Meidum and the Beni Suef Pyramids

The First Attempt At A True Smooth Sided Pyramid, And The One That Failed: Meidum'S Outer Casing Slid Away And Left A Three Stepped Tower Standing In A Mound Of Its Own Rubble, With A Descending Passage You Can Still Climb Into And A Mastaba Field Around It That Produced The Painted Geese Now In Cairo · El Wasta, Beni Suef

Meidum is the pyramid that failed, and it is far more interesting for it. Sneferu's builders tried here to turn a stepped structure into a true smooth-sided pyramid, piling a casing onto a step pyramid core - and the casing slid off. What is left is a strange three-stepped tower standing out of a mound of its own debris, visible for miles across the cultivation, looking more like a ruined fortress than a pyramid. You can walk into a descending passage and climb a wooden stair up into the burial chamber, which is a genuine piece of pyramid interior with almost nobody in it. Around the base is a mastaba field that produced the painted frieze of geese now in the Egyptian Museum, one of the best-known images from the Old Kingdom. An hour and a half from Cairo and thirty minutes from the Faiyum, it is the missing step between Saqqara's staircase and Dahshur's corrected angles. Almost nobody comes, which is the other half of the reason to make the drive.

On the desert edge west of El Wasta, 100 km south of Cairo and 30 km north of the Faiyum, with Lahun and Hawara nearby, El Wasta, Beni Suef, Egypt

Daylight hours with a ticket, shorter in winter, and staffed by very few people - whether the DESCENDING PASSAGE INTO THE PYRAMID IS OPEN depends on whether someone is there to open it, which is the thing to establish at the gate because it is the best part of the visit. There is no visitor centre and no cafe. The mastaba field around the base is open ground and may or may not be fenced. Reaching it needs a car: the turn is off the Cairo-Faiyum or Beni Suef road near El Wasta, about an hour and a half from Cairo and half an hour from Faiyum city, with no useful public transport to the gate. The site pairs naturally with Lahun and Hawara, which are both nearby and both in similar condition, and with Dahshur on the way back to Cairo.

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