"Revenge of the Bent Pyramid"

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 unique shape of the Bent Pyramid has always made it an easy target for modern explanations that the structure must have been a failure one way or another. As potentially the first enormous pyramid constructed with smooth faces rather than stepped terraces, criticism of the two-angled slope could normally be dismissed as a historian's fallacy. This fallacy is the assumption that decision-makers of the past had the same information that we do in the present. The relevant context is that the builders of the Bent Pyramid were the first to make a smooth-faced pyramid, and so later pyramids without a change in slope were not a factor in its design. Just because the straight version of a pyramid became popular afterwards doesn't mean the Bent Pyramid was a compromise or failure in its time. However, the pharaoh Sneferu who commissioned the Bent Pyramid also had other pyramids constructed, including the Red Pyramid located nearby. Egyptology's limited framework assumes building the colossal Red Pyramid required the intent of burying a king inside, and so the earlier Bent Pyramid must have been inadequate in the eyes of pharaoh Sneferu. The logic then follows that if the Bent Pyramid was an inadequate burial place, any aspect of its design can be interpreted through the lens of failure. The narrative of a failed pyramid is useful to academics who enjoy taunting people with superstitious or fanciful beliefs about ancient Egypt. Archaeologist Kenneth Fetter calls the Bent Pyramid a monstrosity, claiming the builders had trouble piling up rocks. And even Egyptologists can't resist a bit of mockery, as seen by Chris Naughton in a recent TV show. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that this probably wasn't how the pyramid designers originally intended this pyramid to look. If you've watched this channel before, you already know such statements will look rather foolish by the end of this video. But in fairness to Chris and Ken, they probably haven't studied old kingdom pyramids and are Last year, I began a detailed study of the Bent Pyramid's casing stones, and this work remains in progress. However, I've seen enough to say there's no evidence the Bent Pyramid experienced structural failure as it was built. In this video, we're going to see the Bent Pyramid like it's never been seen before. Only by getting up close and personal with the physical evidence can we reveal secrets hidden in plain sight for thousands of years. This structure was not an experiment gone wrong, it was a crowning achievement of Pharaoh Sneferu. Yet even if we prove this is the case, how can the Red Pyramid following afterwards not be interpreted as some inadequacy of the Bent Pyramid? As you'll find out, there's a lot more mystery at Darshur than ancient Egyptians learning how to pile up rocks. First, let's start with the easy stuff regarding the interior of the Bent Pyramid. The upper chamber appears frightfully eroded, and so one might assume a failure occurred there. This basic observation is often transformed into poor assumptions, as Chris Naughton will now demonstrate. At a certain point in the construction, cracks start to appear in the burial chamber. It's important to emphasize we simply don't know when cracks occur inside or outside of pyramids in almost every circumstance. Unless ancient Egyptians made repairs or some extraordinary situation offers insight, there's four and a half thousand years for damage to have occurred. Furthermore, while the upper chamber of the Bent Pyramid is in ruin, there are no substantial cracks which could be interpreted as serious compromise. Certainly nothing like the enormous cracks we see in the passages of the Red Pyramid, where almost every lintel is split in two. Nor like the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid, where a single fracture crossed every beam in the ceiling. In contrast, the upper chamber of the Bent Pyramid contains no large fractures, but rather the flaking of individual corbels which make up the ceiling. If you compare the present condition of the corbels to the Red Pyramid, it's easy to see why one might call the Bent Pyramid's chamber ceiling inferior. However, contrasting Tura limestone blocks inside pyramids is never an apples-to-apples comparison. The white limestone which makes up pyramid casing and chambers looks homogenous as it is quarried, but thousands of years of weathering reveals that the durability varies significantly. Here you can see how specific casing stones on the Bent Pyramid all greatly eroded in the same way. Stones with this erosion pattern only occur on a few lower courses of the pyramid, and they were probably quarried together. Other nearby blocks remain almost as perfect as the day they were set into place. The variability in limestone quality and atmospheric agents inside two different pyramids is more than enough to explain why some blocks have weathered more than others. Furthermore, some damage to the upper chamber of the Bent Pyramid is due to quarrying, as seen by chisel marks in numerous places. Reshaping corbels compromises them structurally and precipitates further erosion. Why the ceiling of the upper chamber was recut and why