The Emptiness of Pyramid Sarcophagi

Welcome to History for Granite. Join me to explore ancient Egypt. Please subscribe, and together we'll uncover secrets from the past written in stone. The largest pyramids of the Old Kingdom have always attracted speculation about why Egyptians would build on such a colossal scale. Since most of these pyramids lack inscriptions or obvious clues about what occurred inside, many people believe they are just too magnificent to be a burial place for a king. But anyone opposing the pyramids as a tomb must confront two very strong pieces of evidence. The first is that almost every pyramid is in the middle of a necropolis with countless burials nearby. The second is that almost every pyramid contains a stone sarcophagus that could not have been brought in after construction. These two facts are of paramount importance, and most alternative speculations about the pyramids fail to address how strong this evidence really is. However, the pyramids of Egypt evolved from modest territory markers to colossal crypts. Therefore, some aspects of their core function changed over time. Considering the rapid evolution of pyramid design in the Fourth Dynasty, it would be presumptuous to say that each pyramid was designed with an identical purpose. By distinguishing the unique physical evidence in each pyramid, some of their enduring mysteries may be better understood. In this video, we're going to examine the strongest piece of evidence contained within them, the sarcophagus. If these stone boxes were to be the eternal resting place of the most powerful men in Egypt, we can assume great care was put into their design and construction. In a monument made of stone, these coffers would be the crown jewel of a pharaoh's eternal glory. Starting with the first stepped pyramid of Third Dynasty pharaoh Djoser, we immediately run into an enormous problem. We have a large stone box under the pyramid, but it doesn't look like a sarcophagus found anywhere else in the world. As ancient architects once put it, If this is an old kingdom sarcophagus, then I'm the queen of Sheba. Matt's ideas have changed from that video made long ago, but there's something about his quote which resonates. This granite structure doesn't look like what anyone would use to hold a body. If you put this box anywhere around a pyramid other than beneath its apex, I don't think it would be assigned the function of a sarcophagus. The designation is derived from later pyramids having sarcophagi beneath them, near the center. Conspicuously, later pyramids refrain from placing the sarcophagus beneath the exact center point of the structure, in contrast to this granite box. Djoser also built a similar granite box beneath a mastaba within his pyramid complex, known as the South Tomb. It's smaller in size, but clearly follows the same design of the larger one beneath the pyramid. With Djoser being the first king of Egypt to build a colossal pyramid, there used to be a healthy debate about whether he might choose the mastaba or the pyramid as a preferred location for his burial. Egyptology's current explanation as to why the pyramid box must have been Djoser's resting place is that the South Tomb box is too small. Zahi Hawass states, quote, The burial chamber is square and not large enough to hold a sarcophagus with the body in an extended position. End quote. The internal dimensions of the South Tomb box are 1.5 meters square, and this is ample space for a body laid to rest in the fetal position. This burial pose was very common in Egypt's early dynastic period. The alternatively large granite box beneath the pyramid seems oversized to contain a body. Its internal dimensions are 3 meters long by 1.6 meters wide and tall. If there's a universal preference for human burials, it's to not have extra space to roll around in one's grave. In 1842, explorer John Pering writes of the box, quote, At all events, it did not appear to have been used as a tomb, for, had a body been placed within it, some remains would probably have been found, as it could not have been conveyed away through the present forced entrance unless it had been broken into small pieces. End quote. The classic explanation for why Djoser's mummy was missing is that after the pyramid was plundered, later Egyptian dynasties would restore damaged sections. In contrast to Djoser's pyramid, the South Tomb was found in very good condition, with the entire shaft filled, and a chamber above the granite box which presumably allowed access to it. Sadly, the chamber was destroyed in past decades, long after the archaeology expedition that uncovered it. I've yet to find an explanation for this destruction. The stepped pyramid complex wasn't only built for Djoser, however, and alabaster coffers were found in deep burial galleries below the pyramid. Two of these coffers were found mostly intact, and both were about a meter and a half long. Thanks to Ben of Uncharted X for giving us a rare glimpse of the coffers in his video. The slightly smaller alabaster sarcophagus did contain a secondary wooden coffin inside, with human remains. However, it's unclear if every stone coffer required an additional wooden coffin in this early period. Of particular interest is a surviving lid of one of these alabaster sarcophagi. Two pairs of holes were drilled top-down on either side, with an underlying groove connecting them on the bottom of the lid. These holes would allow ropes to be threaded through them, and facilitate a careful vertical lowering of the lid. Alabaster plugs were found nearby, which could have sealed the rope holes after the lid was fitted, to give it a more