THE TEMPLES, SITES AND MONUMENTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Dahshur is an impressive 2.2 mile-long field of 4th and 12th Dynasty pyramids, older cousins of the Pyramids of Giza.

Dashur stands a few miles south of Saqqara. We believe the first pyramid-builder here was Snefru (2575-2551 BC), first pharaoh of the splendid 4th Dynasty.

Snefru (we think) built the "Bent" Pyramid (left) and the "Red" Pyramid (below) and is thought to have built the pyramid at Meidum. His son Khufu (2551-2528 BC) and grandson Khafre (2520-2494 BC) continued his constructive tendencies at Giza.

The Bent Pyramid ("Southern Shining Pyramid" to the Egyptians) was built out of locally-quarried limestone. Polished Tura limestone makes up the casing. The casing blocks are very stable and difficult to remove because they slope inwards. The base of the pyramid is 188.6m and is 105m high. Because of the bend in construction, the original angle would have made it 128.5m high.

The Bent Pyramid is unique because - obviously - it bends! The slope degree changes abruptly midway up the pyramid. We have two theories for this change. The first is that the builders 'rushed the job' and finished faster by reducing the volume. The second is that the architect lost his nerve when the pyramid at Maidoun collapsed. The angle at Maidoun was 52° - same as the lower half of the Bent Pyramid. At the bend, the angle changed to 43.5° from there to the peak.

The Red Pyramid (or "Shining Pyramid"), is the first true pyramid still standing. It gets its name from the reddish or pinkish limestone used in the casing stones.

Quick to learn from the mistakes of the Bent Pyramid, this time the king's architects laid a foundation platform of several courses of limestone to prevent the problem of subsidence. The total area of the structure is only slightly less than the Great Pyramid, but since the angle of inclination of the sides is much shallower (43° 22''), it reaches a height of 341 feet.

With its construction, Egyptian pyramids left the experimental stage and achieved the distinctive and proper geometric form they would retain until their building ceased.

The perfection achieved on the exterior of the Red Pyramid is matched by the elegance of its internal chambers. A long descending corridor entered from the north side of the pyramid led to three rooms, over 40 feet high and built of enormous limestone blocks. The most stunning aspect of these rooms is the corbelled ceilings, the blocks of which were placed in eleven to fourteen layers, each one protruding out over the room about 6 inches on all four sides until a pyramid-shaped roof was obtained. In this ingenious way, the weight of the pyramid could be supported. More than two million tons of stone rested on these ceilings, yet there are no cracks or subsidence. Not only had the architects tackled the vexing problems of construction, but by creating a pyramid within a pyramid, they reinforced the king's chances of resurrection.

To celebrate its completion, the proud builders added a solid limestone pyramid-shaped capstone, called today a 'pyramidion'.

To the Egyptians, it was the benben, the very tip of that mound of creation where the creator god stood when he created the world. Placed on top of these soaring mounds of masonry, it joined the earth with the sky. Few pyramidions from the Pyramid Age survive, possibly because many were gilded with precious metals. The earliest one now known was discovered in fragments around the base of the Red Pyramid. After painstaking restoration, it has been found that each side had a slightly different angle; even with all of their experience in construction, the Egyptians had trouble reaching the top without some readjustments. Nevertheless, the error is extraordinarily small - only 2° over 335 feet, almost 160 courses of stone! Such a minimal readjustment is, in fact, a true testimony to the abilities of Snefru's architects.

But with this change in shape also came a transformation of the concept of the afterlife and a modification of the complex necessary to ensure it. The shape and orientation of the pyramid complexes of Snefru's anceseors suggest they looked to the stars, linking their journey to the afterlife with the never-setting circumpolar stars, 'the imperishable ones', as they called them.

But while they ascended their staircase to the stellar sphere, Snefru trod a ramp of gleaming white limestone like the sun's rays to heaven. To reinforce this connection Snefru laid out his temples along a new east-west alignment in accordance with the course of the sun. This new emphasis on the sun led to the adoption of an entirely new name, a new manifestation, of the king on his ascension to the throne as the 'Son of Ra', the son of the sun god, a father he would join in the afterlife. Snefru pioneered his new axial design for his resurrection machine at all three of his pyramids, but his son and successors at Giza perfected it.

About a mile from the Bent Pyramid, but not approachable, is the Pyramid of Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty pharaoh Amenemhet III (1817-1772 BC).

Originally, it was 341 feet square by 266 feet high, but as a mudbrick pyramid lined with limestone, it has deteriorated badly.

Of the original 11 pyramids at Dashur, only the Bent and Red Pyramids remain intact. Also worth a look are the mud-brick remains of the Black Pyramid, which contain a maze of corridors and rooms designed to deceive tomb robbers

Home | Nile Valley | Dynasties | Wealth | Divinity | Temples | Hieroglyphs | Mysteries