Meidum Pyramid
Description: It is called the 'False' Pyramid in Egyptian Arabic. The Pyramid rises above the desert landscape, as it is located close to the Faiyum Oasis. It looks more like a ruined stepped tower, rather than a true pyramid. Today, one can clearly see only three steps of the Pyramid, however, the medieval sources tell us about the five of them. In 1882 a famous French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero was the first one, who could get inside the Pyramid. But it was absolutely empty. At the end of the last century, the relieving chambers and the passage, above other rooms, were discovered. The discovery of the previously unknown and hidden cavities is an excellent proof that the great pyramids of Egypt still keep unrevealed secrets. Alternative names: Irregular Pyramid (Arabic),False Pyramid (Arabic: "Haram el-Kaddab"),South Pyramid of Snefru (before 1945),Stable Pyramid.
Lepsius No: 65
Type: True Pyramid
Location: Meidum
Country: Egypt
History of archaeological exploration
1117-1119: Abu-Mohammed Abdallah, an Arab sheikh, visited the Pyramid at Meidum. This is known thanks to the Egyptian Arab historian Al-Maqrizi (1364-1442) who writes that 'the Pyramid at Meidum is like a mountain and it has five tiers', and cites Sheikh Abu-Mohammed Abdallah as his source.
1660: Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch explorer, mentions the Pyramid at Meidum during his great journey described in the book ‘Zeldzaame En Gedenkwaardige Zee-En Land-Reizen; Door Egypten, West-Indien, Perzien, Turkyen, Oost-Indien, En D'Aangrenzende Gewesten’.
1737: Frederick Lewis Norden, a captain in the Danish navy, saw the Pyramid while walking along the Nile. In his book ‘Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie’, he mentions three or four steps in the Pyramid, and illustrates his work with three sketches of the ancient structure and a map showing the location of Meidum.
1737: Richard Pococke, a British clergyman and traveller, sailed down the Nile together with El-Kebery and saw the Pyramid from afar. In his book ‘A Description of the East and Some Other Countries’, he mentioned that Muslims called the Pyramid El-Haram el-Kedah (‘The False Pyramid’), and Christians - El-Haram el-Kebir (‘The Great Pyramid’). Pococke also provided a sketch of the Pyramid in the book.
1776-1779: M. Savary, a French traveller, spent three years in Egypt. He mentions this Pyramid and calls it ‘the southernmost Pyramid in Egypt’.
1793: W. G. Browne, an English traveller, visited the Pyramid and tried to clear off the stone rubble around it in order to inspect its encasement. Browne drew a sketch of the Pyramid.
1799: Dominique Vivant Denon, Jomard and Malus, as part of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, drafted a brief description of the Pyramid at Meidum and made some sketches.
1801: Charles Barton Burr, an Anglo-Indian captain, left his name and the date '18 August 1801' on the top of the Pyramid's northern wall.
1801-1826: J. J. Rifaud, a French traveller from Marseille, briefly describes a visit to the Pyramid at Meidum.
1804: an unidentified person who carved the date and his name above Captain Barton's inscription. Of the unknown person's entire name, only the last letter "N" can be read.
1816-1818: Robert Richardson, a physician and traveller, probably saw the Pyramid at Meidum; he refers to it as the 'Asawee Pyramid'.
1820: C. Vidua is the name inscribed on the eastern side of the Pyramid.
?: 'H. Foskell' is the name inscribed next to the name 'C. Vidua' on the Pyramid.
1827-1828: Mrs Charles Lushington, an English traveller, saw the Pyramid during her journey, probably from a boat.
1837: Domenico Valeriani, an Italian professor, in his description of Egypt, ‘Nuova illustrazione istorico- monumentale del basso e dell'alto Egitto’, briefly mentions the Pyramid at Meidum and provides two sketches of it, made from drawings by D. V. Denon.
1839: John Shae Perring, a British engineer and Egyptologist, was the first to carry out an extensive research, clearance and measurement of the Pyramid. He made excavations on the west side and under the north-east corner of the Pyramid looking for evidence that the base of the Pyramid was carved out of the rock, but he was unable to reach the bedrock base. No entrance to the Pyramid was found, but previous attempts to find it were evident, as the centre of the northern face had been cleared of rubble and debris. Many of the stones bore inscriptions in red ochre, but essentially they were barely legible.
1843: Karl Richard Lepsius, a German archaeologist and Egyptologist, carried out archaeological excavations of Egyptian pyramids, including the Pyramid at Meidum. He recorded the Pyramid in the list of Egyptian pyramids under number LXV (65). Lepsius cleared the Pyramid of debris, measured it and made drawings.
1871-1872: Francois Auguste Ferdinand Mariette, a French archaeologist and Egyptologist and the founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, worked with other researchers to excavate tombs and mastabas nearby. During the excavations, the mastaba of Nefermaat was found, and famous Meidum artefacts such as the double statue of Rahotep and his wife Nofret, as well as a panel with frescoes of geese.
