Menkaure apparently
intended for his pyramid on the
Giza Plateau to be the
last of that specific area of the
Memphite necropolises
which it is, as well as being the smallest. The valley
temple
lies at the mouth of the main wadi, closing what had been the
principal conduit for
construction materials brought to Giza for three generations.
Named "Menkaure is Divine", the
pryamid
was thought by some Greeks, according to
Herodotus, to
belong to the Greek hertaera Rhodopis. Manetho thought that it
belonged to
Psamtik I's beautiful daughter, Nitokris.
Artist's impression of the main pyramid
complex
Diodorus Siculus first
described the inscription that bears the name of Mykerinos on this
pyramid, but it was not until
Vyse in 1837 that anyone actually entered Menkaure's pyramid. He
began by investigating its substructure by following a tunnel dug
earlier by
Caviglia out of a breach in the north wall. The original
entrance was not discovered until later. Surprisingly,
Lepsius paid almost no attention to this pyramid, and even
Petrie
worked on it for only a short period in the 1880s. Luckily,
George Resiner who was one of the most advanced archaeologists
of his time, won the concession for Menkaure's pyramid when
archaeologists drew lots for excavating Giza on the balcony of the
Mena House Hotel in 1899. He knew beforehand that this pyramid,
though small, could provide some rich finds because his assistant,
Arthur Mace, had reconnoitered the site. He began a very thorough
excavation of the entire complex in 1906 directing a team from
Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Those
excavations continued until 1924.
Menkaure's pyramid, with its
original height of some 65-66 meters, represents only about 1/10th
of the mass we find in
Khufu's
pyramid. However,
this may be the result of a theology which dictated more emphasis on
the temples and less on the pyramid, a process evident to us already
in the reign of
Khafre which continued throughout the
Old
Kingdom.
Layout of the whole pyramid complex
The Valley Temple
The
reconstruction of Menkaure's valley temple is more difficult than
any other element within his pyramid complex. The west part of the
limestone block base and lower part of the core of the temple's
north wall were probably completed during the ruler's lifetime,
while the remaining clay masonry would be attributable to his son,
Shepseskaf. Just
behind the portal to the temple there was a square antechamber
adorned with four columns. The alabaster (calcite) bases of these
columns, pressed into the clay floor, have been preserved. On either
side of this room are four storerooms. Behind the entrance
antechamber, the whole middle part of the valley temple consisted of
a huge open
courtyard with inner walls decorated with niches (similar to the
mortuary temple's courtyard). A path, paved with limestone slabs,
ran from the pillared antechamber through the center of the
courtyard to a low stairway, which in turn led through a portico
with two rows of wooden columns. This terminated at an offering
hall, in which an alabaster altar may have once stood. To the north
of the offering hall were twelve storerooms, and to its south were
five additional storerooms. This was the area where Reisner found
the famous, mostly triad statues of the ruler, along with four
unfinished statuettes of Menkaure, fragments of other statues and
stone vessels. Three of the statues discovered by Reisner depicted
the goddess
Hathor on the ruler's right side, with divinities symbolizing
three Upper Egyptian nomes on his left. These may have been part of
a larger collection of statues for each of the provinces of Egypt,
or perhaps only the nomes that provided endowments for the complex.
Perhaps curiously, the
function of the valley temple changed over time. Reisner retraced
the process by which houses of the pyramid town first crowded up
against the front wall of the temple, and then began to be built
within it. People began living in the temple itself, particularly in
the courtyard, where grain storehouses and lodgings were built.
Perhaps as early as the
5th Dynasty, the temple was badly damaged by water after a
particularly heavy rain tore away the temple's west side. Reisner
believes that the temple was rebuilt, at least roughly, during the
reign of
Pepi II.
