Close to Fayoum Governorate sits the Maidum Pyramid dating from the Old Kingdom of the 4th Dynasty. An unusual-looking Pyramid in comparison to the Pyramids at Giza and other Pyramids.
Location:
Around 50 minutes drive from Fayoum City and 1 hour 40 minutes from Downtown Cairo by road.
History:
Archeologists ascribe the Pyramid of Maidum to Snofru or to his father Huni, whose partisans argue that Snofru built the red and Bent Pyramids at Dahshur, and would therefore not have needed a third repository for his ‘Ka’ A contrary theory is that Maidum was started by Snofru as a step pyramid and later given an outer shell to make it a “true” pyramid but the design was faulty, distributing stresses outwards rather than inwards, so that its own mass blew the pyramid apart. This theory postulates that Snofru had already embarked on another pyramid at Dahshur, whose angle was hastily reduced (hence the Bent Pyramid), and that the Red Pyramid was a final attempt to get things right.
Round about the pyramid are several mastabas reduced to ruinous lump, where the exquisite “Maidum Geese” frieze and the famous statue of Snofru’s son Rahotep and his wife Nofret were found (both are now in the Cairo Museum). Mastaba #17 can be entered by descending a 47 metre long corridor and makeshift ladder to burial chamber’s entrance presumably another shaft exists but has yet to be discovered.