the floor was elevated with a false work of wooden logs remains unclear, but even Egyptology has given up on the idea that these specific alterations were made with the intent of increasing structural stability. Peter James is an engineer who conducted repairs on Old Kingdom pyramids, and he claimed the corbel overhangs in the Bent Pyramid and Meydoum Pyramid were too aggressive. But the Red Pyramid's corbels are only two to three centimeters shorter on average, and it's unclear if this is sufficient to diagnose a problem based upon the observable information. The Great Pyramid further shrank its corbel overhangs, despite the Red Pyramid corbels holding up perfectly. What is clear is that while the upper chamber has suffered from the ravages of time, it remains as structurally sound as it was thousands of years ago, with tourists entering daily. Now let's move on to the next misconception about the Bent Pyramid, which is that the superstructure has subsided on its foundation. This idea was first proposed by Italian researchers Margioglio and Rinaldi in 1964. They were searching for an explanation as to why there would be a 30-centimeter dislocation in the descending corridor next to an anomalous joint. This joint is continuous around the entire passage, which is not typical for pyramids. They proposed the Bent Pyramid was enlarged from the joint to the casing, and that this girdle of stone subsided into the ground, causing the dislocation. This explanation is still presented today in modern publications and documentaries, and here's Egyptologist Mark Lehner to give us an example. These failures are then used to justify the Bent Pyramid requiring a change of angle to reduce weight and lower the risk of collapse. Egyptologist Peter Brand elaborates. This simple explanation faces an enormous problem. Again, there is insufficient evidence for when any crack or flaw may have developed in a building that is over 4,500 years old. The descending passage failure probably happened at least twice because there's three centimeters of stone dressed smooth on the protruding ceiling. Who knows when or why the subsequent slippage occurred. But while the Bent Pyramid may have had a short passage section which slipped a little, the outside of the pyramid shows no signs of subsidence. Engineer Peter James, who studied and repaired the pyramids of Egypt a decade ago, writes of the Bent Pyramid, Having looked closely at the casing stones on all sides of the Bent Pyramid, I can confirm there's no visual evidence that the structure has subsided. For the story of a slipping mantle to be true, it would require the outer section of the pyramid to have moved exactly the same amount on all four sides. Far more likely is that the story of an unstable foundation for the Bent Pyramid was simply fabricated without evidence. There's never even been a scientific study of the foundation under this pyramid. The idea the Bent Pyramid was constructed with an outer mantle is also purely speculation. It hinges entirely upon a continuous joint in the lower and upper passages. It's all too easy to invent explanations about the pyramid which rely upon evidence that cannot be observed. So rather than imagining what happened inside the Bent Pyramid, let's look outside and see what stands before us. This is the exciting part, the miracle of a jigsaw puzzle that has survived the entire length of history. It offers a window into the past like nothing else on earth. There's too much to see for one video, so we'll focus on parts which have been suggested as construction flaws. First, let's look at the horizontal courses of casing stones as they rise up the pyramid. The lowest courses are nice and straight, but course 21 deviates substantially above the entrance. What can be mistaken for slippage, as I did years ago, is actually the lintel above the entrance shaped taller than its adjacent course. This course is already the tallest on the pyramid, but the builders wanted a little extra size above the passage. They had no qualms about breaking the horizontal plane of joints to do so. Here we have the first principle to hold in your mind. The builders of the Bent Pyramid would allow blocks to become uneven in localized areas for various reasons. Here above the western entrance on course 50, you can see a similar phenomenon. The lintel above the entrance is a huge stone, but the builders cheated a bit to make it shorter than the rest of its course. Did the builders reach a size limit for a stone so large, or is it mirroring the northern entrance in a more profound way? Whatever the case, having courses deviate from horizontal was not a problem. High above the pyramid's bend on the northern face, you can see this taken to the extreme. Entire courses become wavy and even deviate their height to separate and recombine. This phenomenon has been presented as evidence the pyramid is inferior and rushed in the upper slope. However, courses don't suddenly start appearing wavy in the upper section of the Bent Pyramid. There are many examples of courses deviating in the lower section. This is not caused by masonry slipping, because the unevenness is localized by course. Stones above and below uneven coursework remain quite straight. The only vague pattern to this phenomenon