Pyramid of Meïdoum

Located at the entry of the Fayoum in Egypt, the pyramid of Meïdoum , called “pyramid” by the Arabs distorts it, dates from -.

It comprised in the beginning seven degrees, whose today three stages only are still visible. Composed of blocks of limestone, it was certainly built for the king Houni, last sovereign of. Widened and increased later eighth degree, it was finally transformed by his/her son Snéfrou into pyramid smoothes.

The funerary complex

The funerary complex of Meïdoum represents the pyramidal first complex " classique" with its pyramid, of origin with smooth faces, its roadway connecting the temple of reception to the funerary temple, its satellite pyramid and its necropolis of the senior officials. The temple of reception disappeared but the funerary temple is still intact and of modest size. Excavations led to the accesses of the complex made it possible to detect the vestiges of a brick slope which, according to the Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer, would have been used with the routing of the blocks and construction of the pyramid. The width of this slope, relatively weak, less than four meters, implies that it was intended for towings of the stones until the accesses of the monument.

The pyramid

Broken down or unfinished?

Of this pyramid which finally was to be 147 meters on side at the base and 93,50 meters high, there remains only the core today culminating with 70 meters; the collapse of the peripheral additions thus gives him the strange aspect of a square keep. The coating of the pyramid would have slipped, for lack of adherence, on the subjacent layers, causing a depression leaving the core to overdraft.

One second assumption was put forth according to which this slip of the external layer forever take place, but that the pyramid is quite simply unfinished. According to this theory, the discharge which surrounds it still today would be only the consequence of the disassembling of the slopes necessary to construction.

Descending shaft and interior distribution

It is Flinders Petrie which penetrated for the first time in the pyramid in 1881 at the time of the excavations carried out in the zone between 1888 and 1891. A long descending shaft of rather stiff slope crosses the calcareous mass of the pyramid on a depth of about fifty meters. It leads to a horizontal corridor in which two small boxes are acting as anterooms. At the end of this low corridor of ceiling is a vertical well by which one goes up to the funerary room.

A room recently discovered

Work of the architects Gilles Dormion and Jean-Yves Verd' hurt, which study the pyramids since 1986, allowed the discovery of two new funerary rooms in the pyramid. It is about a passage discovered in top of the well of access to the unfinished funerary room of the pyramid. This short passage is followed of two rooms of discharges, in vault in corbelling like the funerary room, but of a neat invoice. There is no communication between this passage and the rooms. The second discovered one was that of a corridor going up in the solid mass of the pyramid of manner parallel with the descending shaft which one borrows while entering the pyramid. The corridor is however blocked after a rather long advance. This discovery made it possible to reinterrogate the overall plan of the pyramid. The spaces lately put at the day are of a width almost equal to the initially known device of the pyramid of Meïdoum.

The satellite pyramid

A small satellite pyramid was placed at the south of the royal tomb. All the superstructure and part of the infrastructures disappeared. The architects Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi proposed a reconstitution based on the still visible elements on the ground, showing that it was in the beginning a Pyramide with degrees and that the plan of its funerary apartments was identical to the plan of its neighbor.

The additional necropolis

With approximately 500 meters in the north of the pyramid, a necropolis of gathers tombs of princes and other important characters of the court. Thus, the mastaba of Néfermaât contained celebrates it painting of the Oies of Meïdoum, today exposed with the museum of Cairo, where one can also admire two famous painted limestone statues found in the mastaba of Rahotep and his Néfret wife, discovered by Mariette in 1871.

Chronological order of the pyramids allotted to Snéfrou

The four pyramids allotted to Snéfrou are: the red Pyramid, the Pyramid rhomboïdale, the pyramid of Meïdoum and finally the pyramid of Seila, which was most probably a cenotaph. The construction of the pyramid of Meïdoum is divided into three phases which the Egyptologists name E1, E2 and E3; E1 corresponding to the first Pyramid with degrees, E2 with the second Pyramid with degrees obtained with an additional section, and E3 the Pyramid with smooth faces obtained by addition of a third section.

It is commonly allowed that Snéfrou made complete the pyramid with degrees E1 of its predecessor, the Pharaon Houni, and that then it made set up his own pyramid, the Pyramide rhomboïdale. Following problems of structures of this one, he would have undertaken a new building site in the north of Dahchour, parallel to the enlarging of the pyramid of Meïdoum. Various graffiti discovered on blocks of the pyramids of Meïdoum and northern Dahchour mention fifteenth and twenty-fifth years of the reign of the Pharaon, showing the simultaneity of the two building sites.

The three funerary units were completed. The fragments of human bones discovered in the red pyramid and the high temple, completed out of bricks, seem to prove that this pyramid was used well as tomb. However, the Pyramide rhomboïdale profited from an special attention to the Moyen Empire because the funerary temple was reactivated at that time. In the same way, as underlines it the architect Gilles Dormion, the architecture of this pyramid seems to have profited from technological innovations, like the systems of closing with harrows and the vaults in corbelling on four faces, which are not found in the red pyramid. It is also possible that the Pyramide rhomboïdale, following the problems occurred in the structure, was used as laboratory for the architects. There then would have been three simultaneous building sites during the reign of Snéfrou.

At all events, pyramids of Snéfrou, a total volume of: 3300000 cubic meters (either: 700000 of more than the Pyramid of Khéops), represent the most ambitious project of all antiquity.

Bibliographical references

William Flinders Kneaded, Meidum , 1892.
Vito Maragioglio and Celestial Rinaldi, Architettura delle Piramidi Menfite , 1963-1977.
Gilles Dormion and Jean-Yves Verd' hurt, The pyramid off Meidum, architectural study off the inner arrangement , 2000, file and pdf.

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