The Trip That Keeps Growing

7 Oct Pretour Lahun and Meidum

Today we are going back down to the south of Cairo to visit the Meidum and Lahun pyramids. As with out trip to El Alamein, as soon as we left the city limits we picked up an armed police escort with one car in the front and what appeared to be a SWAT type vehicle in the back with policemen armed with machine guns.

The Meidum pyramid, located about 62 miles south of Cairo, was the first straight-sided pyramid, although it was never completely finished as it collapsed during construction. There is some controversary over who the pyramid was built for. Some believe that it was built for Pharaoh Huni, the last ruler of the 3^rd dynasty. As construction was not completed by the time of Huni’s death, Snefru, his successor, continued the construction. Others believe that it was started by Snefru and marked the transition from the Early Dynastic Period to the Old Kingdom. Regardless of who originated the construction, it was Snefru who changed it from its original design as a step pyramid to what would have been the first true straight edge pyramid. This was accomplished by filling in the steps with limestone. However, the construction of this pyramid was fraught with errors. The outside layer was built on sand and not rock as the inner layers were and secondly, the outer surface was polished and the platforms of the steps were not horizontal but fell off to the side. This caused instability in the pyramid leading to its collapse. This was Snefru’s first attempt at pyramid building, but after its collapse it was abandoned and Snefru moved on to Dahshur to build his next, the Bent Pyramid (which we saw two days ago). It is believed that this collapse is what caused Snefru to change the slant of his Bent pyramid from 54 to 43 degrees.

We then drove down to Fayoum, about 60 miles southwest of Cairo to visit the Lahun Pyramid. This pyramid was built by Pharaoh Senusret II of the 12^th dynasty. Unlike the earlier pyramids, these pyramids were smaller and were made of mud bricks, but the core of the pyramid consisted of a network of passageways and stone walls. The pharaohs at this time were more concerned with protecting their mummies when they died, so instead of large pyramids, they put more effort into keeping the tomb robbers at bay by digging out many underground passageways (some leading nowhere) so the robbers would be unable to find the burial chamber. Unfortunately it did not stop the robbers, leading many Egyptologists to believe that the tomb robberies were an inside job – done most likely by tomb workers or priests who were knowledgeable about where the burial chamber was. In addition to the pyramid, there are eight mastabas(where members of the royal family were buried) located to the north of the pyramid and the so-called Queen’s pyramid. Beside each mastaba there was a burial shaft that led down to the floor of the mastaba where the coffins were laid. There are also the ruins of the mortuary temple that were found east of the pyramid. While the opening to most Egyptian pyramids is on the northern side, the entrance to Lahun is a narrow, vertical shaft on the southern side. Archaeologists believe that the king’s body and funerary furniture were carried down this shaft. The entrance leads to several complicated corridors surrounding the burial chamber – as stated above, a design to trick would be tomb robbers. Inside the burial chamber was found a sarcophagus built of large slabs of granite. Although the design did not stop robbers from raiding the tomb, tombs of princesses, found within the pyramid enclosure, contained a wealth of jewelry and other artifacts. Most of the area around this pyramid has been left unexcavated as most of the archeologists working within Egypt are centering their efforts in Saqqara (in hopes of finding Imhotep’s tomb) or in Taposiris Magna where they are trying to find the graves of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony).

This pyramid is open to tourists so we walked down the small entrance tunnel that lead to the base of the pyramid (it was about 60 feet down, but at least the steps had hand rails and when we reached the bottom, the passageways were high enough that we could stand. It was a bit humid, and the air quality was not great. Once inside Dahlia walked us around the decoy shaft meant to deceive robbers. We then walked into the burial chamber. It is amazing to think about how they were able to get the 2-3 ton sarcophagus into the burial chamber. After somehow lowering it down the burial shaft, they then had to move it about 500 yards to the burial chamber. It is believed that they pulled and pushed the granite block on wooden rollers. Unlike the Unas tomb, there were no hieroglyphics or paintings in this tomb, just an empty sarcogphagus.

We then headed back to our hotel – about a 2-hour drive – and again accompanied by two police cars, one in the front and one in the back. For most of the way up the freeway, they had their sirens blaring.

We had about a 2-hour rest before our guide picked us up again for a drive to Giza to see the Sound and Light Show at the Giza Pyramids. It was an amazing, narrated show with the pyramids and the Sphinx lit up in several colors. There were several, English narrators but the main one seemed to be telling the history of Ancient Egypt from the Sphinx’s point of view. The evening was quite pleasant with a cool breeze blowing. We really enjoyed the show. It was a fitting almost end to our wonderful 4-day pre-tour with Dahlia.