More recently, an Egyptian
archaeologist,
Selim Hassan, while excavating the nearby tomb complex of queen
Khentkaues I, discovered a small brick structure with a platform,
low benches and a small drainage canal, together with a basin at the
northeast corner of Menkaure's valley temple. Stored there were a
large number of flint blades and stone vessels. Some Egyptologists
believe that this structure was used for a "purification ten" and
was only a part of a larger structure where the mummification ritual
took place. there to down to the valley temple, the
causeway was probably never more than a construction ramp for
delivering sto
Another modification of the
valley temple was a brick structure built in front of the temple's
west wall. It may have provided a widened portal, giving better
access between the temple and the pyramid town.
The Causeway
The causeway of this pyramid
complex leading from the Valley temple to the Mortuary Temple was
most likely completed by Shepseskaf. It had floors made of
limestone blocks and highly compressed clay mixed with limestone
fragments. The mudbrick walls that were a little more than two
meters thick supported a roof. Reisner believed that the roof was
made of wooden beams and mats because he found the remains of such
material at the end of the causeway. However, others
Egyptologists, because of the width of the side walls and
architectural elements of nearby tombs of close family members,
believed that there would have been a vaulted roof of
brickwork. Nevertheless, the causeway was never completed. Work
seems to have stopped at the point where it meets the west side of
the old Khufu quarry. From
ne. Hence, we really do not know how it was to connect
to the valley temple. Yet some Egyptology resources believe that it
would have not begun at the west part of the valley temple, but
rather would have actually run along its whole south side and part
of its west side. They believe it was even accessible from the
storerooms in the valley temple's southern section.
The Mortuary Temple
Like Menkaure's predecessors
on the Giza Plateau, his mortuary temple was not built adjacent to
his pyramid's east wall. The original temple obviously remained
partially uncompleted, we believe, as a result of Menkaure's sudden
death. Menkaure began this mortuary temple, as had Khafre, with core
blocks of limestone that were locally quarried. The heaviest of
these, found at the northwest corner of the temple, is the heaviest
known at Giza, weighing some 200 tons.
Mortuary Temple (Bottom) at the time of
Menkaure's death
and (above) after Shepseskaf completed it.
Though we know the mortuary
temple had an almost square ground plan, its appearance can only be
partially reconstructed. Reisner believed that an entrance corridor
led from the east terminating in an open courtyard that was meant to
be ornamented by pillars. The inside wall of this courtyard was
lined with plastered and whitewashed brickwork decorated with
niches, which was probably added by his successor in order to
complete the temple after Menkaure's death. There was also a small
shrine built within the courtyard, that Reisner also dated to the
reign of Shepseskaf.
In the west part of the
temple, a portico made up of two rows of pillars provided access to
a long offering hall. According to Reisner, there was a
false
door in the offering hall's west wall. However, because of
statuary fragments, and the fact that the temple was not immediately
adjacent to the pyramid, scholars such as Maragioglio and Rinaldi
rejected the idea of a false door, instead seeing a statue of the
ruler standing in its stead. They do believe that a false door
existed, but that it stood on a small, pink granite platform in
front of the pyramid's east wall. In Maragioglio and Rinaldi's view,
it would have at first been easily accessible from the east wing of
the pyramid's courtyard, before additional rooms were built in the
area.
A limestone altar and
fragments, including a head, chest, lap, knees and shins of a seated
statue of Menkaure, rendered in pink granite were found in the five,
two story magazines that form a northwestern part of the mortuary
temple. This statue was perhaps meant to be the centerpiece of this
entire complex. Originally it stood at the back of a tall and narrow
east-west hall at the end of the center axis of the temple, so that
the king looked across the open country, through the entrance hall,
and down the line of the causeway to the land of the living. The
southwest part of the temple remained uncompleted.
Reisner,
as well as other Egyptologists, thought that the whole mortuary
temple was originally meant to be constructed of pink granite. In
fact, we can see that Menkaure's masons had just started bringing in
a series of granite blocks on both sides of the corridor. They were
cutting back the large limestone core blocks to ensure that the
front faces of the granite blocks were flush. When Reisner removed
the mudbrick from the casing he found bright red paint on the core
blocks marking leveling lines, measurements and the names of the
work gangs. However, Ricke rejected this analysis, believing that
only the dado was to be made of this fine stone. Irregardless, the
temple was not completed by Menkaure, but by his son, using
mudbrick, evidenced by an inscription on one of the fragments of a
stela that Reisner discovered.
