![]() At Meydum, the valley temple has never been excavated and is presumed to lie in a small cluster of palm trees at the lower end of the now much denuded causeway on the edge of the agricultural land.Ĭuriously, there is no evidence of there ever having been a stone sarcophagus in the subterranean burial chamber. Very fine reliefs are usually a feature of the later examples of these buildings. From this a causeway runs down to the edge of the cultivation where the valley temple is located. On the east face of the pyramid is a small pyramid or mortuary temple. There can be more than one chamber, and at different levels, within this group. This consists of the pyramid itself, with an entrance on the north face which gives access, via a descending passage, to a burial chamber normally located in the bedrock or at ground surface within the mass. Meydum presents us with the first occurrence of what was to become the norm for the layout of a pyramid complex. It is now generally agreed that the Meydum pyramid was built for Huni, but that it was basically finished by his son-in-law and successor, Snefru. 43), and it is highly unlikely that he would have had three: two are unusual enough. Snefru also has two other pyramids 28 miles (45 km) north of Meydum at Dahshur (p. ![]() This is clearly somewhat exaggerated since it is a small, plain and windowless structure with just the two large, upright and round-topped funerary stele, both uninscribed and unfinished, standing either side of a low altar in the small courtyard between the back of the temple and the pyramid's east face. In the New Kingdom the Meydum pyramid was obviously thought to have been built by Snefru, since the mortuary temple graffiti mention his name, referring to 'the beautiful temple of King Snefru'. Exactly when this collapse occurred has been the subject of some controversy: Kurt Mendelssohn suggested that it took place during the building of the South or Bent pyramid of Snefru (the first king of the 4th Dynasty) at Dahshur and that both pyramids were being built concurrently others believe that it was during the New Kingdom, since there are 18th Dynasty visitors' graffiti in the small east face mortuary temple. The present shape has resulted from the collapse of the outer 'skins' of the casing in antiquity, due to the lack of bonding between them. Now it has three (of an original seven) tall steps at a steep angle of 74 degrees, and rises to about 214 ft (65 m). It was the first pyramid to have a square ground plan and was intended to be the first that was geometrically 'true' loose packing stones were added to the steps before the whole was encased in white Tura limestone. Today the pyramid rises as a gaunt, almost pharos-like structure just beyond the edge of the cultivation. He erected his monument at Meydum on the edge of the Faiyum, 50 miles (80 km) south of Cairo. Huni, the fifth and last king of the 3rd Dynasty, made an even more drastic move for his burial site. It would appear that the monument was never used. Khaba's name was recovered, written in red ink, on several stone vessels from 3rd Dynasty mastabas close by. Similar construction techniques and layout to Sekhemkhet's monument place it in a chronological sequence after his (and not in the 2nd Dynasty as had been suggested many years ago, before the parallel evidence at Saqqara was known). This seems to have been intended as a step pyramid, with six or seven steps and a rock-cut entrance on the north side. ![]() ![]() Sekhemkhet's successor Khaba built his pyramid - the so- called Layer Pyramid - at Zawiyet el-Aryan, a mile south of Giza. The last two kings of the 3rd Dynasty did not use Saqqara as the royal burial ground.
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