The Last Royal Pyramid in Egypt

Steve Harvey finished the day at the ARCE pyramid conference with a lecture entitled “The Later History of a Form: Abydos as a Pyramidal Landscape”.  As always Steve’s lecture was loaded with interesting facts:

• At Sinki (near Abydos) there is a small 4^th Dynasty structure that might have originally been a small pyramid built by Snefru (how many pyramids did Snefru build!)
• Ahmose (Dynasty 18) built the last Egyptian royal pyramid at Abydos. A small temple was found at the base of the pyramid by Arthur Mace; the pyramid was large (50 meters per side)
• A temple for Ahmose Nefertari was found near Ahmose’s pyramid
• In 1902 a building for Tetisheri (a pyramid?) was found, as was a possible tomb for Ahmose that was like the tombs built in the Valley of the Kings, rather than a pyramid. Ahmose erected a stela describing his building of a pyramid for his grandmother
• Some very steep-sided pyramids were found at Abydos by Mariette; were these pyramids the inspiration for the steep-sided pyramids built by the Nubian kings? It is known that pyramids were built at Abydos for relatives of the Nubian kings

All in all it was a great event filled with a lot of interesting material!