{"it":{"id":"EGY-015","kind":"site","sub":"Egypt and Nubia","name":"Red Pyramid","place":"Egypt","lat":29.808,"lon":31.206,"date":"History  The Red Pyramid was the third pyramid built by Old Kingdom Pharaoh Sneferu,…","mat":"limestone","nfacts":14,"tags":["Egypt","Pyramids"],"sum":"The Red Pyramid at Dahshur rises 105 m on a base about 220 m wide. It was Egypt's first fully successful smooth-sided pyramid, and the third largest ever built there.","src":[381],"nsrc":2,"why":"Sneferu's Red Pyramid is Egypt's first finished true pyramid, built after the Bent Pyramid's slope had to be cut halfway up.","yt":"Sneferu's builders cut the Bent Pyramid's slope, then started again. What did the builders learn?","rel":["EGY-002","EGY-009","GIZ-G1"],"hook":"After his Bent Pyramid's slope was cut from 55 to 43 degrees, Sneferu built the Red Pyramid."},"S":{"381":["Wikipedia: Red Pyramid","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid"]},"rec":{"id":"EGY-015","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"The Red Pyramid is located approximately","a":"distance (not a site dimension)","v":"1","u":"km","o":"The Red Pyramid is located approximately 1 km to the north of the Bent Pyramid.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1350"},{"f":"the angle of its inclination dramatically altered from","a":"angle","v":"54-43","u":"degrees","o":"The first of these, the Pyramid at Meidum, collapsed in antiquity, while the second, the Bent Pyramid, had the angle of its inclination dramatically altered from 54 to 43 degrees part-way through the construction due to complications that accrued during the three construction phases.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1351"},{"f":"The Red Pyramid is","a":"height","v":"105","u":"m","o":"The Red Pyramid is 105 m high, and 220 m wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1352"},{"f":"The Red Pyramid is 105 m high and","a":"width","v":"220","u":"m","o":"The Red Pyramid is 105 m high, and 220 m wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1353"},{"f":"A passage","a":"height","v":"3","u":"ft","o":"A passage, 3 ft in height and 4 ft wide, slopes down at 27° for 200 ft to the start of a short horizontal passage, and a large hole in the floor about 1.3m deep.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1354"},{"f":"A passage 3 ft in height and","a":"width","v":"4","u":"ft","o":"A passage, 3 ft in height and 4 ft wide, slopes down at 27° for 200 ft to the start of a short horizontal passage, and a large hole in the floor about 1.3m deep.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1355"},{"f":"height and 4 ft wide slopes down at","a":"angle","v":"27","u":"°","o":"A passage, 3 ft in height and 4 ft wide, slopes down at 27° for 200 ft to the start of a short horizontal passage, and a large hole in the floor about 1.3m deep.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1356"},{"f":"4 ft wide slopes down at 27 for","a":"distance (not a site dimension)","v":"200","u":"ft","o":"A passage, 3 ft in height and 4 ft wide, slopes down at 27° for 200 ft to the start of a short horizontal passage, and a large hole in the floor about 1.3m deep.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1357"},{"f":"and a large hole in the floor about","a":"depth","v":"1.3","u":"m","o":"A passage, 3 ft in height and 4 ft wide, slopes down at 27° for 200 ft to the start of a short horizontal passage, and a large hole in the floor about 1.3m deep.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1358"},{"f":"leading into a chamber whose corbelled roof is","a":"height","v":"40","u":"ft","o":"The short horizontal passage continues after this, leading into a chamber whose corbelled roof is 40 ft high and rises in eleven steps.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1359"},{"f":"third and final chamber with a corbelled roof","a":"height","v":"50","u":"ft","o":"This gives onto a short horizontal passage that leads to the third and final chamber with a corbelled roof 50 ft high.