The Bent Pyramid is an ancient Egyptian pyramid located at the royal necropolis

Necropolis

A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...

 of Dahshur

Dahshur

Dahshur , is a royal necropolis located in the desert on the west bank of the Nile approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo...

, approximately 40 kilometres south of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, built under the Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...

 Pharaoh Sneferu

Sneferu

Sneferu, also spelled as Snephru, Snefru or Snofru , was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign...

 (c. 2600 BC). A unique example of early pyramid development in Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

, this was the second pyramid built by Sneferu.

The lower part of the pyramid rises from the desert at a 54-degree inclination, but the top section is built at the shallower angle of 43 degrees, lending the pyramid its very obvious "bent" appearance.

Archaeologists now believe that the Bent Pyramid represents a transitional form between step-sided and smooth-sided pyramid

Pyramid

A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

s (see Step pyramid

Step pyramid

Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in several locations throughout the world. These pyramids typically are large and made of several layers of stone...

). It has been suggested that due to the steepness of the original angle of inclination the structure may have begun to show signs of instability during construction, forcing the builders to adopt a shallower angle to avert the structure's collapse. This theory appears to be borne out by the fact that the adjacent Red Pyramid

Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid, also called the North Pyramid, is the largest of the three major pyramids located at the Dahshur necropolis. Named for the rusty reddish hue of its stones, it is also the third largest Egyptian pyramid, after those of Khufu and Khafra at Giza. At the time of its completion, it was...

, built immediately afterwards by the same Pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

, was constructed at an angle of 43 degrees from its base. Another theory suggests that at the initial angle the construction would take too long because Sneferu's death was nearing, so the builders changed the angle to complete the construction in time.

The Bent Pyramid has a small satellite pyramid which was the final resting place of Sneferu

Sneferu

Sneferu, also spelled as Snephru, Snefru or Snofru , was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign...

's queen; interestingly there is a connecting tunnel which runs twenty-five metres between the two pyramids, which was built so that Sneferu

Sneferu

Sneferu, also spelled as Snephru, Snefru or Snofru , was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign...

 could visit his queen in the after life. It also has an early form of offering temple on its eastern side. It is also unique amongst the approximately ninety pyramids to be found in Egypt, in that its original polished limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

outer casing remains largely intact.

The ancient formal name of the Bent Pyramid is generally translated as (The)-Southern-Shining-Pyramid, or Sneferu-(is)-Shining-in-the-South.

Interior passages

The Bent Pyramid has two entrances, one fairly low down on the north side, to which a substantial wooden stairway has been built for the convenience of tourists (though so far the pyramid is not open to the busy tourists, though plans have been proposed to open it). The second entrance is high on the west face of the pyramid. Each entrance leads to a chamber with a high, corbelled roof; the northern entrance leads to a chamber that is below ground level, the western to a chamber built in the body of the pyramid itself. A hole in the roof of the northern chamber (accessed today by a high and rickety ladder 50 feet (15.2 m) long) leads via a rough connecting passage to the passage from the western entrance.

The western entrance passage is blocked by two stone blocks which were not lowered vertically, as in other pyramids, but slid down 45° ramps to block the passage. One of these was lowered in antiquity and a hole has been cut through it, the other remains propped up by a piece of ancient cedar wood. The connecting passage referred to above enters the passage between the two portcullises.

Pyramid temple

On the east side of the temple there are the fragmentary remains of the pyramid temple. Like the pyramid temple of the Meidum pyramid, there are two stelae behind the temple, though of these only stumps remain. There is no trace of inscription to be seen. The temple remains are fragmentary but it is presumed to be similar to that of the Meidum temple.

Queen's Pyramid

On the south side of the Bent Pyramid there is a much smaller pyramid, popularly known as a Queen's Pyramid, but more accurately as a subsidiary pyramid. Unlike the subsidiary pyramids associated with - for example - the Great Pyramid, which have a single sloping shaft descending to a burial chamber, this pyramid has a descending passage which ends at a very short horizontal passage, followed by an ascending passage that may have been used to store stone blocks to plug the passage. The chamber at the end of this ascending passage is so small that it cannot have been used for a human burial, which may support the idea that these subsidiary pyramids were intended to hold the royal viscera and were thus analogous to the canopic jars of later times.

Causeway and Valley Temple

Surrounding the Bent Pyramid was a courtyard, from the north-eastern portion of which a causeway ran down to a Valley Temple. (There may have been a further causeway from this to the river side.) This is thought to have been the first pyramid with a Valley Temple, which became a standard feature from this time on. Here the Valley Temple consisted of an entrance passageway flanked by storage chambers, an open courtyard and an inner sanctum fronted by ten square columns behind which were six niches in which stood statues of Sneferu, building of the pyramid and complex. Unlike most later Valley Temples, this one was decorated with scenes depicting the nomes of Egypt and the hebsed festival.

External links

• Inside the Bent Pyramid