S01 E08: The Old Kingdom's Peak

I hope everyone enjoyed this week's episode about Egypt's fourth dynasty. In order to continue to keep the show hosted, we rely on the support of listeners like you. If you'd like to support the show, you may do so here and gain access to premium content for just $1.99 per month, just the price of a couple gumballs. Click here to support the show.

Anyways, this week's episode I mention the pyramid at Meidum, one of Egypt's most haunting monuments. This pyramid was built by Sneferu on behalf of his father in-law, Huni.

That inner, more intact section of the structure is the remains of the step pyramid base, while the collapsed rubble around it is what remains of the once beautiful limestone shell.

Here is a picture of the first pyramid of Sneferu, known colloquially as the Bent Pyramid because, well, just look at it. Interestingly, this pyramid is one of the few structures that retains most of its limestone casing. Most pyramids had a casing of smooth limestone that surrounded the inner-structure. However, thieves often stole this limestone to resell, and later pharaohs would sometimes reincorporate it for later building projects. This, in addition to the thousands of years of natural erosion, led this limestone to break down over time. Why it remains more on the Bent Pyramid is something of a mystery. Archaeologists long believed that the Bent Pyramid was a mistake, and many mainstream sources continue to share this view today. I personally held this view before my preliminary research for this episode, but a study by Giulio Magli and Juan Antonio Belmonte, published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, convinced me otherwise during my research.

They pointed out some of the flaws with the mainstream theory that caught my attention. For one, there is no serious sign of imminent collapse within the Bent Pyramid. The fact that the structure was completed at all and not merely abandoned partially through construction like other poorly constructed pyramids also indicates that, if problems occurred during construction, it wasn't serious enough to cancel the project. These problems, combined with the symmetrical nature of the Bent Pyramid's and Red Pyramid's designs when the pyramidions are taken into account, makes the case that these pyramids were built together as one combined project, rather than constructed separately. Like much of the symbology in protodynastic and Old Kingdom Egypt, the Red and Bent Pyramids were meant to symbolize Sneferu's dual authority over Upper and Lower Egypt. 

Next week I'll elaborate more on the sun cult that rose to prominence during this era. In short, you may have noticed that, in our discussions on Egyptian religion, the sun god Ra has never made an appearance. Ra and a cult surrounding worship of the sun rose to prominence during the late Third and Fourth Dynasty periods, but I chose to leave this out until now because the Fifth Dynasty will empower the cult of Ra to a whole new level, with temples to the immaculate god of the sun eventually surpassing the tombs of the pharaohs in terms of significance and legacy. Tune in next week to learn more.