Word: snefru
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...years. Some theorize that the King may have died during construction, forcing workers to finish quickly. Others suggest that a building disaster--a heavy rain, perhaps--required a change of plans. Stadelmann believes the weak clay beneath the pyramid began to give way; rather than leave an ugly stub, Snefru completed the project at a gentler (and hence more stable) incline and began building the Red Pyramid a mile to the north...
Most of these artifacts date from the 12th dynasty, long after the kingdom once ruled by Snefru disintegrated in an era of famine and unrest. It was during this chaotic period that the first great wave of looting and tomb robbing ruined much of Egypt's historical treasures. The rulers of the Middle Kingdom tried to restore law and order, but the mystical union of nature, religion and state that marked the Old Kingdom never returned...
...accounts, life was sweet under Snefru's rule. Egypt in the 3rd millennium B.C. was a land of peace and plenty. The nobles feasted on fattened ducks and geese and wore white linen robes--when they wore much at all. One papyrus recounts how a bored King Snefru had himself rowed around a lake by young beauties clothed only in fishnets. Snefru seems to have had an exceedingly high opinion of himself. Until his reign, an Egyptian king was believed to be the earthly incarnation of Horus, the falcon god, achieving full deification only in death. Snefru, however, declared himself...
Modern archaeologists downplay the good King--bad King labels, which date to an apocryphal--and now discounted--tale told by the Greek historian Herodotus about how Khufu prostituted his own daughter to pay for his pyramid. Good or bad, Snefru ended up in the Red Pyramid, entombed in a magnificent three-room burial chamber that is considered the finest of the Old Kingdom. The chamber, with its 45-ft. corbel ceiling, remains. Its royal occupant, however, is missing. A mummy discovered in the pyramid in 1948 and believed to contain Snefru's corpse disappeared shortly afterward and has never been...
LARA MARLOWE, TIME's Beirut bureau chief, gets plenty of opportunities to write about wars, assassinations and bombings. So her occasional cultural excursions--like this week's archaeology story about the reopening of the pyramids of "Good King" Snefru--bring her particular pleasure. "You can't compare the dangers of covering a war with those of exploring ancient Egyptian monuments," she acknowledges. But Dahshur's 4,600-year-old pyramids and tombs did provide a few eerie moments. "Snefru's Bent Pyramid is unsettlingly majestic. In nearby tombs the grave shafts are so deep you can't see the bottom...