is that the courses become less straight on average as you get higher up the pyramid. It has nothing to do with the bend itself, and it's what you might expect for a decreasing need for visual symmetry. Furthermore, you see courses deviate at the bottom of the Red Pyramid casing, and courses combining or separating at the bottom of the Meidum Pyramid. Half a century later at the top of Khafre's Pyramid, the courses are straight at the top, but course deviation was part of all three large pyramids of Sneferu. The obvious framework is that such imperfections were not a big deal, because nobody would ever see them. The pyramid was originally blindingly white in the sun, and you couldn't see the straightness of courses, especially up high. Here is a glimpse of the past on the northern face, where a casing stone has recently flaked. The freshly exposed limestone is so bright by comparison that it's unbelievable the entire pyramid was once this color. The visual effect of the sun reflecting the pyramid's surface is the second key principle to understand about its design. A year ago, I showed that on the northern face, the change in the pyramid's angle was cut directly into the casing stones themselves. The bend was therefore not a structural transition, but an aesthetic one. It didn't matter if the change in slope occurred between courses or in the middle of one, because the Egyptians understood that nobody would notice. And they were entirely correct. For over four and a half thousand years, nobody did notice. It wasn't seen until the year 2023, in which I made this observation for the first time. At first, I thought cutting the bend into the casing stones might have been done for expediency in the center of the pyramid, where they weren't as concerned with keeping the courses straight and level. The best building practice is to align the pyramid from the corners and work inwards. But here on the eastern face, the bend is cut into the casing stones starting from a corner block itself. The design wasn't the builders losing their alignment over long distances. The bend was shaped independently into the casing stones from the very beginning. All that mattered was that the bend itself was straight, and the casing stone courses could deviate as they did elsewhere on the pyramid. Far below on the ground, all anyone would ever see is how light reflected differently on the two angles of the pyramid's face. The visual effect created an illusion of straight courses, even as the pyramid later fell into ruin. This brings us to the most important observation about the bent pyramid, the many patches found inserted into the surviving casing stones. The patches are also presented as evidence the pyramid was cracking as it was built. Researcher Franck Monnier writes, quote, There is no doubt that the stone layers moved during construction, causing the splitting of many blocks, some of which are still in place with their cracks visible. The builders were apparently forced to recut some of them and to fill the holes in with smaller blocks. End quote. I hate to repeat myself, but how again can anyone know when cracking occurred? Everyone is assuming the bent pyramid cracked during construction because that's the only way the story of a failed monument with a compromised upper half makes any sense. Examining the patches themselves revealed many surprises. There are thousands of them on each pyramid face, and it was no small job mapping them out. The biggest difficulty with the task is that the patched sections of the pyramid are also the most eroded. I believe this is due to runoff from rain becoming more frequently caught underneath the patches. You can see on the north face how erosion follows a large hole in the stones, even when the blocks remain intact. The casing stones are inclined slightly into the pyramid, and so rainwater entering a hole becomes trapped within gaps behind the blocks. These casing stones are thus surrounded by moisture for prolonged periods of time, and this permeates and damages the limestone. For casing stones that were never patched, this phenomenon is somewhat random. It depends upon a weak block opening a cavity into hidden gaps behind the casing stones that happened to trap water in a localized area. However, patched casing stones were particularly vulnerable to trapping water. Not only does every patch add more joints for water to seep in, but the patches don't have any outlets behind them for the water to escape. Therefore, the inclined casing stones cause water to seep behind the patches and become stuck between the casing stone and the patch. Consequently, in some areas of the pyramid, you can no longer distinguish the patching from original casing stones in eroded sections. Fortunately, the Bent Pyramid is huge, with plenty of intact masonry to make a comprehensive study. The casing stone patches roughly fall into two categories. First are small, shallow patches that are mostly found in the corners or edges of casing stones. They are usually shaped as thin rectangles or triangles with a tapered corner. Corners and edges are the most vulnerable, and this is where you would expect more patching to occur. Occasionally, you see a small patch in the middle of a stone where perhaps a weak spot