Layer Pyramid

The Chaba Pyramid ( also layer pyramid or Pyramid Layer ) is a Saujet at el- Arjan (Egypt ), this unfinished step pyramid. It is Pharaoh Chaba attributed on the basis of findings in the neighboring Mastaba Z500.

Research

The first description of the pyramid was held by John Shae Perring in 1839. Karl Richard Lepsius also mentioned the pyramid in its reports and pointed her the number XIV in his pyramid list. The descent to passage was discovered in 1896 by Jacques de Morgan. The first intensive investigation found in 1900 by Alexandre Barsanti instead. From late 1910 to mid- 1911 George Reisner and Clarence Fisher also explored the complex. Neither Barsanti still Reisner and Fisher finished their studies and their publications are inconsistent with measurements and details in part.

As construction for a long time was in a restricted military area, he was so far not fully excavated yet fully investigated.

The Pyramid

With a base length of 84 m, the pyramid would have been smaller than the preceding it Djoser and Sekhemkhet pyramid. The fact that the pyramid was not completed, allows a look at the structure of the internal structure. This consists of a square core of eleven meters and an edge length of 14 surrounding inwardly at an angle of 68 ° inclined layers with dimensions of 2.6 m each, which brought in the pyramidal layer name pyramid. Starting from the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser Lauer calculated from five steps with an overall height of the pyramid of about 42-45 m. The building was set at a height of 17 m. For an outer cladding layer, found no evidence or archaeological evidence.

The mud bricks found at the pyramid are not associated with the building itself, but interpreted as remnants of Baurampen.

Substructure

The entrance is located in the northeast of the pyramid. A steep staircase leads to a tunnel to the west. The passage branches to the central axis of the pyramid at a perpendicular shaft, in its mid-height branches a short walk to the south.

To the south leads a close passage to the grave chamber, which has around halfway down a flight of stairs. The course itself is so narrow that a sarcophagus with difficulty ( if any) could be brought into the grave chamber. Remnants of such were not found, nor evidence that a funeral had taken place. Galleries and corridors around the grave chamber as in the previous step pyramids missing here.

In the area of the stairs another gallery is located above the grave chamber in the sketches Barsanti, which is absent in Reisner and Fisher.

To the north, a corridor leads to a storage loft with 32 chambers, which leads U -shape around the pyramid and represents a simplified version of the Gallery of Sekhemkhet pyramid. In the investigation of the chambers no remains of their original content could be found.

The great similarities to the substructure of the pyramid Sekhemkhet demonstrate the temporal proximity of the two buildings.

Pyramid complex

A skirt of the complex as in the previous step pyramids could not yet be detected. A east of the pyramid located at the edge of the desert valley temple of structure could have been, but this would be the first case in which the Valley Temple would have a east-west orientation. Directly east of the pyramid to find the remains of brick walls that could have belonged to a mortuary temple. However, none of these assumptions is assured due to the insufficient exploration of the complex.

The approximately 200 m north of the pyramid located Mastaba Z500 could have been a part of the pyramid complex. There had been discovered, bearing the name of Pharaoh Chaba. Based on these findings, the pyramid Chaba is assigned.

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