Interestingly, there was also
within the mortuary temple a small square room with a single pillar.
It had a strikingly similar appearance to the antechamber carree
that actually first appears in the mor4tuary temples of the 5th
Dynasty pyramids.
Some elements within the
temple may even be dated beyond the reign of Menkaure's son,
including the stelae of
Merenre I and
Pepi I.
The Pyramid Proper
Isometric drawing of the pyramid chambers
Menkaure's pyramid lies at the
far end of the Giza diagonal on the very edge of the Mokattam
Formation, where it dips down to the south and disappears into the
younger Maadi Formation. Just as with his father,
Khafre's nearby
pyramid, Menkaure's construct had to have a very well prepared
rock subsurface, particularly around the northeast corner. This base
is two and one half meters higher than his father's pyramid and and
occupies a mere quarter of the area consumed by Khafre and Khufu's
pyramids. It has a core of local limestone blocks, with casing made
of unfinished pink granite from
Aswan up to a height of
about fifteen meters. Further up, the casing was probably made of
fine,
Turah limestone. Because completely finished casing blocks would
have probably been damaged during transport and installation,
particularly at their edges, the final finishing touches were not
completed until the very end of the construction process. This also
made it possible to achieve a very accurate fitting along the whole
surface of the pyramid walls. There is an inscription on the granite
casing of the north wall that dates from the
Late
period, and may be the one mentioned by Diodorus.
Original
access was provided to the inner chambers by an entrance on the axis
of the north wall, about four meters above ground level. From there,
a descending corridor, only partially lined with pink granite,
sloped down at an angle of a little more than 26 degrees for 31
meters through the masonry core to the chambers below. This "lower
corridor" terminates in a room with walls that were provided with
niches. The purpose of this unusual room is still debated among
scholars. However, the niches represent the first purely decorative
element inside a pyramid since
Djoser's
Step Pyramid at
Saqqara. At the
beginning of the next corridor, there is a granite barrier that is
made of three blocks that were lowered after its completion. The
following corridor continues at a slight downward angle until it
comes out in a relatively small, east-west
oriented upper antechamber with wall that are completely
undecorated. The east end of this chamber is located directly under
the vertical axis of the pyramid.
Here, another passageway known
as the "upper corridor" runs over the "lower corridor" through a
short horizontal section before climbing in a north-south direction
into the pyramid
core,
were it terminates. It is very likely that this double corridor
system signals a change in the original construction plans. The
"upper corridor" was probably abandoned when the floor of the
antechamber was lowered. From this, Petrie believed that the
original pyramid was only about half the size that it is today,
though others such as
Stadelmann doubt his analysis.
In fact, the substructure of
this pyramid underwent significant changes. Investigations of both
this pyramid, and the tombs of his royal family that are closest in
time (Mastabat Faraun and Khentkaues I's stepped tomb) point to the
development of these subchambers in three phases, during which the
original plan was enlarged.
In
the antechamber, Vyse unearthed the remains of an anthropoid wooden
coffin with, Menkaure's name Within were human bones. Most scholars
today believe this coffin was inserted, perhaps in an effort of
restoration, into the pyramid during the Saite period late in
Egypt's ancient history. However, the bone fragments were even more
recent as revealed by radio carbon dating, that shows hat they
probably date to the
Coptic Christian period of some two thousand years ago. There is
a rectangular indention in the west section of the antechamber
floor, suggesting that a sarcophagus may have once been intended for
this room.