1876 (circa): W. J. Loftie, an English traveller, visited Meidum and made a fairly detailed description of the Pyramid and the tombs.
1877-1891: George Ebers, a German Egyptologist, wrote a brief account of his acquaintance with the Pyramid and its surrounding mastabas for ‘Baedeker's Guide, Aegypten’, 1877 edition, and for the expanded edition of 1891. Ebers saw the Pyramid from the side of the Nile and sketched it.
1879: Villiers Stuart, a member of the Irish Parliament, visited Egypt and wrote some interesting commentaries on its antiquities. He cleared the Pyramid of debris around it and explored its base.
1881: George Rawlinson, a British archaeologist, described the Pyramid at Meidum, which he said some called a 'pyramid' and others a 'tower'. Rawlinson believed that the Pyramid rested on a rock base.
1881-1882: Gaston Maspero, a French Egyptologist and Director General of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, was the first to enter the Pyramid and clear several tombs nearby that were still untouched by Egyptologists. The Pyramid was found to be empty inside, with only ropes and wooden beams discovered in the burial chamber. An upper temple was found on the eastern side of the Pyramid. On the basis of the inscriptions found, Maspero believed that ‘from the 20th dynasty onwards, curious people began to enter the corridor: two scribes scratched their names in ink on the back of the frame, into which the stone lid had originally been inserted’. Maspero suggested that the Pyramid had collapsed before the reign of the Ramessids.
1882: Villiers Stuart, an Irish MP, visited Meidum again after learning that G. Maspero had cleared the burial chamber. He provided further information about this Pyramid.
1883: Heinrich Karl Brugsch, a German Egyptologist, together with Prince Friedrich Karl saw the Pyramid of Meidum from afar.
1883: William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a British Egyptologist, gives a brief account of the Pyramid and mastabas at Meidum in his book ‘The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh’.
1890-1921: E. A. Wallis Budge, a British Egyptologist, described the archaeological site at Meidum in various editions of ‘Cook's Guides’ over the years.
1891: William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a British Egyptologist, carried out excavations at Meidum assisted by F. Bliss and Fraser. He cleared the Pyramid's interior and discovered fragments of a wooden coffin at the bottom of a vertical shaft. Petrie cleared the upper temple and the corners of the Pyramid's base, which made it possible to take accurate measurements. During the excavations, he drew the first comprehensive map of the archaeological site at Meidum. He mentioned that the locals used the stone from which the Pyramid was made, to build tombs and other structures.
1891: Percy Edward Newberry, a British Egyptologist, visited the site at Meidum when F. Petrie was working there. He sketched the hieratic graffiti on the ceiling of the Pyramid’s descending corridor, first discovered earlier by G. Maspero.
1893: Francois Auguste Ferdinand Mariette, a French archaeologist and Egyptologist, published a report on the study of the Meidum Pyramid.
1897-1929: Georg Steindorff, a German Egyptologist, visited Egypt several times during this period in order to verify ‘Baedeker's Guide, Aegypten’, from which the 1929 edition provides some details about the Meidum site.
1897: Ludwig Borchardt, a German Egyptologist, and George Andrew Reisner, an American Egyptologist, both visited Meidum for a few hours and took some photographs of the site.
1899: M. A. Robert, an inspector of the Egyptian Land Registry, visited Meidum and set a geodetic benchmark on top of the Pyramid. He discovered various graffiti and a number of hieroglyphs on the north side of the Pyramid, but unfortunately, he was unable to sketch the hieroglyphs. The earliest graffiti belong to Ptolemaic times and mention names such as Plutogenes, son of Philippos, Antikrates, Philippos and Antiphonos, sons of Antikrates.
1908: Raymond Weill, a French Egyptologist, published a detailed account of the research into the tombs and the findings at Meidum.
1909-1910: William Matthew Flinders Petrie, British Egyptologist, together with E. Mackay, G. A. Wainwright, B. Fletcher and Bushe-Fox carried out further excavations at and around Meidum. They managed to clear the wall surrounding the complex, the eastern side of the Pyramid, the southern wall of the upper temple and the causeway down to the lower temple, but the temple itself could not be excavated as groundwater prevented further excavation. On the southern side of the Pyramid, Petrie discovered the ruins of a small satellite pyramid, and to the south-east a ramp that had been used to build the Pyramid.
1913: Reginald Engelbach, an English Egyptologist, together with the writer Sax Rohmer (Arthur Henry ‘Sarsfield' Ward) and his wife visited the Pyramid at Meidum.
1926: Ludwig Borchardt, a German Egyptologist, visited Meidum again and carried out important research into the construction of the Pyramid. He reconstructed from the ruins the building ramp leading to the Pyramid from the south-east and explained the sequence of stages in the construction of the Pyramid. Burchardt's findings along with detailed drawings were released in a publication.
