Dahshur
📍 Location: 10 km south of Saqqara, on the west bank · 🏺 Period: 4th and 12th Dynasties · 🎟️ Tickets: ~200 EGP foreign adults
Dahshur is where the pyramid as we know it was invented. Pharaoh Sneferu — father of Khufu of Great Pyramid fame — built two full-sized pyramids here in the 4th Dynasty, each an experiment that pushed the engineering forward. The Bent Pyramid (c. 2600 BC) starts at a steep 54° angle but switches halfway up to a gentler 43° — almost certainly because the original slope was structurally unsafe. It still keeps much of its smooth white limestone casing, the only major pyramid that does. A short walk away the Red Pyramid is Sneferu's successful redo: the first true smooth-sided pyramid ever built, and the tomb where his body was probably buried.
Both are open to enter — and almost always empty of crowds. You climb down a long sloping passage to the corbelled chamber that became the architectural ancestor of Khufu's Grand Gallery.
A separate cluster of crumbling Middle Kingdom mud-brick pyramids (Senwosret III, Amenemhat II and III) lies a few kilometres north, including the Black Pyramid and the famous jewellery-tomb finds of Princess Khnumet now in the Egyptian Museum.
Highlights
- Bent Pyramid — enterable, with original casing still attached
- Red Pyramid — first true pyramid, also enterable
- Black Pyramid of Amenemhat III
- Far fewer crowds than Giza or Saqqara
Visiting
- Opening hours: 8 am – 4 pm
- Tickets: ~200 EGP foreign adults; entry to both Sneferu pyramids included
- Best time: combine with Saqqara + Memphis for a full pyramid day
- Nearby: Saqqara, Memphis, Giza Plateau