page_title: Pyramid of Djedefre
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Pyramid of Djedefre / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: The pyramid complex of Djedefre
context_page_description: The Pyramid of Djedefre consists today mostly of ruins located at Abu Rawash in Egypt. It is Egypt's northernmost pyramid and is believed to have been built by Djedefre, son and successor to king Khufu.
context_section_description: Djedefre's pyramid was architecturally different from those of his immediate predecessors in that the chambers were beneath the pyramid instead of inside.  The pyramid was built over a natural mound and the chambers were created using the "pit and ramp" method, previously used on some mastaba tombs.  Djedefre dug a pit 21m x 9m and 20m deep in the natural mound. A ramp was created at an angle of 22º35' and the chambers and access passage were built within the pit and on the ramp. Once the 'inner chambers' were finished, the pit and ramp were filled in and the pyramid built over the top. This allowed the chambers to be made without tunneling, and avoided the structural complications of making chambers within the body of the pyramid itself. He also reverted to an earlier style of construction by creating a rectangular enclosure wall oriented north-south, similar to those of Djoser and Sekhemkhet.
  Several pyramids and sun temples were built over natural mounds; utilising these may have been a way of shortening the actual work required, although the mound may have been symbolic of the primaeval mound of Egyptian creation myths.
caption: Isometric drawing of the pyramid complex of Djedefre taken from a 3d model
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