Who they were
Djoser was a king of the 3rd Dynasty, ruling c. 2670–c. 2650 BC. His contemporary royal name was Netjerikhet; the name Djoser comes from later sources. His reign marks the start of the Old Kingdom’s great age of building and centralized administration.
What they did
He commissioned the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, a work credited to his official Imhotep: six stacked mastabas forming Egypt’s first pyramid and among the earliest monumental stone buildings in the world. The pyramid stood within a vast enclosure of courts and shrines, including a court for the heb-sed festival — a full royal complex realized in stone.
Legacy
The step pyramid form led directly to the true pyramids of the 4th Dynasty, and Saqqara remained a royal necropolis for centuries. The Famine Stela, an inscription carved over two thousand years later in the Ptolemaic era, tells of Djoser ending a seven-year famine with the help of the god Khnum — strictly a much later legend.