perfect appearance. These two boxes are the oldest stone coffers ever found in Egypt, and our journey towards understanding begins with them. One more notable feature is that the coffers have a beveled lip around the edge, and this allows the lid to be seated from above with a perfect fit. The lid is prevented from sliding laterally once in place. Our next coffer to examine lies beneath the unfinished pyramid of Sekhemket, and this is where things get really interesting. Egyptologist Zachariah Ghonim excavated the previously unknown pyramid and found it undisturbed in the early 1950s. The name Sekhemket was not on any king's list and had been forgotten by history, but this name was found on a few treasures inside the pyramid. Isolated beneath the pyramid in a rough and unfinished chamber was a lone alabaster coffer, still perfectly sealed. The sarcophagus is truly unique in Egypt, the only example of one which opens from the side with a vertically sliding door. The rest of the box is one solid piece of stone, except for three corners of the front, which were damaged and repaired. Thanks to the Laboratory of Alternative History for allowing us a close look at this amazing artifact. With great fanfare in 1954, the coffer was opened for the first time. Ghonim writes, quote, Six men were at work on raising the panel, but such was its weight, about 500 pounds, and the tightness with which it was sealed, with a mixture of gypsum plaster and glue, that nearly two hours had passed before at last it slowly began to go up. I went down on my knees and looked inside. The sarcophagus was empty. End quote. To this day, it remains one of the all-time classic mysteries of ancient history. A sealed pyramid with a few treasures and a sealed but empty sarcophagus. Some Egyptologists, such as J.P. Lauer, insisted the burial must have been violated, but there was no physical evidence of plundering. Indeed, the sarcophagus itself is in pristine condition, and smashing through the alabaster would have been no trouble for even the most amateur looting party. The alabaster coffer was patched and polished to give a beautiful outward appearance, but inside the work is quite rough. Many tubular drill cuts can be seen on the walls, as if no great care was given to the interior. The door itself is also asymmetrical. The lip on the eastern side is visibly lower than the western one. Most interesting are the holes cut for a threaded rope to facilitate the movement of the sliding panel. Each hole consists of a vertical and horizontal drill intersecting. A semicircular cutting in the back of the panel connects the two holes, and a similar cutting was drawn by Lauer in the sarcophagus lid found at Djoser's pyramid. One more important detail is the dovetail shape used to patch some of the corners that were damaged. This design prevents outward movement of the patch, which must have slid into place laterally. We'll return to this sarcophagus later in the video, but for now, let's move on to Egypt's fourth dynasty. The next notable sarcophagus is found in Mastaba 17, next to the Meidum pyramid of Pharaoh Sneferu. It is the oldest granite sarcophagus in Egypt. Exceptionally large and well-crafted, it was found in the 19th century, propped open with a wooden lever and hammer. The hammer remains in situ. Much of a skeleton was found inside, however the bones were removed and later destroyed in World War II. The owner of this tomb has never been identified, and it remains the source of much speculation. The granite coffer has a perfectly flat surface for the lid to rest upon, and bosses remain on the lid for maneuvering it into place. No decoration or inscription is found upon it. There is no comparison to be found for this coffer in the pyramid of Meidum, or even the two other pyramids built by Pharaoh Sneferu. All Sneferu pyramids contain no trace of a stone sarcophagus. This is a conspicuous absence of evidence, but that's a topic for another video. For now, we move on to Giza and the largest pyramids of Egypt. The Great Pyramid's sarcophagus is famously simple and uninscribed. It's well-crafted, but not flawless, as even it has a tube drill cutting visible on the inside. No trace of the lid has ever been recorded. The interior dimensions are slightly more spacious than the coffer at Mastaba 17, but the box itself has much thinner walls. Three small tubular holes are found in the western lip of the coffer, and a groove remains visible on the other three sides. Presumably, this was a security feature meant to lock the lid permanently into place. As seen in later pyramid sarcophagi, the groove was a dovetail cut that prevented the lid from being lifted vertically. After sliding the lid into place, pins would fall from the corresponding holes down into the coffer and prevent the lid from being reopened. This security feature seems entirely pointless for the traditional model of pyramids presented in Egyptology. If intruders were to penetrate over 120 meters into the pyramid, circumventing the granite plugs and granite portcullis, a locked coffer would be trivial to thwart by comparison. In a previous video, I presented a more rigorous understanding of why the Great Pyramid would require a lockable sarcophagus. Only with the framework of an accessible pyramid does locking the coffer make any sense. But let's play devil's advocate for the moment and suggest the pharaoh should get a sarcophagus more splendid than anyone else. Maybe the lockable lid was just a little something extra that only a king could afford. To make this determination, we enter the mastaba field at Giza and compare sarcophagi of the royal family to see what