existed, but this is much less common. The other type of patching is a large repair that seems unrelated to a fragile edge. These patches go significantly deeper into the casing stones and tend to be more squared in shape. Large patches are typically limited in size as two rows per course of casing stone. They can overlap multiple courses and obscure the horizontal plane of a row of casing stones. Large patches will also have small patches affixed to their edges and corners from time to time. Notably, large patches are often inserted into natural bedding planes within the limestone of the casing. These bedding planes are not perfectly flat, and so the patches also drift a bit with them. Observe casing stones where patches have fallen out and the block behind remains in good shape. It reveals how the Egyptians carved two levels for large patches to rest upon. With thousands of patches, there are of course weird outliers, but this is enough to understand most of what is happening. Looking at the west face, here is a full distribution of the patches that I can see. My ability to spot small patches is diminished above the bend, but the total surface area highlighted is a good representation. Strikingly, the distribution of large patches shows something of a pattern. The patches are overwhelmingly concentrated between courses 20 and 45 and are located away from the corners of the pyramid. The north face of the pyramid is where my survey began, and I was slightly too aggressive in interpreting damage as patching. This is more of a rough draft, but you can clearly see how large patches concentrate in the center between courses 15 and 45. This was very similar to the distribution on the west face. Continuing work on the east face showed the same distribution of large patches. There must have been a common cause to create the same pattern on each face. I floated many ideas, from it being a byproduct of how the pyramid was constructed, to perhaps the source of limestone being lower quality during a middle stage of building the pyramid. My one certainty was that the large patches are not covering cracks caused by a shifting or sinking pyramid. The large patches are found in clusters, but this damage is not aligned in vertical fissures caused by the linear force of gravity. You can see heavily patched sections of the pyramid one or two courses tall, with perfectly intact masonry above and below. The east face is where we find the only two substantial vertical cracks in the casing stones. One starts at course 35, and the other perhaps as high as course 40. The tallest crack continues into a rarely preserved section of the casing at the bottom of the pyramid. It's next to the altar, and so everyone has seen it and drawn conclusions based on this outlier. What's interesting about this crack, however, is that the alignment of casing stones is not displaced. If there was any vertical subsidence of blocks, it could only be measured in millimeters. The crack is notably patched all the way from the bottom to the top, and so it's a good contrast to other patching we've seen. At the very least, some large patches must have been inserted after most of the pyramid was built, because a crack of that length wouldn't appear until very late. But are we really to think that one or two cracks with almost no displacement would cause the Egyptians to redesign the bent pyramid? If these cracks were inspected and patched, it doesn't seem like there was cause for alarm. Remember how the joints between casing stones were allowed to drift because nobody would really see such imperfections? A non-displaced crack with a patch isn't visually different from afar. But don't worry, we won't need to guess how the Egyptians would have felt about patching it up. The large patches are unrelated to the construction process of the bent pyramid. Up high on the eastern face, an unmistakable clue leads us to the solution. Near the northeastern corner, an anomalous cluster of large patches is seen. The stones are well preserved around them, so we can make out the unique distribution of this patch group. Despite connecting in a line, these patches are not aligned vertically. They follow the tapered angle of the pyramid's corner, and there is no vertical crack reaching towards the ground. The trail of patches simply disappears below course 40. This is not damage caused by downward pressure. The stress on the stones is directed outwards, towards the corner of the pyramid. Remember Peter James, the engineer tasked with assessing the structural integrity of the pyramids? His conclusion on why a pyramid's casing stones would fall apart is that thermal expansion would force them outwards and towards the corners. This is why on the bent pyramid, we can see that the corners are the most damaged, even up high above where any quarrying by looters would have been practical. Thermal expansion occurs when the limestone fluctuates in temperature between day and night. But if the stones are tightly joined, there is more expansion than contraction. The stones thus slowly move in a direction of least resistance, and this is outward from the and towards the corners. Peter James writes, quote, As Peter points out, this movement is a very slow and gradual process. The damage does