Dahshur is one of Egypt’s great villages, located on the western side of the Nile River, 40 kilometers southwest of Cairo. The Necropolis of Dahshur marks the southern boundary with the vast area of the Pyramids of Giza and this city is 71 square kilometers from the Giza plateau and is bordered to the west by the desert and the north by Saqqara.
Archaeologists have found in this area remains of pyramids, as well as important funerary complexes intended for the burial of queens and members of the aristocracy of Memfi until the thirteenth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom.
The city of Dahshur is considered one of the most important archaeological areas of the ancient world and includes the most important archaeological treasures, as more than one archaeological gold discovery has been found within its pyramids and tombs.
The city contains five important pyramids, remaining out of ten that have existed since the Pharaonic era. Two of the newer pyramids were destroyed, while the Black Pyramids (Twelfth Dynasty, 1929-1885 BC) are seriously damaged.
Dahshur also preserves two of the best-preserved pyramids of more recent construction. Both were built during the reign of King Snefru (2613-2589 BC), the founder of the Fourth Dynasty.
The Rhomboid Pyramid and the Red Pyramid at Dahshur are amazing evidence of the level of architectural knowledge that marked the construction of the Great Pyramids and the outbuildings at Giza.
The most important pyramids at Dahshur are:
1- The Rhomboidal Pyramid of King Snefru.
The Rhomboidal pyramid is also referred to as the “transition pyramid” because of the perspective according to which the structure is abruptly changed approximately one-third of its height.
The pyramid still retains much of its outer shell. It is interesting to know that the construction of the Rhomboid pyramid was built in 14 complete years, and the height of this pyramid reached 101.1 meters and its base area is 188.6 meters.
But this building is considered to be one of the greatest architectural mistakes in Pharaonic history, because in the middle of the construction process, especially when the pyramid building reached the center, the engineers discovered an error in the applicable angle and consequently lowered the angle to 54 degrees.
However, this decision failed, and the building was not protected by cracks in its walls. The errors continued inside this building during construction until completion.
This pyramid is considered one of the methods that paved the way for the identification of the correct construction methods, on which the pyramids were later based.
Archaeologists attribute this to the crisis in which engineering was at the time of its construction.
2- The Red Pyramid of Snefru
The Northern Pyramid, also known as the Red Pyramid because of the redness of the color of its stones cut from the quarries of Red Mountain in Abbasia, is the first complete pyramid in the history of Egyptian pyramid architecture.
The pyramid reaches a height of about 99 m and consists of:
The entrance: – It is located 28 meters above ground level on the north side
The descending corridor: is 60 meters below ground level, the height of its courtyard.
The corridor: – It is a spacious place to wrap the king’s coffin.
The rooms: – There are three rooms, like some of the first room, then a corridor, then the second room, and in the second room we find the third, which is the burial chamber
3- The pyramid of king Amenemhat II
King Amenemhat II chose the southeastern area of the northern pyramid of Snefru to build his pyramid of mud bricks.
4- The pyramid of king Senusret III
The pyramid of King Senusret III has located a short distance from the second pyramid of Amenemhat in the far north of Dahshur.
The pyramid was built with mud bricks and lined with limestone, and its original height was 78 m. The burial chamber was built with granite stone and so was the coffin.
5- The Pyramid of King Amenemhat III
The last pyramid of the Twelfth Dynasty in Dahshur is the pyramid of King Amenemhat III, known as the Black Pyramid because of the severe darkness of the mud bricks in which this pyramid was built.
It is about 81 m high and was covered with limestone, topped by a small hierarchical peak of basalt stone displayed in the Egyptian Museum.
Snefru was the father of Khufu, so the Red Pyramid and the Rhomboidal Pyramid at Dahshur preceded the construction of the pyramids at Giza by a small amount.
Engineers employed by Khufu would perfect the design of the leveled pyramids that Snefru inaugurated with the construction of the largest pyramids of Giza, the pyramid of Cheops.
The architect of the Red Pyramid project realized that the steep 54-degree incline would make the structure quite unstable. Therefore, the rest of the pyramid was completed with only 43 degrees of inclination.
The second pyramid of Snefru at the site was the first level pyramid ever built. It is also the third-largest pyramid ever built, surpassed in height only by the pyramids of Khufu and Chephren at Giza.
This pyramid was built with a 43-degree inclined base, the same as the top of the Rhomboid pyramid was built with.
Numerous tombs of royal princesses have also been found at Dahshur, which contained a large amount of elaborate jewelry and jewels. As well as several small pyramids for royal princesses to the south of Dahshur.
Also in Dahshur, there were several large tombs of some officials of the ancient Egyptian and Middle Egyptian kingdoms around the pyramids of Dahshur.
Two years ago, a 3,700-year-old tomb belonging to the daughter of one of the kings of the Pharaohs was discovered near the remains of a newly discovered pyramid.
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities said that the cemetery, which is located in the area of the royal cemetery of Dahshur, south of Cairo, contains a wooden box with hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Four canopic jars were found inside the box, containing the entrails of a corpse, believed to be the daughter of Pharaonic King Iminkamaw. The pyramid of King Emin Kamau is located 600 meters from the cemetery.
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