Overview
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Overview
The Layer Pyramid (Arabic el haram el midawwar, 'rubble-hill pyramid') is a ruined step pyramid of the 3rd Dynasty of Egypt, in the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan, 8 km (5.0 mi) south-west of Giza and 7 km (4.3 mi) north of Saqqara. Its ownership is uncertain and may be attributable to the pharaoh Khaba.
Its architecture is very similar to that of the Buried Pyramid of Sekhemkhet, which is the basis for dating it firmly to the 3rd Dynasty. It lies within a restricted military area, and no excavation has taken place there since the early twentieth century.
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Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Layer Pyramid
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
The pyramid has a square base about 84 m (276 ft) on a side, slightly smaller than the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemket. Jean-Philippe Lauer estimated that it was planned to have five steps and to reach c. 42-45 m (138-148 ft). Today only two steps remain, about 17 m (56 ft) high. The ruined state exposes a core of poor quality rough stone blocks from the local bedrock, surrounded by a 2.6 m (8.5 ft) thick casing of the same masonry and then by 14 layers of mud bricks bonded with clay mortar, set almost vertically with an inward inclination of 68°. Whether the pyramid was finished is disputed: Rainer Stadelmann believes it was, whereas Miroslav Verner thinks it was left unfinished, in part because no traces of outer cladding were found.
A gallery system with 32 chambers, possibly intended as storage rooms for grave goods, was found "clean and empty".
ConstructionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
The entrance to the substructure lies on the east and leads to a steep stairway 36 m (118 ft) long, then to a corridor running west and a vertical shaft. A gallery system with 32 chambers, possibly intended as storage rooms for grave goods, was found "clean and empty". The burial chamber lies 26 m (85 ft) below ground and is nearly square, with a base of 3.63 m x 2.65 m (11.9 ft x 8.7 ft) and a ceiling height of 3 m (9.8 ft). It contained no trace of a sarcophagus.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
John Shae Perring first examined the pyramid in 1839, and Karl Richard Lepsius identified it as a pyramid in 1848, listing it as number XIV. Jacques de Morgan discovered the entrance to the subterranean passages in 1896. Alessandro Barsanti worked there in 1900 and found the vertical access shaft; seeing unfinished corridors and no artefacts, he judged that the pyramid had never been used. George Reisner and Clarence S. Fisher worked on the site in 1910-1911, excavating the north and east exteriors and the surrounding cemeteries. Their estimates of the dimensions and the number of galleries differ greatly from Barsanti's. No artefacts were found, and no trace of a burial, so it is unclear whether a pharaoh was buried here or the pyramid was abandoned after the king's premature death. The monument has lain within a restricted military area since 1970 and is now sanded up, which hampers modern measurement.
DatingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
The architecture places the pyramid between the reigns of Sekhemkhet and Snofru, founder of the 4th Dynasty. Most scholars attribute it to Khaba of the late 3rd Dynasty, on the evidence of eight marble bowls inscribed with his serekh from Mastaba Z500, about 200 metres north of the pyramid. Stadelmann identifies Khaba with Huni, the last ruler of the dynasty; most Egyptologists contest this and think Huni built the Meidum Pyramid.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
Five cemeteries surround the pyramid, dating to the 1st, 2nd and late 3rd Dynasties, the 18th Dynasty and the Roman Period. Only the late 3rd Dynasty cemetery contains large tombs, including four mud brick mastabas. No enclosure wall has been found. Brick walls on the east may indicate a mortuary temple, and a building several hundred metres away might have been a valley temple.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Pharaonic stone monuments of Egypt
Egypt's stone monuments are the best dated and the most famous in the Atlas. The pyramid took shape from the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular tomb with sloping sides built of mudbrick or limestone, which marked the burial sites of eminent Egyptians in the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu ("Cheops"), was built about 2600 BCE over a period of about 26 years. It was originally 146.6 metres high and remained the world's tallest human-made structure for more than 3,700 years. Most of the smooth white limestone casing has been removed over time, which has lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres.
Temples were just as large. The Karnak Temple Complex near Luxor is a vast mix of temples, pylons, chapels and other buildings. Construction began in the reign of Senusret I (1971 to 1926 BCE) in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic Kingdom (305 to 30 BCE), though most of the surviving buildings date from the New Kingdom. An obelisk, which the Egyptians called tekhenu, is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument, usually a single block of stone, with a pyramidal top.
Egyptian monuments are dated by the reigns of the kings who built them, and many carry their names. This is a strong contrast with the prehistoric megaliths of Europe, which can be dated only by radiocarbon or by comparison.
The Atlas files these monuments among the megaliths only because they are great works in stone.
When visiting, look at the scale of the blocks and at the inscriptions and reliefs that give the names of the kings.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Pyramid, Wikipedia: Great Pyramid of Giza, Wikipedia: Temple of Karnak, Wikipedia: Obelisk, Wikipedia: Mastaba · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 2686 BCE
The Layer Pyramid (known locally in Arabic as el haram el midawwar, Arabic: الهرم المدور, meaning 'rubble-hill pyramid') is a ruined step pyramid dating to the 3rd Dynasty of Egypt (2686 BC to 2613 BC) and located in the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan.
Source - 1300 BCE
His hypothesis is based on his reading of the Turin canon, a kinglist compiled in the early Ramesside period c. 1300 BC, some 1,400 years after Huni's lifetime.
Source - 1839
The Layer Pyramid was first examined and its surroundings explored in 1839 by John Shae Perring.
Source - 1848
Soon after, in 1848, the pyramid was identified as such by Karl Richard Lepsius, who listed it as number XIV in his pioneering list of pyramids.
Source - 1886
Around 40 years later, in 1886, Gaston Maspero unsuccessfully searched for the entrance of the subterranean passages of the pyramid, which was discovered in 1896 by Jacques de Morgan.
Source - 1900
Further investigations were then performed in 1900 by Alessandro Barsanti, who uncovered the vertical access shaft leading to the burial chamber.
Source - 1910
Shortly after, in 1910–1911, George Reisner and Clarence S.
Source - 1970
The pyramid lies within a restricted military area since 1970 and consequently no excavation has been undertaken there since Reisner and Fisher's superficial work, leaving the structures beneath the pyramid in doubt.
Source
Photographs
6 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3150 BCE–300 CEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for other / unclassifieds in Egypt; this site has not been dated itself. From the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2686 BC) Egyptians were buried in mastabas and pyramids; the Meroitic pyramid revival ran from about 300 BC to 300 CE.Source for this date
Where it stands
Egypt
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 29°55′58″ N, 31°09′40″ EFor a GPS or map app: 29.93278, 31.16111
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
3 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q740691wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
- 03Wikipedia: Layer Pyramiden.wikipedia.org
Image files
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Around this place
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Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Layer Pyramid" (English), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (English): Layer PyramidCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q740691CC0