Egyptian archaeologists have discovered the bottom part of an unknown pyramid in the Sakkara area about 18 miles south of Cairo. NationalGeographic explorer-in-residence Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities, says he believes the pyramid belonged to the Fifth Dynasty King Menkauhor who ruled from 2444 B.C. to 2436 B.C. Hawass says no one had ever excavated the pyramid and no one knew which king it contained in its tomb. The excavation revealed the substructure of a now headless pyramid.
"We've found the burial chamber, and we found also the lid ofa sarcophagus, and we did not discover yet the entrance to the pyramid because it's located underneath this village. That we're planning to move this village soon to another area in the valley, the study of the stones and the sarcophagus (are) can showthat this pyramid should be a pyramid belonged to Dynasty Five. And the only missing pyramid of a king of Dynasty Five is a king called Menkauhor."
Menkauhor was a relatively obscure king and was the last pharaoh to build a sun temple called Akhet-Re. Hawass added that the pyramid had been recorded in the last century by Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, Lepsius was a German Egyptologist and a founder of modern scientific Egyptology.
Vocabulary Mix:
sarcophagus: n stone coffin, esp one with carvings, etc, used in ancient times
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