The Headless Pyramid, the Pyramid of Menkauhor, is an ancient Egyptian pyramid in Saqqara. The Fifth Dynasty Pharaoh Menkauhor most likely built it.
Location of Pyramid of Menkauhor
Menkauhor’s pyramid has not been positively identified, but if the assumption that his pyramid is located at Dahshur is correct, this will imply a departure from Abusir. However, some Egyptologists strongly believe that his pyramid is the “Headless Pyramid”, located in North Saqqara east of Teti’s complex. There is mounting evidence to support this conclusion. B. G. Ockinga, for example, argues that during the 18th Dynasty, the Teti complex may have been associated with a cult belonging to a deified Menkauhor. His pyramid was called “Divine is the (cult) places of Menkauhor” wherever it was.
Archaeology
Karl Richard Lepsius, who visited Egypt in 1843, briefly described and catalogued it as number XXIX in his pyramid list. Gaston Maspero entered the underground chambers in 1881. A first, very brief, and unsystematic excavation of the ruins was made in 1930 by Cecil M. Firth. Then, the ruins were once again covered with sand.
In 1994, Jaromir Malek proposed that the Headless Pyramid should be the long-sought pyramid of Merikare (a pharaoh of the Tenth Dynasty) since it was known that this pyramid had to be somewhere in northern Saqqara near the pyramid of Teti; the Headless Pyramid was a perfect candidate, also because there were no other pyramids of the Fifth Dynasty in its immediate vicinity. However, most scholars believed that the pyramid owner was Menkauhor instead because the priests appointed for the funerary cult of this king were buried to a great extent in northern Saqqara.
Systematic excavation of the substructure in 2008 under Zahi Hawass corroborated the assignment to the Fifth Dynasty based on structure and materials typical of that era. Although no inscriptions with the name of a pharaoh were found, Hawass attributed it to Menkauhor because he is the only pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty whose pyramid has not been identified.
History
Menkauhor Kaiu built a pyramid in North Saqqara, thereby abandoning the royal necropolis of Abusir, where kings of the Fifth Dynasty had been buried since the reign of Sahure, some 80 years earlier. This choice may be that the Abusir plateau had become overcrowded by the beginning of Menkauhor’s reign.
Originally named Netjer-isut-Menkauhor by the Ancient Egyptians, meaning “The divine places of Menkauhor”, the pyramid is known today as Lepsius XXIX after the number given to it by the archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius who discovered the pyramid in 1843. Owing to the ruined state of the structure, it is known in Arabic as the “Headless Pyramid”, a name that has been retained. The pyramid was lost under shifting sands in the early 20th century, and its attribution to Menkauhor was consequently debated. Instead, it was proposed that the Headless Pyramid was that of Merikare, a structure dating to the First Intermediate Period and has yet to be found.
In 2008, the design identified by Lepsius was rediscovered by a team of archaeologists under the direction of Zahi Hawass, and excavations at the site quickly established a Fifth Dynasty date, as indicated by the construction techniques used in its making. Although the excavations failed to yield the name of the king who built the pyramid, Menkauhor was the last pharaoh of the Dynasty whose pyramid remained undiscovered. Thus, proceeding by elimination, archaeologists and Egyptologists have formally recognized the Headless Pyramid as that of Menkauhor.
Layout
The pyramid is estimated to have been around 50–60 m (160–200 ft) at the base so that the edifice would have stood 40–50 m (130–160 ft) high at the time of its construction, making it one of the smallest royal pyramids of the Old Kingdom. There is evidence that Menkauhor had the time to complete his pyramid, whose small dimensions are thus consistent with his short eight to nine years of reign.
On the north side lies the entrance to the underground chamber system, which was sealed by two granite portcullises, indicating that a burial occurred. Cecil Mallaby Firth found a broken sarcophagus lid of blue-grey basalt in the burial chamber during his brief excavations of the pyramid in 1930.
