ANCIENT EGYPT

The History, People and Culture of the Nile Valley

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Meidum: Well Worth the Effort!

Meidum, some 70 kms south of Giza, can hardly be said to be a real tourist site and there is certainly less hassle for the determined tourist than at many of the sites around Egypt, but a visit does take a little effort to get the best out of it, writes John Dixon. He outlines the unique features of this pyramid site, best-known by professional Egyptologists.

Whilst there must be a variety of ways to get to see the partially ruined pyramid of Meidum our party of four hired a taxi for E£160 for the day. We had been fortunate to find Mohamed, our driver, a day or two earlier for he had an old but comfortable and well maintained Mercedes which coped with all four of us and assorted camera gear, gallons of water and so on without any problem. Mohamed was a very patient man – he needed to be to cope with our little group for at most sites we were happy to spend hours studying the ruins. It was no different at Meidum.

We started the day at 9 am and Mohamed was ready and waiting outside our hotel in Giza. He suggested that we took the desert road to Meidum to which we all agreed – how could we disagree with him since he was driving and knew the way! Soon we began the climb over the Giza Plateau which took us out onto the desert road. Perhaps this is not the deep desert but it soon became clear that this was a pretty harsh environment – big skies with sand, almost unbroken, for as far as the eye could see. There was little to break the scene – here and there a tree struggling for life and strangely two Egyptians asleep under their truck – but generally nothing but sand.

Tapering Tower

It was quite a relief, after the madness of Cairo, to be on a road that was almost empty of vehicles – certainly not a road to try hitching. The trip through the desert took about an hour and here and there were signs of life but, most oddly for us, there were two check points at which questions were asked of Mohamed. We were not questioned though the guards took some interest in us. Eventually the pyramid ­of Meidum could be seen towering above the desert, stark straight lines rising from a sea of sand. The first impression was one of size. True it is not as big as the Great Pyramid at Giza but it is immense. Secondly, we were struck by the shape which is not pyramidal since it rises in three steps to form a kind of tapering tower.

As soon as we got out of the car we were greeted by two of the antiquities guards who proceeded to trail around behind us impart­ing various kinds of information while we tried to tell them that we wanted to walk all around the monument and take our time at it. The site is very different to the Giza Plateau in this respect for apart from the guards there were no hawkers and camels and all the rest of the things that can make a visit to Giza a little fraught if colourful. We walked around the massive piles of rubble breaking like huge waves of sand against the walls of the monument, that are supposed to represent the remains of the quarrying of the pyra­mid throughout its long history. There was a feeling within our little group that perhaps this was a very simplistic explanation and that per­haps other agencies were at work here.

Bee hives

The mounds of rubble are perhaps 20 metres high all around the pyramid and must contain enormous quantities of material which suggest a high percentage of waste from any quarrying operation. Be that as it may the views from the top of the rubble are quite spectacular espe­cially from the eastern corners where the pre­carious nature of existence on the Nile is clear with the marked line of the vegetation green and sharp against the dusty brown desert. We were all struck by the quantities of mud that appeared on the monument, particularly the eastern side, since it looked as if the walls had been splashed by huge mud pies. As we climbed to the top of the piles of rubble it was clear that this mud was in fact the home of what appeared to be some kind of large bee. We were immediately struck by the similar shape of this insect with the bee hieroglyph we had all seen on inscriptions at various sites. The bees had built mud hives on the walls of the pyramid to several centimetres thick though it appears that each bee lived in an individual hole.

To the eastern side it is possible to walk the causeway towards the valley and look back on the monument - whilst not as it would have been in the Old Kingdom times it is a very impressive sight - and at the end of this is the small mortuary temple, set against the eastern wall of the pyramid, which has been excavated and has some New Kingdom graffiti which was pointed out by our patient though rapidly tiring guards. This temple adds to the enigma of the pyramid since there is little other than the New Kingdom inscription to fill in the details of its history - even the two stelae set at the back are blank.

Modifications to pyramid

It is possible, with some careful observation to pick up the various stages of construction and to understand that it was originally designed as a step pyramid which had been converted to a true pyra­mid. On the north east corner there are the remains of the outer casing stones of one of the interior steps. This indicates that the monument had under­gone some substantial modification before it became the edifice that was eventually quarried away.

By this stage of our trip one of the guards was beginning to feel the strain admitting to the fact that his legs were tired from follow­ing us around and up and down the pyramid and at one point he was forced to sit down while we ambled on around the monument. He probably did not see visitors like us on a regular basis since most seem to spend a few minutes looking aghast at the monument and then back in their coach or what have you to disappear to one o the more highly sought after sites. He was not to escape so easily from us ‑ if he wanted to follow or guide, then there was so much more we wanted to see and off we went to the interior of the pyramid. For someone new to this kind on thin this is spectacular.

After a descent of some fifty metres or so down a narrow low passage it levels off for about another 10 metres. Then there is a short climb up a ladder into a corbelled burial chamber. The corbelling is  rough but nonetheless effective and impres‑  sive as the huge,  roughly hewn, blocks  of stone, steadily  overlap one another and disappear into the  gloom that is the roof of the chamber. There are even the remains

of baulks of timber from the Old Kingdom though it is not entirely clear as to their purpose. Records show that no sarcoph­agus was ever found here but the remains of a wooden coffin were found by Petrie.

Mastaba tombs

Meidum is more than just the pyramid. There are a number of mastabas of some considerable size and the large one to the north east of the pyra­mid (Mastaba 17) can be visited by the deter­mined traveller.

The entry to this tomb is from the south and it must have been how the ancient tomb robbers entered the mastaba since the main entry seems to have been on the eastern side. Entry is by a small opening and narrow passage in part through the mud brick superstructure of the mastaba and in part through the natural ground. At first this pas­sage is quite steep and keeping the feet in the stooped position is a bit of a problem. It would be nice to say it got easier, but it doesn't. After perhaps twenty metres or so it is necessary to turn round in the confined space to take to a lad­der that drops about three metres to another por­tion of the passage.

Now under most circumstances this may not be much of a problem but with cameras dangling from necks and various other bits and pieces it can be a bit awkward to say the least as one member of our group found out! But this is still the easy bit of the trip for the next part of the passage is just as tight as the upper portion and curved. At the end of it there is a crawl and there is no other way, which takes you through a hole cut in the stone lining of the outer part of the burial chamber. Then the intrepid travellers must walk the plank since a few rickety planks are all that is provided to get across some gaps between a number of large blocks of stone lying in the entrance to the chamber. The chamber, once reached, is bare.

Princely sarcophagus

There are no inscriptions of any kind but it was once the tomb of a Prince of the early 4th Dynasty. There is, however, a granite sarcopha­gus which has a certain simple austere beauty. That too is unmarked and, of course, empty though when excavated contained the rifled mummy of the Prince. Remarkably, there is a stonemason's mallet still propping up the lid of the sarcophagus and presumably that has remained there since the tomb was robbed in antiquity. The return journey is no easier for having completed it once and it is a relief to see the sunlight again. Whilst it is not, perhaps, too difficult a descent it does help to be relatively fit and supple and it would not be suitable for any­one suffering from even the remotest feelings of claustrophobia. However, it is worth the effort to see the burial chamber and can be recom­mended for the more active and determined.

We spent an interesting and enjoyable morning at Meidum and could easily have stayed longer to explore the rest of the site but, much to the relief of the guards, we decided to move on and left them with a little baksheesh to compensate them for what must have turned out to be a busy morning for them.

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