Dashur

Dashur is the site of a royal necropolis in use from the early to middle part of the 3rd millennium BCE. The two best known pyramids here are the red pyramid and the bent pyramid. Both were built by the pharaoh Sneferu. The older, the bent pyramid (pictures 1&2) didn't start out to be bent. There were miscalculations and other poor design issues such the they had to lessen the load by sloping the sides in. So Sneferu went back to the drawing board and commissioned the so-called red pyramid (pictures 3, 4 & 5). 4&5 look down the entrance tunnel to the chambers. I didn't enter as that was too long a distance to go bent over. While my back is doing ok, that seemed like too much to risk.
Sneferu's son was Khufu who built the great pyramid at Giza (see another post). About 600 years after Sneferu, pyramid building resumed at Dashur. The last picture is of the so called white pyramid of pharoah Amenemhat II. The remains of this pyramid is in the 6th picture. Much of this one was scavanged for other building projects.Read more