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379908979 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1360"},{"f":"Red Pyramid","a":"face angle","v":"43","u":"deg","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"matches Bent upper slope; confirm vs survey","id":"M2952"},{"f":"Red Pyramid","a":"passage (metric)","v":"0.91 h x 1.2 w, 27 deg, 61 m","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"metric restatement of ft rows","id":"M2953"},{"f":"Red Pyramid","a":"construction date","v":"2575-2563 BCE","u":"","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","yr":"","m":"derived","c":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid","b":"S","bb":"","t":"INTERPRETATION","n":"INTERPRETATION","id":"M2954"}],"lab":[{"k":"Materials","mat":"site material (as stated in article)","m":"documentary mention (Wikipedia, auto-extracted)","v":"The pyramid is named for the rusty reddish hue of its limestone, but it was not originally red – it was clad in white Tura limestone.","by":"no inline ref in article","b":"S","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979"}],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"largest_block","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"block_mass","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"stone_count","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"orientation","r":"no published azimuth reached"},{"a":"corner_precision","r":"no published precision survey in free sources"},{"a":"levelness","r":"no published levelling survey in free sources"},{"a":"quarry_source","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"mortar","r":"dry-stone construction or no binder analysis in free sources"},{"a":"tool_marks","r":"no tool-mark study in free sources reached"},{"a":"coords_elevation","r":"no elevation row yet"},{"a":"volume_labor","r":"no volume/labour estimate in sources opened"},{"a":"construction_phases","r":"no phase sequence in sources opened"},{"a":"lab_date_material","r":"no lab date with dated material in sources opened"},{"a":"hydrology_acoustics","r":"no published hydrology/acoustic measurement in sources opened"},{"a":"magnetic_radiation","r":"no published magnetic/radiation survey found (searched site name + magnetometry/radiation; Wikipedia, Google Scholar snippets)"},{"a":"metals_clamps","r":"no metal/clamp evidence reported in sources opened"},{"a":"excavation_history","r":"no excavation history row yet"},{"a":"artifacts_found","r":"no finds row yet"}],"dat":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"History  The Red Pyramid was the third pyramid built by Old Kingdom Pharaoh Sneferu, and was built 2575–2563 BCE.","dm":"[see dating_excerpt; method not extracted]","lab":"NO: inference only (style/context/king list/textual)","weak":"no direct lab result on the structure in our records; date from stylistic, contextual or textual inference","unesco":"","dens":"CENSUS"},"co":{"lat":"29.80833333","lon":"31.20583333","src":"Wikidata P625 only + curated wave0 value agrees","agree":"agree","b":"V","note":"two independent sources agree; max delta 0.0004 deg (~0.05 km)","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/39918835"},"src":[{"id":"S0376","t":"no inline ref in article","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Pyramid&oldid=1379908979"},{"id":"S0596","t":"Wikipedia (Red Pyramid)","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid"},{"id":"VEGY-015-3","t":"Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: The Red Pyramid","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/monuments/the-red-pyramid/"},{"id":"VEGY-015-4","t":"Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: The Bent Pyramid","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/monuments/the-bent-pyramid/"},{"id":"VEGY-015-5","t":"Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: Dahshur","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/archaeological-sites/dahshur"},{"id":"VEGY-015-6","t":"Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: Old Kingdom","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/historical-periods/old-kingdom"},{"id":null,"t":"R. W. Howard Vyse & J. S. Perring, Operations Carried On at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837, vol. III, Appendix (London: J. Fraser, 1842), pp. 63–67. Internet Archive (Google scan).","u":"https://archive.org/details/operationscarri03vysegoog"},{"id":null,"t":"Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Egypt), “Dahshur,” Discover Egypt’s Monuments.","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/archaeological-sites/dahshur/"},{"id":null,"t":"W. M. Flinders Petrie, Medum (London: David Nutt, 1892), inscriptions chapter. Internet Archive (Cornell).","u":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924028670465"},{"id":null,"t":"J. H. Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (New York: Scribner, 1905), ch. 6. Internet Archive.","u":"https://archive.org/details/historyofegyptfr00brearich"},{"id":null,"t":"UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur (site 86), description.","u":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/86/"}],"sum":"Lay a hand on the core of the Red Pyramid and you are touching a seabed. When John Perring surveyed it in 1837, he found that its stone was a reddish limestone \"interspersed with semi-petrified shells, chiefly those of oysters,\" quarried just west and south-west of the building. That rusty, shell-packed rock gives the pyramid its modern name. It was never meant to be seen. Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities says the monument was once sheathed in \"a beautiful pure white\" limestone brought from Tura, across the Nile south of Cairo, and that the casing was carried off for reuse in medieval times. What stands at Dahshur today is the inside of a pyramid: the colour of rust, built of shells, and still very nearly as tall as the day it was finished.\n\nThe Red Pyramid stands at Dahshur, the southern part of the old Memphis cemetery, inside the UNESCO World Heritage property that runs from Giza to Dahshur. It rises about 105 metres on a base about 220 metres wide, the height of a thirty-storey tower on a footprint wider than two football pitches laid end to end. Perring put its original base at 719 feet 5 inches and its height at 342 feet 7 inches, figures that agree with the modern ones. The Ministry calls it the highest pyramid at Dahshur and the third largest in Egypt, after the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre at Giza. More important than its size is its shape. The Ministry calls it the first true pyramid completed in Egypt, with smooth sides running at a single angle from base to tip.\n\nThat angle is low, and the reason for it is the story of a king learning by failure. The pyramid was built by Sneferu, first king of the Fourth Dynasty, whom the Ministry dates to about 2613 to 2589 BC; other chronologies put the Red Pyramid's construction at about 2575 to 2563 BC. Sneferu had already worked on the pyramid at Meidum, and then on the Bent Pyramid, one kilometre to the south, whose slope had to be cut partway up from about 55 degrees to about 43 because the blocks were unstable. Perring measured the Bent Pyramid's upper slope at 42° 59'. The Red Pyramid takes almost exactly that safer angle from the ground up: Perring put its casing at 43° 36' 11\", so low that the apex is \"nearly a right angle.\" The Ministry says work on it may have begun in year 13 of Sneferu's reign and taken about ten years.\n\nFew kings built on this scale. Flinders Petrie found that priests of two pyramids of Sneferu are named in inscriptions at Dahshur and elsewhere, and he wrote that the king \"was most extravagant in the matter of pyramids.\" Three great pyramids for a single ruler is an extraordinary demand on a state, and an extraordinary statement of what that state could do. Perring found four causeways serving the Red Pyramid, two running to the western quarries and two toward the Nile, and wrote that the casing \"was brought from the opposite side of the water.\" The apex had been a single block, set on a course of four stones 4 feet 9 inches thick. He judged the masonry good, and like that of the Great Pyramid.\n\nIts local names hold their own memories. Perring recorded Haram Mesinee, the Pointed or Sharp Pyramid; Haram el Wataweet, from the bats that lived inside; and Haram e Silsili, from a story of a chain said to have hung at the entrance to the passage between its inner rooms.\n\nThe entrance is not at ground level. It sits high on the north face, 94 feet above the base and slightly east of centre. A passage about a metre high and a little more wide drops at an angle of about 27 degrees for some 60 metres. It leads to two near-identical rooms. The first is about 27 feet long and 12 wide, and its walls step inward course by course, a corbelled vault, until the ceiling, about 40 feet up, is barely a foot across. Oddly, its floor is \"on a level with the base of the Pyramid.\" The rooms are not cut into the bedrock beneath but built inside the mass of masonry itself. A higher passage leads to a third room, 27 feet long and 13 feet 7½ inches wide, where fourteen courses step inward to a ceiling 48 feet 1 inch above the original floor. The Ministry says this is believed to have been the burial chamber.\n\nThe mainstream reading of all this is clear and persuasive. Sneferu's three pyramids are a sequence of trial and error, each fault corrected in the next. Meidum was a step pyramid converted into a true one; the Bent Pyramid started too steep and had to be eased; the Red Pyramid applied the lesson from the first course. On this view the failures are the evidence of learning, and the knowledge that built the Great Pyramid at Giza was earned here, slope by slope. Some alternative writers see the speed of the change, three great experiments within one reign, as a sign of knowledge handed down from an older, lost source. Mainstream scholars answer, again, that the failures themselves are the evidence of learning.