WORLD> Middle East
Egypt unveils discovery of 4,300-year-old pyramid
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-12 08:42

 

Finding more than that is unlikely, as robbers in antiquity looted the pyramid, he said, pointing to a gaping shaft on the structure's top, a testament of the plunder.

On Tuesday, workers wearing white turbans and dust-covered robes scurried back and forth, carrying large rocks and bags heaped with sand away from the site.

Using an air brush, one worker cleaned sand from stunning hieroglyphic details on the white limestone casing, while archaeologists studied the inscriptions and students drew blueprints of the pyramid's base.


Archaeology workers dig at the site of a newly-discovered pyramid, the base of which is seen center-left, at Saqqara near Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, November 11, 2008. [Agencies]
 

Dieter Wildung, a leading Egyptologist and head of Berlin's Egyptian Museum, said it was common in the Old Kingdom for kings to build pyramids for their queens and mothers next to their own.

"Hawass is likely right" that the pyramid belonged to Sesheshet, said Wildung, who was not involved in the dig. "These parallel situations give a very strong argument in favor of his interpretation."

But Joe Wegner, an associate professor of Egyptian archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania who has been involved in other expeditions at Saqqara, cautioned that until "inscriptional confirmation is found, it's still an educated guess" that the pyramid is Sesheshet's.

Although evidence of the queen's existence was found elsewhere in Egypt in inscriptions and a papyrus document -- a medical prescription to strengthen the queen's thinning hair -- the site of her burial was not known.

The find is important because it adds to the understanding of the 6th Dynasty, which reigned from 2,322 BC to 2,151 BC. It was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which spanned the third millennium BC and whose achievements are considered the first peak of pharaonic civilization.

Saqqara is most famous for the Step Pyramid of King Djoser, built in the 27th century BC.

Excavations have been going on here for about 150 years, uncovering a vast Old Kingdom necropolis of pyramids, tombs and funerary complexes, as well as tombs dating from the New Kingdom about 1,000 years later.

Still, only about a third of the Saqqara complex has been explored so far, with recent digging turning up a number of key finds.

The last new pyramid, found here three years ago, is thought to belong to the wife of Teti's successor, Pepi I.

In June, Hawass' team unveiled a "rediscovery" at Saqqara — a pyramid believed to have been built by King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh whose pyramid was first discovered in 1842 but was later buried in sand.

   Previous page 1 2 Next Page