stands out. The closest contemporary to Khufu is probably his son Khawab, who presumably died before his father and never became a pharaoh. This granite coffer of Khawab is distinct in a variety of ways. Most notable is the lid with a groove running down the center, and a connecting hole in each side which would allow ropes to be threaded and lashed against it. This apparently unique design is made more curious by Khawab having a niche in the wall for holding the lid until final closure. Typically, you find the sarcophagus and the niche adjacent to one another, allowing easy closure of the lid, which is already aligned to its destination. But Khawab placed the coffer in the center of the chamber, mostly embedded into the floor. Thus, moving the lid from niche to sarcophagus required this complex design to accommodate ropes. Khawab also had his name inscribed on the granite box in a few places. You could probably call this the most secure sarcophagus found in mastabas at Giza. The combination of being embedded into the floor, the lid having no bosses to attack with a lever, and the lid bevel preventing lateral movement made it a tough target. It's no wonder someone had to smash it open to gain access. It's a great example of how rare it was for a mastaba coffer to offer any defense against intruders. The key comparison is how almost all mastaba sarcophagi are closed with nothing preventing the lid from being reopened. Typically, the lid simply rests flat on top of the box. It also retains bosses, which are ideal for a lever to lift or nudge the lid open. This minimal amount of effort is found for many intrusions. Occasionally, the lid will bevel into the coffer, which prevents the lid from moving laterally, but I don't think that's the purpose for the design. Almost every lid still retains the bosses, and these are what you would use to pry the lid open vertically. The bevel design on a lid seems to only ensure the lid will align properly to seal the coffer rather than resist any attack. Similarly, a few coffers which had their lids slide laterally from a niche contain some grooves which align the lid straight but offer no real security benefit. The lids can simply be pushed off the box from the same direction they slid on. It seems clear that mastaba burials did not view the sarcophagus itself as a key point of defense against robbery. Rather, the features of a sarcophagus that make it secure are as follows. One, the removal of the bosses on the lid so that there is no leverage point to easily lift or pry it out of place. Two, securing the lid with a dovetail cut so that upward lift is obstructed. Three, including a mechanism to lock the sarcophagus such as pinholes connecting the box to the lid. It must be noted that from Khufu to the end of the Old Kingdom, every pharaoh's sarcophagus had the bosses removed, many had dovetail cuts for the lids, and some used various means to lock the sarcophagus with obstructions. In contrast, stone sarcophagi in contemporary mastabas never have dovetail cuts, nor any pinlocks, and it's rare to find one without large bosses left in place on the lid. However, the mastaba fields of the Old Kingdom contain many sarcophagi which are embellished in ways that are missing in the pyramids. This granite box, built for Khufu's palace director, Akhet Hotep, is an early example of how fancy these coffers could be designed. Carving the palace façade design into granite would seem to be one of the most extravagant choices one could make for a sarcophagus. There are many examples for this design in the mastabas at Giza, and yet the two largest pyramid sarcophagi did not include that embellishment. Here you can see how the wife of Khafre chose it, while the mighty pharaoh himself selected a plain coffer buried into a granite pit. Furthermore, the practice of carving one's name into a stone coffer is found during the reign of Khufu, and yet it isn't until the 6th dynasty, with Pharaoh Teti, that we see a name on a pyramid sarcophagus. Why did it take over 200 years for a pharaoh to get his name inscribed upon this final resting place? While you ponder that question, please marvel at the beautiful and impeccably carved sarcophagi that survived within mastabas of the Old Kingdom, rounding them all up with as history has scattered them across the globe. Perhaps the most random location was this cemetery in Slovenia, which contains two granite coffers found near Khafre's pyramid. One of these sarcophagi uniquely has a name carved into the lid rather than the box. This unfortunately casts a modicum of doubt upon whether a sarcophagus missing its lid was ever inscribed. It seems that Old Kingdom sarcophagi were not standardized, and most design choices can be ascribed to personal preference or skill of the tradesmen. One might be tempted to simply throw up their hands and call it all random. But circling back to the pyramids, there's strikingly few examples where the god-king's sarcophagus is fancier than what is found among the mortals of high status. Khufu's coffer is famously thin and plain. Khafre's is larger, but still plain. Menkaure's was a rare masterpiece, now lost to sea. The fragments of Shepseskaf, Userkaf, Sahure, and Jedkaure are all unadorned with decoration. Unas has a pretty good one, still undecorated. Teti's box was unsquared and didn't polish sections without an inscription. It also has a large patch inside. Pepi I was simple and unsquared as well. Finally, Merenra and Pepi II were able to obtain sarcophagi with a size and finish that one might expect for a king. It's a strange story, and something feels instinctively wrong about so many pharaohs