1928: The Aircraft Operating Company Ltd, a London-based company, conducted an aerial survey of the Pyramid at Meidum.
1929-1930: Alan Rowe, a British archaeologist, excavated the Pyramid complex on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Museum). Rowe studied and described in detail the upper temple and causeway on the eastern side of the Pyramid.
1964: Vito Maragioglio and Celesta Ambrogio Rinaldi, Italian architects, published detailed descriptions and large-scale drawings of the interior and exterior of the Pyramid as part of their two-decade exploration of the Memphis pyramids.
1984: Ali el-Khouli, an Egyptian archaeologist, worked with other Egyptologists to excavate the Pyramid complex and surrounding mastabas at Meidum.
1998-2000: Gilles Dormion, a French architect, and Jean-Yves Verd'hurt, an independent researcher, carried out an architectural study of the interior of the Meidum Pyramid. Above the descending corridor and niches, previously unknown relieving chambers and a corridor with corbelled vaults were discovered and investigated.
2018: with the consent of the Egyptian authorities, a photogrammetric survey was carried out by the French company Iconem, commissioned by Label News for a documentary, ‘Pyramids: Solving the mysteries’. The architectural consultant was the French engineer and architect Franck Monnier.
Field studies
May 1998. In the Pyramid, in the northern wall of the burial chamber where the vertical shaft begins, blocks of masonry were found with a relieving chamber behind. The wall was 0.4 metres thick. The chamber served as a relieving chamber for the horizontal corridor underneath. The chamber was examined with an endoscope and measured. It turned out to be covered by a corbelled vault, the top step of which is at the level of the rock base. Significant salt deposits were visible on the walls of the chamber.
1999. An exploration was carried out into relieving chamber no. 2 (south) above niche no. 2 (south). A 16 mm vertical hole was drilled in the ceiling of the niche, which, 95 cm further on, opened into an enclosed southern relieving chamber that was examined with an endoscope. The chamber is exactly above the niche and is covered by a corbelled vault. The chamber was measured visually, and it was found that its dimensions were identical to those of the niche underneath it. The masonry of the walls was done quite thoroughly. No salt deposits were detected. To prevent air from entering the chamber, the opening was sealed after the examination.
September 1999. An exploration was performed into enclosed relieving chamber no. 1 (north) above niche no. 1 (north). At the end of the descending corridor, an 18 mm hole was drilled in the ceiling, which, at a depth of 1.3 m, opened into an enclosed northern relieving chamber that was examined with an endoscope. The chamber was measured visually; its dimensions were found to be identical to those of the niche underneath it. It was covered by a corbelled vault. It was found that a corridor emerged from the northern corner of the chamber towards the descending corridor. The newly discovered corridor was also investigated. An 18 mm diameter hole was drilled into the ceiling 10 m from the end of the descending corridor, which, at a depth of 0.9 m, opened into an enclosed relieving corridor with a corbelled vault, which was also examined with an endoscope. The masonry of the chamber walls was done very thoroughly, unlike the rough masonry of the corridor. No salt deposits were detected. One end of the corridor opened into the northern relieving chamber, the other end was not visible. To prevent air from entering the chamber and corridor, the openings were sealed after the examination.
March 2000. The last stage of the exploration took place. Two more holes were drilled in the descending corridor to determine the length of the relieving corridor. The first hole was made 19.7 m from the end of the corridor, but even at a depth of 2 m nothing could be found. The second hole was drilled 12.56 m from the end of the corridor, where the upper edge of the relieving corridor could be seen. The corridor was measured visually. To prevent air from entering the corridor, the openings were sealed after the examination.
Upon completion of the research and observations, the following conclusions were made: the relieving corridor ends in a large monolithic block at the point where the encasement of the mastaba from the first stage of the Pyramid's construction, is located, which means that the base of this mastaba was approximately 80 Ancient Egyptian cubits long. Whether for endogenous or exogenous reasons, the chambers that are open to access have high humidity, and salt deposits are visible in large quantities along with wall deterioration. In contrast, entirely enclosed and isolated chambers here are almost undamaged.
Date: 1998-2000
Researcher: Dormion G., Verdhart J.-Y.
Laboratory studies
Between 1984 and 1995, more than 450 organic specimens were collected from monuments built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The most suitable samples have been selected for dating. The objective is to establish a radiocarbon chronology of the monuments. This chronology has been compared with the historical chronology established through the reconstruction of written sources. The analysis of 7 samples obtained from the Meidum Pyramid suggests that the average age of the samples and presumably the Pyramid itself is 4110 years (ranging from 4050 to 4807 years). The reign of Pharaoh Snefru, to whom the Pyramid is attributed, is dated 2613-2589 BCE according to the chronology by P.A. Clayton (1994).
Date: 1984-1995
Researcher: Bonani G., Haas H., Hawass Z., Lehner M.
