Page 115 - آثار مصر الفرعونية الجزء الأول

that Reisner discovered.

Interestingly, there was also within the mortuary temple a
small square room .with a single pillar. It had a strikingly similar
appearance to the antechamber career that actually first appears
in the mortuary temples of the 5th Dynasty pyramids.

Some elements within the temple may even be dated beyond
the reign of Menkaure's son, including the stelae of Merenre I
and Pepi I.

The Pyramid Proper

Menkaure's pyramid lies at the far end of the Giza diagonal
on the very edge of the Mokattam Formation, where it dips down
to the south and disappears into the younger Maadi Formation.
Just as with his father, Khafre's nearby pyramid, Menkaure's
construct had to .have a very well prepared rock subsurface,
particularly around the northeast comer. This base is two and one
half meters higher than his father's pyramid and occupies a mere
quarter of the area consumed by Khafre and Khufu's pyramids. It
has a core of local limestone blocks, with casing made of
unfinished pink granite from Aswan up to a height of about
fifteen meters. Further up, the casing was probably made of fine,
Turah limestone. Because completely finished casing blocks
would have probably been damaged during transport and
installation, particularly at their edges, the final finishing touches

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