not occur suddenly during construction, like a growing pyramid slipping from a steep angle or weak foundation. The cumulative effect of thermal expansion takes decades, centuries, and even millennia to damage the casing stones. Have another look at the distinct pattern of large patches on the bent pyramid. In 2014, a documentary team for PBS conducted a full LiDAR scan of the bent pyramid, trying to determine if it was structurally compromised. To visualize the pyramid's movement, they placed a flat blue plane over each face to highlight displacement, and here is what they found. And what we can see here in this center section, these stones are actually pushed out from that plane. So the bent pyramid is bulging on this face in that central section. The distribution of large patches matches extremely well with the bulging of the pyramid on each face. Notably, the preserved northeastern corner also has the casing stones moving outward. Above the large patches in the corner, you can see another damaged section with the exact same pattern from thermal expansion. This damage must have come later and was not patched, and it gives a good visualization as to what the ancient Egyptians were fixing. Thermal expansion could barely have started during pyramid construction, and it proves that the patching has nothing to do with compromise or structural instability. In fact, the large patches proved the bent pyramid was an enormous success, which was revered for the ages. It was repaired over time to maintain a perfect reflective surface for the sun. Wavy joints and superficial cracks were not a concern, and the patches were not covering damage caused by subsidence. There was no subsidence. There is no reason remaining to think the bent pyramid was in trouble during its construction. Having eliminated physical damage as a cause for concern when constructing the bent pyramid, what of the remaining argument that the red pyramid is proof of its inadequacy? This argument hinges on enormous assumptions about the construction timeline for these two pyramids. The only hard data we have is the graffiti left on a few casing stones, which indicate the year of reign for Pharaoh Sneferu. For the bent pyramid, we actually have zero dates, only its valley temple is dated with count 15. The red pyramid was found with counts 15 and 16 near its foundation. The Meidum pyramid has a much larger sample of counts, mostly 13 through 17 near the bottom as well. Finally, an outlier of count 24 was found in the rubble on the east side of the red pyramid. This is not nearly enough information to draw conclusions, especially since we don't know if all the Sneferu pyramids were built using a stepped core first and perhaps the outer casing placed at a final stage. The only substantial argument in favor of the red pyramid being an evolution from the bent pyramid has to do with the alignment of their respective casing stones. The essence of this analysis involves how the earliest pyramids of the third dynasty were designed. Originally, all blocks making up a stepped pyramid leaned inward, perhaps as a stability enhancement. These inclined blocks were set up as accretion layers as the pyramid was expanded out and up. The core stepped structure of the Meidum pyramid is also built this way, according to a single study from over a century ago. Neither the red pyramid nor the bent pyramid are made with inclining layers inside their superstructure as far as we can see. The core blocks in both pyramids are laid in flat horizontal layers for the backing stones, and we can't see any deeper than that. The difference between them is the casing stones of the bent pyramid are inclined inwards, whereas the few surviving casing stones at the bottom of red pyramid are laid perfectly horizontal. A common mistake is to believe the inner stones of the bent pyramid are also inclined, and indeed this is how it is misrepresented in mainstream documentaries. The casing stones of the bent pyramid are so large that often when one is broken, you're still looking at the remainder of it stuck on the structure. It's difficult to get the right angle to see the change in inclination, but here is one that should do the trick. If only the casing stones are inclined, this has a negligible effect on the inward pressure or overall stability of the structure. Only the casing stones themselves would be affected by this slightly different design. Fortunately, the casing stones are the one thing we can see, and they don't appear to be suffering anything other than thermal expansion. In fact, Peter James states the inward inclination of the casing at the bent pyramid would make it more resistant to thermal expansion than later pyramids. Let me emphasize that we don't know why the casing stones at the bent pyramid are inclined. It could be a legacy tactic for stability. It could be related to how they're cut or installed. It could be spiritual. The answer is unclear. The inclination of the bent pyramid casing is rather haphazard, varying from 5 to 13 degrees inward from course to course in the lower section. Above the bend, however, the casing of the bent pyramid becomes less tilted and is closer to 3 degrees of inclination, according to measurements in 1839. Amazingly, that's the most recent