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A computer-generated image of how the lost pyramid of Djedefre should have looked.

Recent studies have pointed to a fourth pyramid that was built during the fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt. Local authorities are already talking about plans to open it to visitors next year. Can anybody lose a pyramid in Egypt? Apparently, yes, in a place called Abu Rawash, some 8km north of Giza where the country’s great pyramids are.

Recently, media members who congregated in Giza, in the south-west of the capital Cairo in northern Egypt, found themselves coming face to face with an Egyptian man on a mission. Dr Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, declared that by next year, he wants all the pyramids to be opened to the public.

“Anyone who comes to Egypt will be able to go and see Abu Rawash, which will be opened to the public,” he said at a press conference in May, during which newsmen were treated to an abridged version of The History Channel’s new documentary, The Lost Pyramid.

But, really, how can anyone miss a pyramid? After all, it is one of those massive stone structures hundreds of feet tall, right?

The fact is, even though there are more than 80 of these burial monuments along the Nile River, they are all in various states of ruin, with some barely recognisable as pyramids. Indeed, some resemble little more than mounds of sand.

The most well-known, of course, are the three located on the Giza Plateau, constructed by the fourth-dynasty pharaohs of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, more than 4,000 years ago. Indeed, speak the phrase “pyramids of Egypt”, and most people will think of these imposing triangular structures.

Built by the pharaoh Khufu, his son Khafre and his grandson Menkaure, they represent the peak of pyramid-building, both in size and construction techniques, during their time.

As Dr Peter Brand, from the University of Memphis in Tennessee, United States, says in the aforementioned documentary: “When we think of pyramids we think of the fourth dynasty, because the best pyramids, the largest pyramids, the most solidly built ones, and the ones that have survived the test of time, are all from the fourth dynasty.”

The other son

But Khufu had another son, Djedefre, who became pharaoh after him, before Khafre. As such, many people – historians, Egyptologists, archaeologists – reasoned that he, like his father, must have built a burial monument.

“People have known that there is, as it were, what I call a ‘fourth’ pyramid ... they knew that one existed. They knew that Djedefre must have had something,” said Anthony Geffen, chief executive of Atlantic Productions that made The Lost Pyramid.

A likely candidate for that “something” was some ruins – which in modern times was located in a high-security military zone – in Abu Rawash. There was more than one theory about what those ruins could have been, including that of a sun temple, or an incomplete pyramid.

Then in 1995, Swiss Egyptologist Dr Michael Valloggia learned about the ruins and became one of the few allowed access to the site. The excavation work that has been undertaken since then has apparently revealed the true nature of the site.

According to Dr Hawass, at Abu Rawash are the remains of a fully constructed pyramid, not an incomplete one, as some people had contended. There are many indicators as to its completion, but the final nail on the tomb, so to speak, is the existence of auxiliary pyramids.

“The discovery of auxiliary pyramids found near the Abu Rawash pyramid of Djedefre proves that this pyramid was finished,” said Dr Hawass. More significant than that was the discovery that the tomb belonged to Djedefre, who built it after his father had done his.

Later, as he led journalists on a tour of the Abu Rawash site, archaeologist Hasan Abd El-Razek told us that Djedefre’s cartouche was found in the burial chamber. A cartouche in Egyptian hieroglyphics is a figure that contains characters representing a name. Because of that cartouche, “we can say this one (pyramid) belonged to him,” he said.

Location, location, location

As we trudged in and around the ruins, and clambered into the burial chamber, it is not so easy to believe that this was a pyramid as large and magnificent as the ones in Giza. In fact, it wasn’t as large as either Khufu’s Great Pyramid or Kahfre’s.

Yet the excavation indicates that Djedefre’s must have been an amazing testament to Egyptian technology.

The blocks of limestone, typical building blocks of the Giza tombs, were here angled towards the centre of the pyramid. This technique, first used on the Step Pyramid, about 40km away in Saqqara, helped make the tomb more durable and stable. As if that was not enough, Djedefre’s workers used granite pins to keep the blocks in place.

But what helped it stand out, in addition to the outer shell of smooth limestone and a cap of electrum (seemingly a common feature of the era’s pyramids, it was a mixture of copper, silver and gold), was the band of polished Aswan granite around its base.

Not only is granite harder to cut and shape than the softer limestone, the Aswan quarry was located hundreds of kilometres to the south. As such, granite was expensive to acquire, manipulate and transport, and its use was a show of Djedefre’s power.

This pyramid was constructed on a rocky outcrop – which also formed its foundation and internal structure – that rose 120m above the Giza plains. Which, to the casual observer, may or may not have disguised its short stature, relative to the Great Pyramid.

Hasan said the height of the pyramid was calculated to be about 65m (the Great Pyramid is 147m tall).

Hasan also pointed out that it was “smaller than the Great Pyramid. But when we talk about elevation, the plateau here (in Abu Rawash) is higher than that in Giza.” As a result, it stood higher than his father’s pyramid.

Twenty years later, Djedefre’s nephew Menkaure erected his pyramid using his uncle’s tomb as his template. So if you want to get an idea of what Djedefre’s burial monument might have looked like, you only need to look at Menkaure’s.

But why do we not see it now, towering, as it should, over the landscape?

Hasan said historians wrote of “300 camels filled with stones from this pyramid to be used for the construction of a nearby village....”

He added that in 1805, Muhammad Ali, the so-called founder of modern Egypt, “ordered the outer casing to be chiselled to be used for the villages.” So it seems that over two centuries ago, Egyptians used the stone blocks to build the foundations of old Cairo.

Still, what remains is enough for archaeologists to uncover a more accurate picture of this family of pharaohs from the fourth dynasty. Perhaps, in a year, others may get a look at this fascinating piece of Egyptian history – from the outside.

As Geffen said during the conference: “I don’t think they’re going to open the pyramid and let everybody go down into the base of the pyramid ... it’s pretty treacherous. Anyway, you would ruin it, it’s very fragile.

“So I think ... it would very much be ... a visit to the outside (with) almost nobody being allowed inside.”

That journos like me were allowed the rare opportunity to tour and take photographs of the archaeological site is perhaps an indication of things to come for Egypt’s heritage business. Maybe Abu Rawash really will be opened in 2009, as Dr Zahi Hawass promised.

Copyright: The Star Online