Pyramid of Khui
| Pyramid of Khui | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Khui (unproven) | |
| Coordinates | 27°18′28″N 30°52′18″E / 27.30778°N 30.87167°ECoordinates: 27°18′28″N 30°52′18″E / 27.30778°N 30.87167°E |
| Type | Step pyramid or mastaba |
| Height | n.d. |
| Base |
146 metres (479 ft) (larger) 136 metres (446 ft) (smaller) |
The pyramid of Khui is an ancient Egyptian funerary structure datable to the First Intermediate Period and located in the royal necropolis of Dara (near Manfalut) in Middle Egypt.
Excavations
The building was first mentioned in 1912, on a paper of the Cairo Egyptian Museum. Later, between 1946 and 1948, the complex was explored by the egyptologists Raymond Weill and Ahmed Kamal. Due both to the bad preservation and to the building's atypicality, Weill thought it was a pyramid while Kamal believed it was a huge mastaba. Even today, despite the building is commonly considered as a pyramid (perhaps a step pyramid), is not yet possible to choose with certainty a type of tomb rather than another.[1][2]
Attribution
No name of the owner was found on the pyramid; however, from a tomb found south of the building was recovered a stone block bearing the cartouche
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The block could come from the mortuary temple of the complex, traces of which has been maybe discovered north of the pyramid.[3] However, the identification of Khui as the owner of the complex, although taken for granted, is still unproven.[1]
Structure
The remains of the structure today looks similar to the first step of a step pyramid; as pointed out before, is still not possible to say for sure if it really was a pyramid, also because it's not even clear if the structure was completed or not.
The perimeter was rectangular, 146 metres (479 ft) x 136 metres (446 ft), the walls were slanted inwards and up to 35 metres (115 ft) thick, built with mudbricks. This large shell, whose corners were rounded with a radius of curvature of 23 metres (75 ft), surrounds an empty inner space which was probably filled by sand and gravel.[2][3]
Considering these values, if the building really was a step pyramid, it would have had a base larger than that of the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser, while in the case of a mastaba, it would have exceeded in size the already considerable Mastabet el-Fara'un of Shepseskaf.
Hypogeum
From the north face of the structure, a ground-level corridor pointing towards the center and then continue to a descending gallery topped by eleven arches, which finally ends into the burial chamber, placed in the center of the building's base.
The burial chamber, completely empty, is located 9 metres (30 ft) meters under the ground level, and it has a base of 3.5 metres (11 ft) x 7 metres (23 ft). The walls are made of roughly worked limestone blocks, presumably taken from a nearby, older necropolis of the 6th dynasty.
The hypogeum was robbed and almost all destroyed in antiquity, thus it's impossible to say if anybody has been really buried here. Its structure bears many similarities with the one of the Mastaba K1 of Beit Khallaf, dating back to the 3rd dynasty.[2]
References
Bibliography
- Ahmed Fakhry: The Pyramids. 1961 und 1969, pp. 202–204 - ISBN 0-226-23473-8
- Mark Lehner: Geheimnis der Pyramiden, ECON-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1997, pp. 164 ff., ISBN 3-572-01039-X.
- Rainer Stadelmann: Die ägyptischen Pyramiden. Zabern Verlag, Mainz 1991, pp. 229–230, Abb. 73 - ISBN 3-8053-1142-7
- Theis, Christoffer: Die Pyramiden der Ersten Zwischenzeit. Nach philologischen und archäologischen Quellen. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 39, 2010, pp. 321–339.
- Miroslav Verner: Die Pyramiden. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1997, pp. 416–417 - ISBN 3-499-60890-1
- Raymond Weill: Dara. Campagne de 1946-1948, Cairo, 1958.
External links
- Alan Winston: The Pyramids of Ibi, Khui and the Headless Pyramid − Pyramids of the First Intermediate Period
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