Pyramids in Egypt.
Breaking through the morning smog of Cairo, lines of tour buses roll down the highway alongside taxis and rental cars, with everyone headed en masse toward the lifelong dream destination: The Pyramids of Giza. But the awestruck emotion you may feel when finally standing before the world’s most famous pyramids can be dampened a bit by the landscape, which is choked with tourists traipsing and locals swarming, begging you to buy their goods.
Not even a blip on the radar for most visitors to Egypt, this overlooked site is a pyramid-shaped oasis in the tourism-riddled desert. Its largely untouched status may be a function of its position as a relative newcomer on the pyramid tourism trail. Until 1996 Dahshur was in a military zone and not accessible to the public.
Eleven pyramids originally stood at Dahshur, but only three of note remain today. Snefru, the first pharaoh of the 4th dynasty, built the world’s second true pyramid there, and it’s also the third tallest. The Red Pyramid is classic.
Before he succeeded in building the Red Pyramid, Snefru tried sort of a practice run at Dahshur. The ruler attempted perfection and ultimately failed when he built what is known today as the Bent Pyramid. It’s named is derived from the fact that construction began on the pyramid at a slope of 60 degrees, but this angle proved far too steep and was corrected to 43.5 degrees. The saving maneuver enabled the pyramid to stand strong throughout the centuries, although with a rounded bottom and somewhat blunt peak, it looks less like a pyramid and more like a dollop.
Even odder in shape is the Black Pyramid, which was built by the Middle Kingdom’s Pharaoh Amenemhat III. Its exterior was largely eroded by the forces of weather, while its ambitious inner labyrinth caved in on itself. Though, it’s apparently still ensconced in the military zone, you can view the Black Pyramid from afar, giving this curious and misshapen mound a degree of mystery.
With these three unique structures standing so quietly in the middle of nowhere, Dahshur could rise to the forefront of the must-see Egypt pyramids.