However, from the middle of
the floor of the antechamber, another granite corridor leads
downward before becoming horizontal shortly before the actual burial
chamber. Just before the entrance to the burial chamber, a short
flight of steps leads to an area with six small, deep niches,
sometimes known as the "cellar", which has an undetermined function,
though there is a similarity to architectural elements in the
Mastabat Faraun of Shepseskaf and the stepped tomb of Queen
Khentkaues I. Four of the niches are on the east side, and Ricke
believed that these were to hold the four
canopic vessels containing Menkaure's entrails. He believed that
the two additional niches on the north side may have been graced
with the crowns of Upper and Lower
Egypt. However, others believe it may be a forerunner of the three
chambers to the left (east) in the standardized substructures of
5th and
6th Dynasty
pyramids, though it may have simply been used to store funerary
equipment and supplies.
Unlike the pyramids of his
father and grandfather (Khufu), the rectangular burial chamber is
oriented north-south. It is completely covered in pink granite,
including even the gabled ceiling, which was actually hollowed out
from beneath to make a round, barrel vault. The chamber lies some
15.5 meters beneath the level of the pyramid's base so that the
ceiling could be constructed of nine pairs of enormous granite
blocks. This construction was carried out after the modification of
the plan for the substructure, which made it both difficult and
laborious to complete. It required a large descending tunnel to be
built in the west part of the upper antechamber, from which visitors
today may actually view the top of the vaulted burial chamber.
It is very possible that both
the granite burial chamber and the set of niches were built after
the after the death of Menkaure on the instructions of his son and
successor, Shepseskaf.
On
the burial chamber's west wall, Vyse discovered a wonderful, dark
basalt sarcophagus that was decorated with niches in the palace
facade style. The sarcophagus was empty, and its lid was missing.
However, fragments of the lid were discovered, which indicate that
it was ornamented with a concave cornice. Ricke saw in this design
certain similarities with the decorations in shrines dedicated to
the god Anubis, and thought that they were an attempt to provide
additional protection for the tomb by means of that divinity. Alas,
we are left with only drawing of this piece of funerary equipment,
for the ship, Beatrice, which was taking it from Egypt to the
British Museum leaving Leghorn sank somewhere between Malta and
Spain in 1838. Fortunately, the anthropoid coffin was sent in a
separate ship that reached its destination.
Interestingly, in contrast to
Khufu's and Khafre's pyramids, there have been no boat pits
discovered in relationship to Menkaure's pyramid, despite intensive
investigation by an Egyptian archaeologist named Abdel Aziz Saleh,
who obviously thought that they should exist.
Already in the late 1630s, the
English scholar and traveler John Greaves noted that the casing had
largely been removed. The destruction of the pyramid lasted well
into the 19th century, when Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805-1848) used some
of the pink granite blocks taken from its casing to construct the
arsenal in Alexandria.
The Three Queen's
Pyramids
Notable on the Giza Plateau
are the three much smaller subsidiary that stand in a row along the
south wall of the principal pyramid. Designated G 3a-c,
archaeologist attribute them to Menkaure's royal consorts. Of these,
only G 3a was a true pyramid, the other two having a four step core,
and some Egyptologists believe that it functioned as a cult pyramid,
though it was also clearly used for a burial. All three of these
pyramids were surrounded by a common perimeter wall.
The Three Queen's Pyramids, from left to
right: G 3c, G 3b and G 3a
G 3a, the easternmost, of
these pyramids, actually had a small, east-west oriented mortuary
temple of its own that was accessible from it's pyramid's courtyard.
This mortuary temple was probably partially built of limestone, but
was hastily finished with mudbrick. The west end of the mortuary
temple was dominated by a fairly large, open courtyard that had
niches built into its northern wall. On its south side was a row of
wooden columns. A small cult chapel with an entrance adorned with
deep, double niches to either side, lead into an offering room that
included a false door. storage annexes were located in the northwest
part of the temple, and in the southwest a staircase led to the roof
terrace.
