Micerino's Pyramid

With the end of the IV dynasty a different social organization is outlined: the pharaoh’s power is reduced before a different distribution of richness and authority. Micerino’s pyramid, Chefren’s son, reflects this tendency for the smaller sizes of the previous royal tombs, the less building care and the less respect for the construction time.
The sides at the base are 108m, it’s 65,50m high and the covering of pink granite from Assuan was about 1/3 of this height: the top part was instead covered in white limestone from Tura.
Its construction goes back to the XXVI century BC. The inside, of which the entrance is on the northern façade (at 4m from the base) was found in 1837, has a corridor, almost completely excavated in the rock according to a first project and today blocked, that leads to the upper part of the first room excavated in the rock. Of the second project is part the corridor used today, that after 31m of slope becomes horizontal and leads to an antechamber (3,65x6m) and ends, a little under the first corridor, in a big underground room (10,57x3,85m,4m high) that is completed with another smaller one where the place in which the sarcophagus was is evident, which was moved later in the definite sepulchral chamber, 4,50m lower in the rock and covered in granite. The basalt sarcophagus there found, went lost because of the wreck of the ship that transported it to London. Along the north-east side of the pyramid there are the ruins of Micerino’s temple, completed after the king’s premature death by his son Shepseskaf, no longer in stone, but with a covering og raw plastered bricks. On the plan of the temple two different areas with different functions are clearly seen: a part is accessible for the dead king’s daily services and a secret one directly connected to the pyramid. A little south of the temple there are three small pyramids with the remainders of their temples. The biggest one was the queen Khamerernebty’s tomb.