PYRAMID

in architecture, a monumental structure constructed of or faced with stone or brick and having a rectangular base and four sloping triangular (or sometimes trapezoidal) sides meeting at an apex (or truncated to form a platform). Pyramids have been built at various times in Egypt, The Sudan, Ethiopia, western Asia, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, India, Thailand, Mexico, South America, and on some islands of the Pacific Ocean. Those of Egypt and of Central and South America are the best known. The pyramids of ancient Egypt were funerary edifices. They were built over a period of 2,700 years, ranging from the beginning of the Old Kingdom to the close of the Ptolemaic Period; but the time at which pyramid building reached its acme, the pyramid age par excellence, was that commencing with the 3rd dynasty and ending with the 6th (c. 26862345 BC). During those years the pyramid was the regular type of royal tomb. It was not, as such, an isolated structure, but was always part of an architectural complex. The essential components, during the Old Kingdom at any rate, were the pyramid itself, containing or surmounting the grave proper and standing within an enclosure on high desert ground; an adjacent mortuary temple; and a causeway leading down to a pavilion (usually called the valley temple), situated at the edge of the cultivation and probably connected with the Nile by a canal. About 80 royal pyramids have been found in Egypt, many of them, however, reduced to mere mounds of debris and long ago plundered of their treasures. The prototype of the pyramid was the mastaba, a form of tomb known in Egypt from the beginning of the dynastic era. It was characterized by a flat-topped rectangular superstructure of mud brick or stone with a shaft descending to the burial chamber far below it. Djoser, the second king of the 3rd dynasty, employing Imhotep (q.v.) as architect, undertook for the first time the construction of a mastaba entirely of stone; it was eight metres high and had a square ground plan with sides about 63 m each. Once completed it was extended on the ground on all four sides, and its height was increased by building rectangular additions of diminishing size superimposed upon its top. Thus Djoser's original mastaba became a terraced structure rising in six unequal stages to a height of 60 m, its base measuring 120 m by 108 m. This monument, which lies at Saqqarah, is known as the Step Pyramid; it is probably the earliest stone building of importance erected in Egypt. The substructure has an intricate system of underground corridors and rooms, its main feature being a central shaft 25 m deep and 8 m wide, at the bottom of which is the sepulchral chamber built of granite from Aswan. The Step Pyramid rises within a vast walled court 544 m long and 277 m wide, in which are the remnants of several other stone edifices built to supply the wants of the king in the hereafter. A structure of peculiar shape called the Blunted, Bent, False, or Rhomboidal Pyramid, which stands at Dahshur a short distance south of Saqqarah, marks an advance in development toward the strictly pyramidal tomb. Built by Snefru, of the 4th dynasty, it is 188 m square at the base and approximately 98 m high. Peculiar in that it has a double slope, it changes inclination about halfway up, the lower portion being steeper than the upper. It comes nearer than Djoser's terraced tomb to being a true pyramid. A monumental structure at Maydum, also ascribed to Snefru, was a true pyramid, though not originally planned as such. The initial structure was gradually enlarged until it became a gigantic eight-terraced mass of masonry; then the steps were filled in with a packing of stone to form a continuous slope. The entire structure was eventually covered with a smooth facing of limestone; a geometrically true pyramid was the final result. In its ruined condition, however, it has the appearance of a three-stepped pyramid rising to a height of about 70 m. The earliest tomb known to have been designed and executed throughout as a true pyramid is the North Stone Pyramid at Dahshur, thought by some to have also been erected by Snefru. It is about 220 m wide at the base and 104 m high. The greatest of the Egyptian pyramids are those of the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkure at Giza (see Giza, Pyramids of). Among American pyramids the best known include the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacn (q.v.) in central Mexico, the Castillo at Chichn Itz (q.v.), and various Inca and Chim structures in Andean settlements. American pyramids were generally built of earth and then faced with stone, and they are typically of stepped form and topped by a platform or temple structure. The Pyramid of the Sun, with base dimensions of 220 m by 230 m, rivals in size the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, which measures 230 m square.