Only two pyramids are known to have been built during the First Intermediate Period — the Pyramid of Khui at Dara in Middle Egypt, perhaps actually a mastaba, and the Pyramid of the Herakliopolitan King Merikare that is known from textual sources but has not been securely identified on the ground.
Theban princes of the 11th Dynasty built what can be considered royal tombs on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes at the site of Al-Tarif. These consist of a series of entryways cut into the rock face with a huge courtyard cut from the rock in front. The entryways lead to long galleries, a shrine, and ultimately to burial chambers. In each of these tombs, the central chamber was for the ruler, with side chambers for courtiers. These tombs are now known as “saff” tombs, after the Arabic word for a row.
Moving to the south of the family burial ground at Al-Tarif, the Theban King Mentuhotep II built a gigantic tomb at Deir Al-Bahari that combined elements from both the “saff” tombs and from earlier pyramid complexes. Deir Al-Bahari is a uniquely beautiful setting, a bay of vertical cliffs along the Theban massif now best known as the site of the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut.
Mentuhotep defined his royal precinct by building a wall of fieldstone across the mouth of the bay. Most of the complex is relatively well-preserved and includes a long open causeway, once lined with statues of the King in Sed Festival clothing, that runs west to a forecourt where a number of tree pits have been found.
In 1898, the British archaeologist Howard Carter stumbled across the entrance to an underground corridor here. When he excavated it several years later, he found that it led, after some twists and turns, to a small chamber that perhaps was the original burial chamber of the king during an earlier architectural phase of the complex. This apparently became a cenotaph instead and contained an empty wooden coffin, the bones of sacrificed animals, a statue wrapped in linen, and several model boats.
Along the western edge of the forecourt is a portico decorated with battle scenes. From the forecourt, a ramp ascends to the ambulatory decorated with images of the king and gods that runs around a terrace bordered by low walls. On the top was some sort of solid construction, most likely a stylised representation of the primeval mound. West of this terrace was a row of six shaft tombs, five with their own shrines.
The shrines belonged to the queens of Mentuhotep II, all of whom died very young (the oldest was only 22). The identity of the youngest inhabitant of the shaft tombs, Queen Miyet, who passed away at the tender age of five, remains a mystery.
After these tombs were built, the complex was extended, and a colonnaded court was built to the west of the ambulatory. In the centre of this court is the entrance to the king’s burial chamber, with an emplacement for an altar or offering table. The corridor to the burial begins as an open trench and then becomes a tunnel. Niches in the walls of this tunnel contained over 600 wooden figures from model bakeries, slaughterhouses, granaries, and ships, but their architectural settings are missing.
The burial chamber, in the form of a granite vault, is built within a rock-cut cave. A calcite shrine with a granite top probably once held the king’s mummy inside a wooden coffin.
Beyond the court is a large hypostyle hall containing 80 octagonal columns. At its western end, a long-vaulted room was carved into the cliff, with a false door and a statue of the king, the focus of the cult, set into a niche in the west wall. In front of this, a low ramp leads to an altar.
There was once also a seated statue of Amun, the patron god of Thebes, in this sanctuary. The complex can be seen as both a royal tomb, the cult centre for the deceased and deified King, and a temple for Montu-Re and Amun-Re, the new state gods.
Little is known about the tombs of King Menthotep II’s successors. One of them may have begun a tomb south of Deir Al-Bahari, but even this is not certain. The fragment from the mortuary temple of King Nebhepetre Menthotep at Deir Al-Bahari shows the king in the red crown of Lower Egypt. The elegant style of this period is evident in the painted relief.
PYRAMID FORMS: The kings of the 12th Dynasty chose to return to the pyramid form for their tombs.
Built using very different construction techniques from those common in the Old Kingdom, these were erected for the most part in the Memphite and Fayoum regions. There was no standardised plan for the pyramids of the Middle Kingdom. Each is a unique monument, laid out according to constantly developing concepts.
King Amenemhat I may have begun a tomb at Thebes but abandoned it when he moved the capital north. At Lisht, near the entrance to the Fayoum, he revived the royal building traditions of the late Old Kingdom, incorporating some Theban elements.
His pyramid was built with a core of small, rough blocks of local limestone and a loose fill of sand, debris and mud brick. Included in this fill were relief fragments taken from Old Kingdom monuments belonging to kings Khufu, Khafre, Unas, and one of the Pepis. Most Egyptologists assume these are from their pyramid complexes at Giza and Saqqara, presumably vandalised during the turmoil of the First Intermediate Period, but Egyptologist Dieter Arnold has suggested they might come from otherwise unknown temples closer to Lisht.
The reliefs were apparently meant to link Amenemhat I magically to his great predecessors and grant his pyramid spiritual effectiveness. The construction techniques, however, were not particularly effective in the long term, and only about 20 metres of the superstructure remain standing today.
Like its Old Kingdom predecessors, the pyramid is entered through a chapel with a red granite false door against the centre of the north face. However, the interior rooms more resemble the Theban model: an entrance passage sloping down to just under the pyramid’s vertical access, then a shaft dropping to the burial chamber, which now lies beneath the level of the ground water and hence cannot be explored.