data on this subject. It is the flattening of the casing stones that underpins the theory of architecture evolution from the bent pyramid to the red pyramid. The pyramids built for kings after Sneferu also keep the casing stones flat and horizontal where we can still find them. There's no arguing against the fact that leaning stones inward was the old way and level pyramid courses is the new way. Egyptology then extrapolates this as the bent pyramid used the old way in the lower section and the new way in the upper section. The few casing stones at the bottom of the red pyramid being level is then offered as evidence that the red pyramid design was further evolved. But if there's one lesson of the bent pyramid, it's that you can't judge an entire pyramid by only looking at a small section. If almost all the casing stones were missing from the bent pyramid, what kind of crazy assumptions might be made about it? Would we even know that the pyramid was bent in the first place? As it turns out, once again, explorers from the past will upend Egyptology's poor assumptions. The red pyramid had more of its casing intact as recently as the 19th century. John Paring writes in 1839, quote, In some places, particularly on the western side, the casing still remains. End quote. Paring missed the opportunity to provide more detail, but fortunately, another forgotten explorer managed to do so. James Dawkins was an explorer who traveled to Egypt in 1750 along with Robert Wood. Robert Wood was known to Nathaniel Davison, who attributed a ladder in the Great Pyramid's well shaft to him. A copy of James Dawkins' travel diary survived with Robert Wood's daughter, and I want to thank channel member Stefan Kvist for finding this resource. Dawkins proved to be thorough in his observations, even measuring each block at the top of the Great Pyramid before it was destroyed. Dawkins also climbed to the top of the Red Pyramid, and he writes, quote, I observed on the west side, in two or three places where the sheathing or covering of the pyramid was entire, that it was quite smooth, and particularly in one place for the space of twenty feet, which indisputably proves that this pyramid has been finished. The stones were laid on this manor sloping, and their surface quite smooth and even, but of unequal dimensions, particularly the part which rested upon the second range of stones, some lying afoot and others more or less upon them. End quote. Dawkins is describing casing stones high on the Red Pyramid's western face as leaning inwards, just like the lower section of the bent pyramid. And if his words weren't clear enough, there's even a helpful sketch drawn to remove any shred of doubt. Suddenly, the foundational argument for the Red Pyramid's evolved design has slipped and cracked beyond repair. There's no reason to think that one of these Darsher Pyramids needed to come after the other. A major headache for Egyptology has been giving Sneferu a long enough lifespan to build three colossal pyramids consecutively. Based upon this new evidence, it seems more likely that two or even all three pyramids were simply built simultaneously. The Bent Pyramid's steeper angle perhaps required more caution, and this is why the casing stones there are twice as large as the casing stones found at the bottom of the Red Pyramid. The Red Pyramid's casing goes about half as deep into the structure and has a separate Tura backing stone. In contrast, the Bent Pyramid uses single blocks to span the entire distance. James Dawkins in 1750 makes this observation, writing, The stones are laid in a different manner here. They are laid as on a wall lengthways, one upon another, a much stronger way of building. The Bent Pyramid having larger casing stones may be providing more support for a steeper angle of inclination. It suggests the builders knew exactly what they were doing. A companion of James Dawkins named Giovanni Borra sketches the Red Pyramid casing as seen in 1750. It looks as if the casing was not quarried off the Red Pyramid, but simply fell off instead, perhaps due to thermal expansion. The Bent Pyramid's superior casing stones were more resistant to such degradation. Now let's cap off our comparison of these two pyramids with one last detail that has greatly annoyed me. In 1982, Rainier Stadelman found fragments of what he thought was the original Pyramidian from the top of the Red Pyramid. Located 20 meters from the pyramid's base, the pieces reconstructed a capstone three cubits wide with an angle of about 54 degrees. This is the same angle as the lower section of the Bent Pyramid, and not the 43 degree angle of the Red Pyramid. Looking at the capstone as it exists today, I first thought Stadelman was making unsupportable assumptions. There's hardly anything original here, and none of it appears to fit together. However, the evidence today is essentially destroyed. A previous reconstruction of the capstone had more original pieces that somebody must have vandalized. But even the earlier reconstruction was a mangled job compared to how Stadelman found the fragments. This is an example of how reconstruction efforts can destroy critical evidence. The original pieces give more confidence in Stadelman's analysis of the capstone's angle. Following a