid complex includes a bas relief showing how they transported a palm column by boat on the Nile.

The Pyramid Texts

He built a small pyramid

Pyramid of Unas

The Pyramid Complex of Unas is located in the pyramid field at Saqqara, near Cairo in Egypt.The pyramid of Unas of the Fifth Dynasty is now ruined, and looks more like a small hill than a royal pyramid.It was investigated by Perring and then Lepsius, but it was Gaston Maspero who first gained...

 at Saqqara

Saqqara

Saqqara is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. Saqqara features numerous pyramids, including the world famous Step pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb due to its rectangular base, as well as a number of...

, originally named "Beautiful are the places of Unas", close to the Step Pyramid

Pyramid of Djoser

The Pyramid of Djoser , or step pyramid is an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis. It was built during the 27th century BC for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by Imhotep, his vizier...

 of Djoser

Djoser

Netjerikhet or Djoser is the best-known pharaoh of the Third dynasty of Egypt. He commissioned his official, Imhotep, to build the first of the pyramids, a step pyramid for him at Saqqara...

. It has been excavated by Vyse, Barsanti, Gaston Maspero

Gaston Maspero

Gaston Camille Charles Maspero was a French Egyptologist.-Life:Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to parents of Lombard origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic writing...

, Firth, Selim Hassan, A. Husein, and Alexandre Piankoff. Its interior is decorated with a number of reliefs detailing events during his reign as well as a number of inscriptions. However, Jaromir Malek considers "the main innovation of Unas' pyramid, and one that was to be characteristic of the remaining pyramids of the Old Kingdom (including some of the queens), was the first appearance of the Pyramid Texts

Pyramid Texts

The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during...

". These texts were inscribed in Sixth Dynasty royal versions, but Unas's texts contains verses and spells which were not included in the later 6th dynasty copies. The pyramid texts were intended to help the king in overcoming hostile forces and powers in the Underworld and thus join with the Sun God Ra

Ra

Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...

, his divine father in the afterlife. The king would then spend his days in eternity sailing with Ra across the sky in a solar boat.

An example of a pyramid Text here is given below:

Re-Atum, this Unas comes to you, A spirit indestructible...Your son comes to you, This Unas comes to you, May you cross the sky united in the dark. May you rise in lightland, the place in which you shine! (Utterance 217)

In popular culture

• The American death metal
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  Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
  
   band Nile
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  Nile is an American death metal band from Greenville, South Carolina, formed in 1993. Their music and lyrics are inspired by Ancient Egyptian/Near Eastern mysticism, history, religion, and art, as well as stories by H. P. Lovecraft.- History :...
  
   have an 11:43-minute long song named "Unas, Slayer of the Gods" based on a myth about how Unas killed and ate the gods in order to achieve immortality. It appears on their 2002 album In Their Darkened Shrines
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  In Their Darkened Shrines is the third studio album by American death metal band Nile. It was released on August 20, 2002 through Relapse Records....
  
  .
• In the Sci-Fi TV series Stargate
  Stargate
  Stargate is a adventure military science fiction franchise, initially conceived by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Stargate. It was originally released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, and became a hit, grossing nearly...
  
   SG1, Unas is a species of sentient homonid and original host to the parasitic goa'uld
  Goa'uld
  The Goa'uld are a fictional symbiotic race of ancient astronauts from the American-Canadian military science fiction television franchise Stargate. The Goa'uld are parasites from the planet P3X-888, integrated within a host, most of the time human. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent...
  
  - the main antagonist species throughout the story arc.