Meidum Pyramid: The Collapsed Pyramid of Sneferu's Era

The Meidum Pyramid, begun around 2610 BC about 100 km south of Cairo, was the first Egyptian monument converted into a true, smooth-sided pyramid. Usually attributed to King Sneferu, though possibly started by his predecessor Huni, it now looks like a stepped tower rising from a mound of rubble. Its unusual ruin and the debate over its collapse make it a key site for understanding how the Egyptians learned to build pyramids.

Building phases

The monument began as a step pyramid in the tradition of the Step Pyramid of Djoser. Archaeologists identify three main stages. It was first built with seven steps, then enlarged to eight. In a final stage the steps were filled in with packing stone and covered with a smooth casing of fine limestone, turning it into a true pyramid about 92 metres high with a base about 144 metres square.

Builders’ marks and graffiti suggest that this last conversion took place late in Sneferu’s reign. By then the king had already built the Bent Pyramid and was building or had completed the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. Meidum may have been updated so that it matched the new ideal of the smooth pyramid.

Huni or Sneferu?

The attribution of the first phase is disputed. Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty, has long been proposed because Sneferu already had two large pyramids, and three seemed excessive for one king. No inscription naming Huni has been found at Meidum.

Graffiti written by visitors in the New Kingdom, more than a thousand years later, refer to the monument as the temple or pyramid of Sneferu, and the nearby tombs belong to members of his court. Many Egyptologists now see Sneferu as the builder of the whole monument, while others keep Huni as a possible founder.

The pyramid complex

Meidum is the earliest example of what became the standard layout of an Old Kingdom pyramid complex. A small temple stands against the east face, a causeway runs down towards the valley, and a smaller satellite pyramid lay to the south. The east-facing temple, with two tall uninscribed stelae, is unusually well preserved because it was buried under debris.

The burial chamber lies at about ground level, reached by a passage descending from the north face. It has a corbelled roof, with each course of stone projecting inwards, a technique later used on a grand scale in the Great Pyramid. The chamber was found empty, and some fragments of a wooden coffin may be intrusive or remains of a later burial.

Why it looks like a tower

Today about 65 metres of the inner core survive, with steep, smooth faces that make the monument look like a tower. Around its base lies an enormous mound of broken stone. Local people called it el-Haram el-Kaddab, “the false pyramid”.

In 1974 the physicist Kurt Mendelssohn argued that the outer layers collapsed suddenly during construction. He suggested that this disaster made Sneferu’s builders change the angle of the Bent Pyramid mid-construction. The idea was widely publicised.

Excavations at the base, however, found no crushed workers, tools or ramps buried in the debris. The New Kingdom graffiti in the temple also suggest that visitors then still admired the monument. Most scholars now think that the outer layers, which were not bonded to the core and rested partly on sand, failed and slipped in stages, and that stone robbers removed much of the casing over many centuries.

Mastabas and the Meidum geese

Around the pyramid lie large mastaba tombs of Sneferu’s family and officials. In 1871 workers of Auguste Mariette’s antiquities service uncovered the mastaba of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret. Their painted limestone statues, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, are among the finest portraits of the Old Kingdom.

From the chapel of Nefermaat and his wife Itet came the painted frieze known as the Meidum geese, showing six geese of three species. In 2015 one scholar claimed it was a 19th-century forgery, but this view has been widely rejected. Flinders Petrie also found at Meidum the body of a man named Ranefer, an important early example of mummification with organs removed.

Timeline

• c. 2670 BC: The Step Pyramid of Djoser sets the model of a stepped royal tomb.
• c. 2610 BC: A seven-step pyramid is begun at Meidum.
• c. 2600 BC: Enlargement to eight steps; Sneferu builds the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur.
• c. 2590 BC: The steps are filled and cased, creating a true pyramid.
• c. 1450-1250 BC: New Kingdom visitors leave graffiti naming Sneferu.
• 1871: Statues of Rahotep and Nofret are found in a nearby mastaba.
• 1891: Flinders Petrie excavates at Meidum.
• 1974: Kurt Mendelssohn publishes his theory of a sudden collapse.

Why it matters

Meidum records the moment when Egyptian builders moved from step pyramids to true pyramids. Its ruin reveals the inner structure of an early pyramid more clearly than any intact monument, and its nearby tombs hold some of the masterpieces of early Egyptian art.