Page 116 - آثار مصر الفرعونية الجزء الأول

were not completed until the very end of the construction
process. This also made it possible to achieve a very accurate
fitting along the whole surface of the pyramid walls. There is an
inscription on the granite casing of the north wall that dates from
the Late period, and may be the one mentioned by Diodorus.

Original access was provided to the inner chambers by an
entrance on the axis of the north wall, about four meters above
ground level. From there, a descending corridor, only partially
lined with pink granite, sloped down at an angle of a little more
than 26 degrees for 31 meters through the masonry core to the
chambers below. This "lower corridor" terminates in a room with
walls that were provided with niches. The purpose of this unusual
room is still debated among scholars. However, the niches
represent the first purely decorative element inside a pyramid
since Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara. At the beginning of the
next corridor, there is a granite barrier that is made of three
blocks that were lowered after its completion. The following
corridor continues at a slight downward angle until it comes out
in a relatively small, east-west oriented upper antechamber with
wall that are completely undecorated. The east end of this
chamber is located directly under the vertical axis of the pyramid.

Here, another passageway known as the "upper corridor"
runs over the "lower corridor" through a short horizontal section
before climbing in a north-south direction into the pyramid core,

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