Great excavation

the great excavation is an unfinished pyramid undoubtedly dating from and which is currently located in a military zone at Zaouiet el-Aryan. Only a great trench in form of T was dug in the rock ground and some stones of the first sitted ones were posed. No source makes it possible to explain the abandonment of the site.

The monument was discovered by Karl Richard Lepsius at the beginning of the 19th century and was excavated by Alexandre Barsanti in 1904-1905, then in 1911-1912. This last discovered at the bottom of sliced sarcophagus in oval Granite of form (only example known in Egypt) as of many inscriptions to red ink being reproduced on the stones of the foundation raft not making it possible to allot with certainty the name of the sovereign for whom was intended this pyramid.

If it had been completed, the pyramid would have had a base of 210 side meters.

Structure

The funerary complex

The enclosing wall of the pyramid, a 2,10 meters thickness, approximately forms a square of 420 side meters. Alexandre Barsanti detected the traces of a small building to the south-eastern angle of the enclosure. Apart from the latter, the Egyptologist detected only some old dwellings in the shape of hillocks which he thought of being contemporary with the construction of the large monument. In one of those was discovered a greenish schist plate carrying the cartouche of the Pharaon Djédefrê.

The pyramid

The stage of construction forever reached only the few stones of first sat pyramid. However there remains impressive distinct in form of T dug in the rock, comparable with sliced Pyramide of Djédefrê, but of larger size. Its length is approximately 110 meters. It begin with a tilted slope leading to a pit whose width is of 15 meters, length the 25 meters and the 25 meters depth. The former manufacturers had filled it large blocks of limestone, some weighing from 3 to 4 tons, until a 15 meters height. A few blocks still carry inscriptions to red ink. This filling was withdrawn at the beginning of the 20th century.

The pavement of the pit is out of stones of heavy granite size up to 40 tons and finely jointed with mortar. An oval tank was cut in one of these stones; pink a granite lid polished, sealed on it with plaster. With its discovery, the tank was still covered with a layer of lime and a thick clay bed to protect it from the blocks of limestone piled up carefully over. The tank was empty, but the side walls, inside, were furnished with a band 10 cm height noirâtre.

On the height and in the center of the western wall of the pit a line with red ink was traced. One finds another mark of this type on the southern wall aiming at the axis of the approach ramp. The Egyptians had taken care to rough-cast the walls.

Characteristics of the funerary complex

the oval sarcophagus of form
size of the monument and mass of the blocks of the pavement (up to 40 tons)

Exploration of the monument

It is 1900, which by joining the pyramids of Gizeh, Alexandre Barsanti discovered, to one kilometers and half in the north of the Pyramide to sections of Zaouïet el-Aryan, a rectangular construction where lay of innumerable fragments of granitic stones and large blocks of scattered limestone. In the center, a depression drew its attention and, helped of fifty workmen, it cleared what proved to be immense distinct dug with same the rock, whose cut walls with peak were inserted with more than 21 meters under the level of the surrounding ground. This trench, broad and long, 8,50 110 meters meters leads to a large rectangular pit, then filled of 4.500 cubic meters of blocks of limestone, some weighing nearly four tons, jetés shovel-mixes until a fifteen meters height.

The excavations continued in 1904 and made it possible Alexandre Barsanti to reach the bottom of the pit in 1905. He discovered a made pavement of enormous limestone and granite stones cut and adjusted with the greatest care, as well as the oval sarcophagus. An exceptional weather event had like consequence the flood of the pit until a three meters height. The Egyptologist foot-note that the water level abruptly lowered by a meter, is the equivalent of 180 cubic meters, which made germinate in its spirit the idea of an underground room. At this point in time he undertook Pharaonic work to dismount the ground of the pit while moving with enormous stones of the pavement. In parallel, it made dig galleries in the walls with an aim of circumventing the foundations more quickly. A vice of means and efforts enabled him to move many blocks. The building site was stopped in 1907 to begin again well later in 1911. Barsanti centered this research around a block particularly bulky and weighing nearly forty tons which seemed to him to be a stopping with the access of a hyptothetic funerary room. For lack of appropriations, the excavations were again stopped in 1912 not to know a continuation, death more having struck the French Egyptologist prematurely. The blocks never could be positioned back and the monument, after having known a certain celebrity at the beginning of the 20th century, fell down in the lapse of memory.

Here how Gaston Maspero describes the great excavation in 1905: … I hope that the best informed ones among the tourists will come to admire the monument: the pleasure that they will test during this excursion is worth well both or three hours that it will cost them. The vastness of the work undertaken by the Egyptians will not appear with them first of all; it is only with the bottom of the staircase, when they pose the foot on the granite pavement, that it will burst in their eyes. Not that each detail examined in particular offers anything very remarkable and who left the ordinary one, but the impression is those which one never forgets. The size and the richness of materials, the perfection of the cuts and the joints, the finished incomparable one of the granite tank, then in addition the boldness of the lines and the height of the walls, all meet to compose a single whole until now. It is as a shock which one feels and nowhere the power of the old Egyptian architects does not reveal a force also soudaine. the great excavation will be used as decorations in the film the Earth of the Pharaons of Howard Hawks turned in 1954, film recalling with a vision very hollywodienne the construction of the large pyramid. One can see there a historically contestable reconstitution of the descent of the sarcophagus of Khéops in the great trench. Since located in a military zone, the great excavation is not worth visiting any more and is threatened by construction of a fast track intended to bring closer the great agglomerations to the city of the Cairo.

On the attribution and the dating of the pyramid

Many blocks carry inscriptions to red ink, but often without historical interest. However cartridges often return: like and The cartouche of Djédefrê was identified on a plate found outside the enclosure: -<-R11-R11-N5: I9->- The following characters were identified by three times on the sides of a block joined against the granite tank -R4-

The characteristics of construction (size and mass of the blocks of the foundation raft, dimensions of the pyramid) leave think that the monument would be contemporary.

Catalog of films

Earth of the Pharaons of Howard Hawks, 1954

Bibliographical references

Annals of the Service of Egyptian Antiquities , 1905-1912
Maragioglio and Rinaldi, Architettura delle Piramidi Menfite , 1963-1977
I.E.S. Edwards, Pyramids of Egypt , 1999
Zahi Hawass, Treasure of the pyramids

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