Pyramid G 3a was the largest
of the three constructs, with an entrance situated in the middle of
the north wall, only a little above ground level. It has a
substructure consisting of a burial chamber dug from the rock under
the center of the pyramid's base, which communicates with a
descending entrance corridor equipped with a barrier. This burial
chamber was originally equipped with a pink granite sarcophagus,
embedded in the floor next to the west wall. Unfortunately, it soon
fell prey to tomb robbers. There were also fragments of ceramics and
charred remains of wood and matting found in this chamber.
We really have little idea who
was interred in Pyramid G 3a. Reisner thought that it might be
Menkaure's principal consort, Khamerernebti II, but based on a
statue of that queen found in the so-called Galarza tomb in the
central part of the Giza necropolis, others believe that she was
buried alongside her mother, Khamerernebti I in that tomb. In fact,
it is not impossible that this pyramid was originally simply a cult
pyramid that was latter transformed into a tomb.
Besides being smaller, and
lacking the shape of a true pyramid, G 3b also differs in other
details. These include the placement of the descending corridor,
which lacks a barrier. The bones of a young woman were found in the
pink granite sarcophagus which stood against the west wall of the
burial chamber that was located under the northwest part of the
pyramid. Like G 3a, it also had a small mortuary temple, though in
this case it was oriented north-south.
G 3c was never completed with
its casing. Like G 3b, the burial chamber was constructed under the
northwest part of the pyramid, and was likewise not finished. Though
no burial was found within this pyramid, there was clear evidence of
a cult following in the small mortuary temple that stood in front of
the east side of this pyramid. Also like G 3b, this mudbrick
structure was oriented north-south.
Unfortunately, the owners of G
3b-c are completely lost to us and may never be known. We are
relatively certain that they were consorts of Menkaure, but
otherwise there no information on these royal women.
Recent Excavations
Recent excavations by
Mark Lehner's team near the valley temple have again begun to
uncover this vast city of workers who built and maintained the
pyramids for generations afterwards. Since 1988, excavations have
been concentrated around the area about 300m south of the
Sphinx and the
gigantic structure known as the 'Wall of the Crow', near to a
recently discovered 'worker's cemetery'. So far they have uncovered
bakeries, a copper workshop, and worker's houses which, in the year
2000 were found to belong to a vast royal complex comprising huge
galleries or corridors, separated by a paved street. This may have
lead to a Royal Palace.
Other recent excavations around the pyramid of Menkaure have been
conducted by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization in search of
evidence of the king's funerary boats and the pyramid's construction
ramp. They have discovered an unfinished double-statue of
Ramesses II,
sculpted from a single block of stone and measuring over three
meters in height. This was the first large,
New
Kingdom statues to be discovered at Giza, and yet another
mystery.
Technical:
Main
Pyramid
Original name: Menkaure is Divine
Date of construction: 4th dynasty
Original height: 66.45 meters
Angle of inclination: 51o 20'
Lengths of sides of base 104.6 meters
Length of Causeway 608 Meters
Pyramid
G 3a
Original height: 28.4 meters
Angle of inclination: 52o 15'
Length of sides of base: 44 meters
Pyramid
G 3b
Length of sides of base: 31.24 meters
Pyramid
G 3c
Length of sides of base: 31.24 meters
See also:
References:
Title |
Author |
Date |
Publisher |
Reference
Number |
Atlas of Ancient Egypt |
Baines, John; Malek,
Jaromir |
1980 |
Les Livres De France |
None Stated |
Complete Pyramids, The
(Solving the Ancient Mysteries) |
Lehner, Mark |
1997 |
Thames and Hudson, Ltd |
ISBN 0-500-05084-8 |
Complete Temples of
Ancient Egypt, The |
Wilkinson, Richard H. |
2000 |
Thames and Hudson, Ltd |
ISBN 0-500-05100-3 |
Oxford History of Ancient
Egypt, The |
Shaw, Ian |
2000 |
Oxford University Press |
ISBN 0-19-815034-2 |
Pyramids, The (The
Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt's Great Monuments) |
Verner, Miroslav |
2001 |
Grove Press |
ISBN 0-8021-1703-1 |