[George/Cannon] My Man Snefuru (Warning -- Long and Possibly Boring)

Since we are in Egypt right now I think that it's fitting to talk about one of our family's favorite pharaohs.  Sneferu (Snef-ur-oo).  We first heard about Sneferu from a guy named Bob Brier.  We discovered Bob (we always call him Bob) on a company that sells college lectures, called the Great Courses.  On the Great Courses, we have listened to two courses taught by Bob.  One has 12 1/2 hour lectures, and is about the great leaders of ancient Egypt.  The second is a much longer 48 lecture course, about the overall history of ancient Egypt.  Anyway in both of these lectures he talks about Sneferu.  Sneferu is important because he build the first true pyramid.  But first some background that I learned from Bob.

Before they build Pyramids, people were buried (in case you didn't know a pyramid is a tomb for a king) in sand pits.  But this didn't work because the sand would eventually blow away and expose the body.  This was bad because animals would then eat the carcass, and you needed your body from the next world.  So to fix this problem you would build a structure over the pit so the sand wouldn't blow away.  The structure was called a mastaba.  A mastaba started as a slab, and then evolved into a large rectangle building.  Then came King Zoser (Zah-ser).  He wanted a really fancy tomb.  So his architect Imhotep (Im-ho-tep) had the idea to but a mastaba on top of a mastaba.  This created a step pyramid.  This worked (good job Imhotep) and was the first stone building in the history of the world (the other mastabas were made of mud brick).  This was Egypt's first pyramid (see below).

Me and my family in front of Zoser's Pyramid

Now a couple of generations later along comes Sneferu.  Sneferu decided to build a step pyramid.  Then he has a brilliant idea.  He will fill in the gaps and make a true pyramid.  But his first pyramid doesn't work out.  He gets the angle wrong, and the pyramid collapses.  You can see it today, and it just looks wrong (see below).

The Medium Pyramid

But Sneferu is not discouraged.  He decides to abandon his old pyramid and make another one.  This one is called the bent pyramid, and you'll find out why in a minute.  So he starts to make another pyramid and then Sneferu has another brilliant idea.  He won't be buried below the pyramid.  He will be buried in the pyramid.  It was ruined again.  When you build a pyramid you first dig down to bedrock so no sand can get under your pyramid, making it unstable.  In Sneferu's second pyramid sand got under a corner, and started to shift.  Because of this the pyramid started to cave in before it was finished.  So what does Sneferu do?  He finished the pyramid, but since he intended to build another one, so he put a bend at the top (hence the Bent Pyramid).  The bend helps because it used less money and material.  (See it below).

The Bent Pyramid

Now we are on to Sneferu's successful pyramid.  The Red Pyramid was started by Sneferu after he finished the Bent Pyramid, and this time Sneferu does it all right.  It is 348 foot pyramid, and it's called the red pyramid because when the sun hits it, it the pyramid looks red (see below).

The Red Pyramid

Sorry for this long blog on Snefuru, hope you enjoyed it.  If you want to learn more go check out Bob Brier's lectures on Egypt on Great Courses.