Construction works on the Nekhenre did not stop with Userkaf's death but continued in at least four building phases, the first of which may have taken place under Sahure, and then under his successors Neferirkare Kakai and Nyuserre Ini. By the end of Userkaf's rule, the sun temple did not yet house the large granite obelisk on a pedestal that it would subsequently acquire. Instead its main temple seems to have comprised a rectangular enclosure wall with a high mast set on a mound in its center, possibly as a perch for the sun god's falcon. To the east of this mound was a mudbrick altar with statue shrines on both sides. According to the royal annals, from his sixth year on the throne, Userkaf commanded that two oxen and two geese were to be sacrificed daily in the Nekhenre. These animals seem to have been butchered in or around the high temple, the causeway being wide enough to lead live oxen up it. In addition to these sacrifices Userkaf endowed his sun temple with vast agricultural estates amounting to of land, which Klaus Baer describes as "an enormous and quite unparalleled gift for the Old Kingdom". Kozloff sees these decisions as a manifestation of Userkaf's young age and of the power of the priesthood of Ra rather than as a result of his personal devotion to the sun god.