more photos
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site information
0900-1600 daily
E£20 entry
E£10 students
E£10 camera
E£100 video camera
avoid Friday, Sunday (crowded)
can also be reached by camel for E£150 (3 hours)
or by horse for E£100
(2 hours)
relevant links
history
old kingdom
dynasty III
djoser
sekhemkhet
dynasty IV
shepseskaf
dynasty V
unas
djedkare
dynasty VI
pepi I
Merenre
pepi II
details
57.5 m (188.6 ft) square
44m ( 141 ft) tall
(currently 19m)
56º 18' 35" angle
Pyramid of Unas
While the quality of the pyramid is very low, the mortuary temple and the complex surrounding the pyramid at extensive and contain many beautiful carvings. Very little remains of these structures. Our century is not the first to excavate and reconstruct the pyramid complex, either -- a son of Ramesses II undertook reconstruction sometime between 1290 -- 1224 BCE
.
the view of the mortuary temple and subsidiary
foundations
The mortuary temple lies along the eastern face of the pyramid -- well, the remains of it do, at any rate. The floor of the temple is basalt, which is used in the floor of many funerary temples around Egypt. It has some symbolic meaning that we can only guess at -- stone symbolism is apparently a little-represented area of Egyptology!
Addiiontally, there are two huge boat-pits near the causeway -- it is possible that they contained solar barques such as the one found near the Pyramid of Cheops in GIza, in the Solar Boat Museum, although nothing was found when they were excavated
.
the faintly painted stars carved into the ceiling
South of pyramid is the entrance to the Persian Tombs -- a set of vaulted tombs from the twenty-seventh dynasty. We did not go into them -- at the time we didn't know they were there (see, I knew I should have carried theguidebook everywhere!!) and the tombs rae not often on anyone's itinerary.
This pyramid was built after those of Abu Sir, all of which are much less impressive than the great pyramids of the Giza Plateau. Pyramid-building had suffered a serious decline from the monuments of the fourth dynasty. Even the nearby step pyramid, a monumental architectural achievement, was only 350 years old when Unas built here
me, with our ad hoc guide, a very nice man who
spoke a little english,
a little french, and a little german...among others.
