Pyramid of Neferefre

The burial pyramid of the Egyptian Pharaoh Neferefre (or Raneferef) is located at Abusir, Egypt. It was constructed in the Fifth dynasty of Egypt but never completed. Due to its unfinished state and lack of limestone casing the pyramid was never plundered as extensively as many other pyramids, and so is one of the best sources for information on how pyramids of this time were constructed.Lehner, Mark. "The complete pyramids". ISBN 0-500-05084-8.] Its formal name was "The Pyramid which is divine of the Ba spirits, Divine is Neferefre's power".Alan Winston. [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/neferefrep.htm "The Pyramid of Neferefre (Raneferer) at Abusir".] Accessed May 15, 2008.]

Construction

The pyramid was build with sides of convert|65|m|ft|sp=us| in length and a slope of 78°. The mortuary temple was rapidly built with mudbrick rather than the typical limestone. The eastern side of the temple was lined with cult chapels and a structure known in Egyptian documents as the "Sanctuary of the Knife" which was used for animal sacrifice. [ [http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/lower/pyramids/abusir/neferefre.html "Pyramid of Neferefre".] Accessed May 16, 2008.]

Excavations

The pyramid was explored by many early egyptologists including John Perring, Karl Lepsius, Jacques Morgan, and Ludwig Borchardt, many of whom incorrectly attributed the pyramid to Shepseskare. Due to the structure's unfinished status, none of them believed that it contained the Pharaoh's actual mummy. Borchardt came within inches of discovering this fact when he carried out a series of exploratory digs in the area, but he quit less than one meter from the pyramid's substructure. Had he continued digging he would have encountered a red sandstone block forming the portcullis to the burial chamber; instead he walked away believing that the pyramid was nothing more than a rough unfinished foundation. His findings consigned the site to over seventy years of archaeological inactivity.

In the 1970s a comprehensive exploration of the site was commissioned by the University of Prague, who confirmed that the pyramid did in fact belong to Neferefre and discovered that he had actually been interred in the incomplete structure. The substructure of the temple was found to have been plundered, yielding only broken canopic jars and fragments of the mummy; however, ruins of the mortuary temple provided papyri, statuary, stone vessels, mud seals, and faience inlays for study. [Lyla Pinch Brock and Jaromir Krejci. [http://cat.he.net/~archaeol/online/news/egypt2.html "Czech Egyptologists Open Shaft Tomb".] Accessed May 15, 2008.]

See also

*Abusir

References