time-honored tradition of Egyptology, Stadelman proposes the Pyramidian's different angle is due to the builders compensating for other mistakes. One more pyramid the ancient Egyptians couldn't manage to finish off properly. However, I do wonder if there was something else going on at the top of the Red Pyramid that has been lost to time. Could it have been a second bent pyramid, one with a change in slope much closer to the summit? A common theme is that you can't judge the top of these two pyramids by looking at stones from the bottom. With so much of Egyptology's narrative of these pyramids in ruin, you might wonder how they got it all so wrong. The simplest answer I can offer is that Egyptologists just don't like pyramids very much. I realized I had to turn my back to the pyramids to properly understand them. This opinion is echoed by Egyptologist John Romer, who writes in 2007, quote, modern Egyptologists have largely given up on the pyramids, end quote. With so much New Age religion and crank science focused on pyramids in modern times, professional study of them has fallen into disrepute. Interest in pyramids is something to be mocked, exemplified by a recent punchline on Saturday Night Live. The most useful story of the bent pyramid was that of failure, to disparage those who couldn't imagine how or why people might have built them. See the funny-looking pyramid? Those poor Egyptians couldn't get it right the first time around. How very human. I don't expect professional discourse about the bent pyramid to change much, even after the mountain of evidence I have presented. After all, Egyptology didn't listen to the engineer who repaired the pyramids. It didn't listen to the engineer who assessed its structural stability. This was designed like this. It hasn't failed. This is actually a great success. Egyptology may not listen to me either. Don't let it bother you. Don't ever be ashamed to search where curiosity takes you, no matter if others think it's a joke or a failure. In the long run, physical evidence always triumphs over narratives favored by scholars of a given era. The embarrassment is for those who thought they understood the bent pyramid without even looking at it. There is, however, a price to such arrogance that must be recognized. If there's one thing Egyptology didn't want, it's for Sneferu to have constructed enormous pyramids without the intention of being buried inside each one. Building multiple pyramids at the same time suggests that some were not designed for burial. But once you crack that door open, that some Old Kingdom pyramids weren't designed as tombs, well, suddenly anything is possible. Now all the people you were making fun of had a bit of a point to make, no matter how far-fetched their own theories might have been. The greater price, however, is the opportunity cost of ignoring evidence that will someday be lost to time. The Red Pyramid still had many casing stones on its face a few hundred years ago, and almost nothing remains today. Casing stones will continue to fail on the Bent Pyramid. A large portion fell from the southwest corner in the past century. The preservation of a monument is largely dependent upon the value society imparts upon it. And if the Bent Pyramid is nothing more than a monument to failure, what hope is there for it in the long run? There's a structure at Zayet el-Aryan which is called a failed pyramid in that most of it was never constructed. At the bottom of this trench was a granite oval basin, often ascribed the role of a sarcophagus. I don't know if this structure was supposed to be a pyramid. I don't know if this granite tub was supposed to be a sarcophagus. What I do know is that this structure is now a garbage dump. Such is the fate of things for which history deems unsuccessful. If some 4th Dynasty pyramids weren't designed as tombs, suddenly the pit at Zayet el-Aryan becomes more interesting. If Egyptology had realized this half a century ago, I don't think this monument would have been treated so poorly. The revenge of the Bent Pyramid is to lay bare the failures of those who took their history for granted. The people who never imagined a design or purpose for a pyramid beyond what they read in a textbook. They assumed the funny-looking pyramid was the flawed one, when it may have been the most revered pyramid in all of ancient Egypt. Perhaps someday the exact sequence of the Sneferu Pyramids will be discovered, and maybe the Red Pyramid will still end up as the last one finished. However, there is no remaining cause to think that it was constructed because of any problem with the Bent Pyramid, nor as a replacement for it. It's time to put that idea in the graveyard of bad ideas, and look forward to new possibilities. There may be a long and fascinating story of Egypt written into the patches on the casing stones. How many are mortared with carbon that can be dated? What about luminescence dating the patches themselves? What might this crowning achievement teach about the history of Egypt? There remains so much more for the pyramids to reveal. All it really takes is the courage to go looking. 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 fit. And above all, remember to ask your friends if they take their history for granted.