Facts You Do Not Know About El-Lahun Pyramid!
El-Lahun Pyramid by Einsamer Schütze
Welcome to this Egypt’s 4000-year-old pyramid; it is the largest building of mud bricks. One of the rare and unparalleled monuments in the world! A mystery surrounding its southern entrance. Corridors intertwined, and a room shined with its jewels in the eyes of the discoverers; it is the offering chamber and many royal jewels bright in it. A maze of corridors surrounds the burial chamber to find a shine comes from the burial chamber; sarcophagus made of bright red granite for this king, who ruled Egypt for only about 19th years, Senusret II. You are in the El-Lahun Pyramid.
What Is The Story Of This Great Pharaonic Pyramid Established Since the 12th Dynasty in 1844 BC? And Why Exactly El-Lahun City!
A Majestic Historical Story You Will Live In El-Lahun City
Senusret II decided to transfer the governate routine and the royal cemeteries to El-Lahun city instead of Hwara City!
The city of Lahun is at the entrance of the Fayoum. While Senusret II paid much attention to the Fayoum region, he built canals and a large irrigation system from Bahr Youssef to what would later become Lake Qarun. Aqueducts were built there to hold and store water during the flood period to be exploited afterward, and he added a drainage network. Therefore, Senusret II transferred the cemetery of the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, “the kings of the Middle Kingdom,” from Dahshur to the Fayoum region in the city of Lahun.
Indeed, he established a village for workers in this city. So, when you stand in front of El- Lahun Pyramid, realize that you are in the heart of the oldest pharaonic cities. You can meet The ruins of a city called the city of the pyramid Kahun or Sekhm Senusret, meaning Senusret’s power.
What About The City Around El- Lahun Pyramid!
It was built on an area of 18 acres. It included two main neighborhoods. The Eastern District included the palaces of princes and nobles. While in the Western District was for the workers. Hundreds of papyri with hieratic texts were found on it for many literary, medical, mathematical, and legal sciences, as well as many household items that were used at the time of the construction of the city.
The Time To Build El-Lahun Pyramid Had Come!
Above a high hill in the city of El-Lahun in Fayoum, Senusret II stood announcing the construction of his royal tomb here on this 12-meter-high yellow limestone hill. On the outskirts of the city of El-Lahun and at this spot overlooking the entire Nile Valley, the ancient Egyptian builders had raised the bricks of Mudstone up to 48 meters with a base length of about 126 meters, building the first pyramid in the southeast of Fayoum.
It is the first and largest pyramidal building built by Senusret II of mud bricks in Egypt, as some interpreted this on the symbolism of the use of mud bricks made of Nile silt, as an evidence for fertility, flowery reclamation, and prosperity.
Senusret II found this high hill facilitated to construct his majestic pyramid. The ancient Egyptian began building radial and cross walls. This formed relatively small compartments that were filled with mud bricks. This design extended along the planning axes, intertwined with a grid of ten internal walls, five extending from north to south and five from east to west, which very likely met with a wall extending along the sides of the El-Lahun.
After the construction of this huge pyramid, it was covered with limestone, like all other ancient Egyptian pyramids. But feature something different!
The entrance of El-Lahun pyramid was located on the southern side, unlike the rest of the Egyptian pyramids!
Then, How about the king’s journey in the next life: where did the spirit of the king launch? What!! A Secret Of The Ancient Egyptians Beliefs.
There was a belief for the ancient Egyptians that the soul of the deceased, when it goes out, returns through the North Pole Star. So, the entrances were from the northern side so that the soul of the deceased could know its direction. The entrances to the pyramids are all in the Old Kingdom from the northern side. But El-Lahun pyramid came to contradict this theory for no apparent reason; so, the entrance to the El-Lahun pyramid is still a mystery. But perhaps religious concepts in the era of the Middle Kingdom changed from what preceded it.
This pyramid that belongs to King Senusret II, the fourth king of the Twelfth Dynasty, nineteenth-century BC, was discovered in the nineteenth century. What exactly did the archeologists find inside the pyramid!
The Pyramid of King Senusret II From Inside!
The southern entrance leads you to complicated corridors overlapping circularly around the tomb of the king. A shaft was dug into the ground to the south, and hidden beneath it; a sloping passage leads to the tomb of an unidentified princess.
The shaft takes to a horizontal corridor that leads north to a hall with a vaulted ceiling. In the east of this hall, there is a dug well.
One of the pharaohs’ beliefs is embodied in front of your eyes!
This dug well represents one of the beliefs of the pharaohs. The ancient Egyptian believed that creation began from underground water. Therefore, the presence of a well with groundwater means that the king would be able to return to life again. This also explains the presence of some underground wells in the Tombs of the Kings in the Valley of the Kings.
Along the west of the vaulted hall, you can meet the first chamber, while the corridor continues towards an antechamber; you arrive at the burial chamber. It is clad entirely in granite and with a garbled roof, with measures five by 3 meters and is 3 meters high. Inside it, your eyes will shine with The red granite sarcophagus of the king.
South of the burial chamber, a small chamber. Wow! A rare artifact was found in this spot; a golden uraeus that once adorned the king’s head and some leg bones of the king. These weren’t all the treasures inside the El-Lahun pyramid, but in the offering chamber, some royal jewels were obtained.
When looking around you, you can find a passage in the north wall that surrounds the burial chamber and enters the antechamber in the south. From here, the archeologists deduced from where the King’s soul had set off to come back to life again! Maybe from here, the king’s departure to the north and his re-emergence in the pyramid to the east of the burial chamber.
Actually, from the El-Lahun Pyramid, you will find yourself in the heart of the El-Lahun cemetery beside the worker village. Each inch takes you to a great historical site. Also, you will meet the pharaonic dam, El-Lahun dam built by Amenemhat III.
What about the cemetery?
Next to the El-Lahun pyramid was the tomb of the engineer of the pyramid Enppi in the south. Among the most important tombs attached to the pyramid of El- Lahun, we find four tombs that were built for four members of the royal family, in a courtyard inside the first wall of the pyramid. Also there the daughter of Senusret II, “Set Hathor Ewent”, was buried in Cemetery No. 8. That princess left a cache similar to Dahshur. It is represented in knots, crowns, and wooden boxes inlaid with ivory, including a razor, a mirror, and jewelry engraved with the name of King Amenemhat III.
