Les pyramides "inachevées" de la IVe dynastie, par Michel Valloggia

The recently-discovered satellite pyramid of Abu Rawash is situated in front of the southeast comer of what remains of the royal pyramid of Djedefre. 

Illustration extraite de l'article

"Witness to a secular past, archaeological remains invariably preserve the imprint of history that has shaped its present aspect. Consequently, certain sites reveal the existence of outlined then abandoned projects. The reasons for such disinterest vary considerably. Sometimes they are bound to natural, hydrological, or geological phenomena, although they also result from the early disappearance of their initiator. At other sites, it is not unusual that the vision of an edifice, apparently unfinished, proceeds from a later pulling down.
The disappearance of antique monuments can find its explanation either in the will of reemploying the construction stone for new buildings, or in a favorable or adverse ideology toward the memory of a predecessor. It should be remembered that Amenemhet I (Twelfth Dynasty), being anxious to be officially recognized, inserted in his pyramid of Lisht inscribed blocks bearing the names of his remote predecessors, Khufu, Khafre, Unas, and Pepy II (Fourth-Sixth Dynasties). Later on, at the end of the Amarna Period, the Amonian orthodoxy worked unceasingly to destroy all traces of Akhenaten's city, which had been founded by Amenhotep IV/ Akhenaten (Eighteenth Dynasty) at Tell al-Amarna. Not to mention the lime-burners and the quarrymen who from Roman times up to the nineteenth century, intensively exploited all the archaeological sites of Egypt ! The huge Memphite necropolis was not saved: for over a thousand years it supplied the large medieval and modern building sites of the Cairo metropolis. In 1882, W.M.F Petrie, while he was working on the pyramid of Abu Rawash, complained in his journal of the progressive disappearance of the monument : the stones were taken away at a rate of 300 camel-loads per day.
Nowadays, the situation is, fortunately, improved and it is up to the archaeologists who explore a site to protect and restore this universal heritage, and it is imperative that it is transmitted to the generations of the future. Within this context, it falls on the specialists to estimate the original state of a construction at its completion and to determine its condition prior to the injuries of time or human depredations.
This being settled, the incomplete state of or the ancient demolition of a building offers excellent analysis opportunities : in both cases, the abandonment of a project or its destruction makes it strangely comparable to a building site. Thus, it is very easy to study the construction procedures that prevailed in times past in the building of these structures. In this respect, the numerous 'unfinished' pyramids of the Memphite cemetery shed new light on our knowledge of the Fourth Dynasty.
It is a great paradox that this 'Age of Builders,' dazzling in its command of the arts and the virtuosity of its techniques, used writing very parsimoniously in order to spread the originality of its message. Therefore, the historian, who is anxious to closely examine the remote past, is forced to meticulously examine the archaeological remnants. In that way, the 'unfinished' monuments of Abu Rawash, Zawyet al-Aryan, Ciza, and Saqqara South, notwithstanding the modesty of their remains, have sometimes led to overinterpretation, despite the lack of information."

Suite de cet article dans Digital Giza : ICI