Only a little of the small mortuary temple is preserved, and its ground plan can no longer be discerned clearly. There was a limestone false door here, along with a granite altar carved with figures of Nile gods and nome personifications bringing offerings. Foundation deposits were recovered from beneath the terrace on which it was built; the objects found here include the skull of an ox, grinders for paint, model vases, and plaques of copper, stone, and faience. No trace of a cult pyramid was found, and the Valley Temple cannot be excavated because it now lies under a Muslim cemetery.
In the Theban style, both the royal family and important members of the court were buried within Amenemhat I’s Complex in mastabas between the inner and outer enclosure walls. West of the Pyramid, but also within the complex, a number of royal women were buried in 22 shafts arranged in two rows.
Many relief fragments were discovered here, but it is hard to tell which are from the Middle Kingdom and which are from the Old Kingdom. This attests to the desire of the new dynasty to revive the traditional art styles of the ancient Memphite capital, replacing the provincial styles predominant during the First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom.
King Senworet I followed his father’s example and built his pyramid at Lisht. This was once the largest in the area since the time of Neferirkare, but it now consists only of a small mound. The core was built with eight thin walls radiating from the centre to the four corners and the middle of each side, each supported by cross walls. This resulted in 32 small compartments that were then filled with stone blocks. This technique was used for many of the subsequent Middle Kingdom pyramids.
In keeping with tradition, the entrance was from the pavement north of the pyramid’s base; fragments of the chapel that stood over this depict gods, slaughter scenes, and the king with his ka at an offering table, approached by offering bearers and priests.
The substructure consists of a descending corridor that turns southeast. An additional tunnel ran under the burial apartments; this was used for the transportation of building materials and was blocked after the pyramid was finished. The internal passages and chambers are now filled with water, but several artifacts were left behind by ancient tomb robbers, who appear to have struck not long after the king was buried. There were fragments of wooden boxes, containers of calcite, including parts of the four canopic jars, and a golden dagger sheath.
It seems that King Senwosret I, like other kings of his dynasty, purposely dug his burial chambers deep in the earth close to the level of the ground water. This may have been an attempt to link him with the watery Netherworld, and thus associate him with Osiris, whose cult was on the rise during this era.
King Senwosret I’s mortuary temple appears to be modelled on the Sixth-Dynasty prototype, with the outer temple within the outer pyramid enclosure and the inner temple within the inner enclosure. The principal difference here is that there are fewer magazines. The base and part of the feet of a limestone statue of the king was discovered by the current excavator of the site, Dieter Arnold, in the rubble of the five-niched statue chapel. This depicted the king standing and was originally about 2.7 metres high (not including a crown). The offering hall also may have held a colossal figure of the king, fragments of which were found to the east.
Ten limestone statues of the king, apparently never used, were discovered in the late 19th century in a rectangular pit between the front of the temple and some subsidiary pyramids. The inner enclosure wall is decorated with huge rectangles containing the names of the king above a procession of offering bearers.
The cult pyramid to the southeast is the only such monument known from the Middle Kingdom. It has two chapels, to the north and east, and two subterranean chambers. Arnold has suggested that one chamber held a statue of the king’s ka and the other the royal canopic chest. To the west lies a single boat pit.
King Senwosret I’s causeway was unroofed, with niches at regular intervals containing life-size statues of the king in the mummiform guise of the god Osiris and wearing the red and white crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.
This had lanes on either side, a standard feature of Middle Kingdom causeways. The Valley Temple has never been found, but it may be located in the desert under a Roman cemetery.
There were nine subsidiary pyramids associated with the main one, most with their own enclosure walls and chapels to both the north and east. Some of these may have been built, or at least used for burial, during the reigns of kings Amenemhat Il and Senwosret II. Only two of the owners have been identified: Neferu, daughter of Amenemhat I and wife of Senwosret I, and Itakayet, either the daughter or wife of the king. Neferu’s name was written in a cartouche, the first time in Egyptian history that a queen’s name was treated thus.
Kings Amenemhat I and Senwosret I had attempted to revive the architectural patterns set out by the kings of the late Old Kingdom.
Amenemhat II abandoned this path, and from here on Middle Kingdom pyramid complexes are each individual and unique. His pyramid, in the ancient necropolis at Dahshour, is one of the least explored of all.
The construction techniques used were similar to the Pyramid of Senwosret I, using a skeleton filled with rubble and sand. The entrance is in the middle of the north side, and leads to a corridor, short horizontal passage, and the burial chamber beyond. There are four niches off the burial chamber, perhaps for statues. The sarcophagus consists of sandstone slabs set into the floor against the west wall.
Very little remains of the Mortuary Temple, and what there is has not yet been completely excavated. The causeway is open and leads east from a set of pylons at the front of the Mortuary Temple. The Valley Temple has never been found.
West of the pyramid within the enclosure wall are six tombs belonging to the royal family. French archaeologist Jacques de Morgan found several of these intact, complete with elaborate tomb equipment: wooden coffins, canopic chests, calcite vessels, and exquisite jewellery.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 20 February, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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