neglecting to quality control their eternal resting place. But like so many stories, I find the most interesting piece to be the very beginning, all the way back to Sekhamket and the first true sarcophagus ever found within a pyramid. The empty sliding-door alabaster box found hermetically sealed with nothing inside. It is this never-repeated design that may give us a clue as to why pyramid sarcophagi are distinct from their mastaba counterparts. What is the reason for making the khafre this way? What does it accomplish? There is one tangible effect which seems evident. Zachariah Goname lamented the difficulty of raising the lid for the first time, claiming an adhesive had been applied to the joints. But at 500 pounds, this lid would be lighter than any standard sarcophagus lid because it is so much smaller. A conveniently unplugged rope guide would allow it to be lifted with great care and minimal effort. I think this khafre was made to be opened so that whatever was inside could be retrieved without risk of damaging the contents or the lid. The design implies that it was always the intent of the Egyptians to remove Sekhamket from this box after an unknown period of time. And who else but devoted cult worshippers would bother to reseal the sarcophagus after the pharaoh was removed? Tomb robbers would have smashed the soft alabaster without a second thought. It may seem counterintuitive for a sarcophagus to be intended as a temporary resting place rather than a permanent one. But to shore up this idea, I have one more piece of evidence to present. When Goname first excavated the pyramid, he found it fully blocked up in multiple locations. Most of the blockage was loose rubble. However, one entrance was sealed with squared bricks. Here is a view of this blockage from both the front and the back. It's so rare to find evidence this clear, you can't help but marvel at our good luck. The passage was obviously bricked up twice, as the centerline and contrast between the masonry on the left and the right shows. Zachariah Goname did not miss this detail, but he had no framework to explain it. He writes, We may infer that the left side of the doorway, as well as that of the first part of the inner corridor, had been blocked before the owner died, and the right side left free to serve as a passageway for the introduction of the mummy on the day of burial. Eventually, this was closed in its turn after burial. Goname recognized the bricking up of this passage was far too extensive to be a repair for a robber's tunnel. When intruders break in, they dig small holes and never waste time excavating more material than necessary. His explanation, however, does not make any sense. The pyramid is unfinished. The chambers below remain roughly cut caves. The builders would never brick up half a passage while work was underway. There is no benefit to sealing this passage in multiple stages. Furthermore, the style of the masonry is different in the two sections. On the left, the bricks are squared, evenly spaced, and use mortar sparingly. On the right, the bricks are arranged unevenly and bonded copiously with mortar. Clearly, there was a different workflow which sealed each half of the passage. But most tellingly, the bricks on each side interface with the walls in a distinct style. On the left, they stagger. And on the right, they form a clean vertical joint. This is what you would expect to see if originally the passage was entirely sealed with the masonry style on the left. When the Egyptians forced open the right side, it was easier to break off some of the wall and later patch it up with rough blocks against a straight line. The only interpretation that makes sense is Sekhemket's unfinished pyramid was carefully sealed twice by people who revered it. This gives us a reason why a sealed sarcophagus could be found empty, along with the golden treasures that no thief ever removed. The unique design of the empty sarcophagus indicates it was always planned to remove Sekhemket from the pyramid at a future date. The bricked up entrance also indicates that is exactly what happened. Why this would be done is anyone's guess, but perhaps in the early dynasties of pyramid building, they had not fully evolved into permanent tombs. This might explain why the early pyramid sarcophagi are so plain and simple compared to those in the mastaba fields. If a sarcophagus wasn't intended as your eternal resting place, that would give you a reason to not inscribe your name upon it. A simple and secure box would be adequate for a temporary stay. Finally, there's one more detail about sarcophagi in the Giza pyramids which is overlooked. It's the very fact that they survived intact. These are the three coffers which we know for certain were securely locked, and yet they are among the best preserved. Giza must have been the most intruded upon pyramids of all time, and yet their boxes were never smashed. Khafre's is in such good condition, it's unclear how it was opened in the first place. If looters never arrived at a sealed sarcophagus, this might explain why the coffers escaped severe or complete destruction. The pyramids still have plenty of mystery, and their sarcophagi raise many unanswered questions. Were the mightiest kings of the old kingdom content with coffers plainer than their servants? Or do the coffers show a more complex relationship between a pharaoh and his eternal horizon? Thanks to everyone who watched this video to the end. Please subscribe to the channel to see more of this content. Give a like or comment as you see fit. And above all, remember to ask your friends if they take their history for granted.