History & Heritage
7.16.2019
Egypt: two pyramids reopened to the public
In the land of the Pharaohs, explorations are still going well, thousands of years later. Local authorities have just reopened two pyramids for the first time since 1965.
Last Saturday, the Egyptian authorities reopened to the public the 105-meter-high rhomboidal pyramid of Snefrou, known as the “failed pyramid”, as well as an adjacent smaller pyramid that culminates at 18 meters.
Located in Dahshur, south of Cairo, the monument was built around 2600 BC and is 105 meters high. If we consider him as the ancestor of the pyramid of Cheops, he differs from his godchild by characteristic features – a collapsed upper part – apparently resulting from a design error. Nevertheless, the pyramid of Snéfrou remains one of the best-preserved in the country thanks to its limestone covering.
Visitors can now access two funerary chambers of the Snéfrou pyramid via a 79-meter long tunnel.
Local excavations are successful
The Egyptian government, in the person of Khaled Al-Anani, Minister of Antiquities, also reported the discovery of sarcophagi -some of which contain very well-preserved mummies– and remains of a 60-metre long wall dating back 4000 years by a team of archaeologists during excavations in the royal necropolis of Dahshur, on the west bank of the Nile. Among the discoveries, there are also funerary masks and tools dating from 750 to 332 BC.
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