\n\nEven the attribution has moved over time. In 1905 James Henry Breasted thought it \"probable\" that the two great stone pyramids of Dahshur were Third Dynasty work, then allowed a page later that Sneferu probably built one of them, preferably the bent one. The modern consensus gives both to Sneferu, but some of the evidence for that is indirect.\n\nThen there are the things the building does not explain. Perring noticed that no granite seemed to have been used in either stone pyramid at Dahshur. Were it not for broken granite near a ramp by the southern brick pyramid, he wrote, the builders might seem to have held only the north of Egypt, without access to the granite quarries at Aswan far up the Nile. What that granite was for, the sources do not say.\n\nAnd then there is the floor. Perring found the floor of the burial room \"taken up to the depth of 14 feet,\" and the floor of the passage taken up too. He thought it was done \"to facilitate the removal of the large blocks from the inner chamber,\" but neither he nor any later source in the record says who dug it, when, or what was found. His account mentions no sarcophagus. With the floor gone, the original burial arrangement is uncertain.\n\nThe pyramid itself has hardly shrunk. Perring measured the ruin at 700 feet on a side and 326 feet 6 inches high, which against his estimate of its original height meant it had lost only about 16 feet, less than five per cent, after more than four thousand years. We can measure this monument to the half inch. Its builders planned a slope that has held since the age of Sneferu, raised its rooms inside the stone rather than in the rock below, and left a burial chamber whose floor someone later tore out to a depth of fourteen feet. What were they looking for under that soaring stepped ceiling, and did they find it?","qs":["Sneferu's builders cut the Bent Pyramid's slope, then started again. What did the builders learn?","One king built three great pyramids. What does that say about the state that paid for them?","The white casing was taken for later buildings. How much does a pyramid's look today tell us about its first one?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Rote_Pyramide_%28Dahschur%29_04.jpg/1280px-Rote_Pyramide_%28Dahschur%29_04.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_Pyramide_(Dahschur)_04.jpg","title":"Rote Pyramide (Dahschur) 04.jpg","lic":"CC BY 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0","by":"Olaf Tausch","cap":"Red Pyramid of Dahshur, in Egypt"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Dahchour0019.jpg/1280px-Dahchour0019.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dahchour0019.jpg","title":"Dahchour0019.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Kurohito","cap":"Dahchour - Pyramidion retrouvé sur le site exposé dans le temple haut de la pyramide rouge"},{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/DahshurRedPyrChamber.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DahshurRedPyrChamber.jpg","title":"DahshurRedPyrChamber.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Roland Unger","cap":"Chamber in the Red pyramid of Snofru, Dahshur, Egypt"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Inside_the_Red_Pyramid_-_panoramio.jpg/1280px-Inside_the_Red_Pyramid_-_panoramio.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_the_Red_Pyramid_-_panoramio.jpg","title":"Inside the Red Pyramid - panoramio.jpg","lic":"CC BY 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0","by":"jokertrekker","cap":"Inside the Red Pyramid"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Massive_corbel-vaulted_ceiling_of_the_Red_Pyramid%27s_Main_burial_chamber_%2814609359948%29.jpg/1280px-Massive_corbel-vaulted_ceiling_of_the_Red_Pyramid%27s_Main_burial_chamber_%2814609359948%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massive_corbel-vaulted_ceiling_of_the_Red_Pyramid%27s_Main_burial_chamber_(14609359948).jpg","title":"Massive corbel-vaulted ceiling of the Red Pyramid's Main burial chamber (14609359948).jpg","lic":"CC BY 2.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0","by":"Jorge Láscar from Melbourne, Australia","cap":"The Red Pyramid, along with the Bent Pyramid, was closed to tourists for many years because of a nearby army camp. It is now usually open for tourists and a som"}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"Limestone","h":"Made of","s":[121]}],"hs":{"121":["Wikipedia: Red Pyramid (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/EGY-015.webp","w":1280,"h":961,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Rote_Pyramide_%28Dahschur%29_04.jpg/1280px-Rote_Pyramide_%28Dahschur%29_04.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}