Mystery of the unbreached burial chamber Inside the little-known Dahshur pyramid in Egypt

The enduring mysteries of ancient Egypt keep fascinating archaeologists, historians, and the public alike. The Land of the Pharaohs refuses to give up its secrets, and despite countless magnificent archaeological finds, we tend to encounter riddles all over Egypt. Buried beneath the sands lie the tremendous treasure of one of the most powerful ancient civilizations of all time, the ancient Egyptians.

Sometimes archaeologists arrive too late at the site, leaving us with ancient mysteries that may never be solved. That is the beauty but tragedy of ancient Egyptian history. Magnificent ancient tombs have long been looted, and we may never know to whom the burial places belonged.

Located about 15 miles south of Cario, the Dahshur complex is famous for its incredible structures constructed during the era of the Old Kingdom. Dahshur there a series of pyramids, mortuary temples, and other buildings that still remain unexplored.

Archaeologists have long argued that sites such as Dahshur, along with Giza, Lisht, Meidum, and Saqqara are significant as archaeological findings made there “would confirm or adjust the entire time frame of the extraordinary developmental phase of Egyptian civilization that saw the biggest pyramids built, the nomes (administrative districts) organized, and the hinterlands internally colonized – that is, the first consolidation of the Egyptian nation state.”

In addition to this information, the results of such excavation projects would naturally also fill in the historical gaps and provide a more comprehensive picture of the life and deaths of pharaohs and ordinary people in ancient Egypt.

Many ancient Egyptian pyramids have been destroyed, but several are hidden beneath the sands awaiting scientific exploration. One such intriguing ancient structure is the newly-discovered pyramid in Dahshur, a previously inaccessible site relatively unknown to the public.

Dahshur is an ancient necropolis known mainly for several pyramids, two of which are among the oldest, largest, and best-preserved in Egypt, built from 2613–2589 BC. Two of the Dahshur Pyramids, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid, were constructed during the reign of Pharaoh Sneferu (2613-2589 BC).

The Bent Pyramid was the first attempt at a smooth-sided pyramid, but it was not a successful achievement, and Sneferu decided to build another called the Red Pyramid. Several other pyramids of the 13th Dynasty were built at Dahshur, but many are covered by sand, almost impossible to detect.

In 2017, Dr Chris Naunton, President of the International Association of Egyptologists, traveled to Dahshur together with the crew of the Smithsonian Channel and documented the exciting findings of one particular pyramid.

What the team discovered is a bit like an ancient detective story. Local archaeologists had found heavy blocks of finely cut limestone buried deep in the sand. Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquity was informed about the discovery, and archaeologists were sent to the site to excavate.

Having worked long and hard, archaeologists finally uncovered a previously unknown pyramid. Still, the most exciting part was the discovery of a secret passage that led from the pyramid’s entrance to an underground complex at the very heart of the pyramid. The chamber was protected by heavy and huge limestone blocks ensuring no one could pass easily and explore whatever was hidden inside the mysterious ancient pyramid.

The obstacles did not discourage archeologists successfully after some days of work managed to enter the interior of the pyramid. Everything seemed to indicate the unknown pyramid at Dahshur contained ancient treasures and most likely a mummy.

When scientists found themselves inside the burial chamber they were astounded to see someone had visited this ancient place long before them. The Dahshur pyramid had been robbed about 4,000 years ago. Looting of pyramids in the past was quite common, and the Dahshur pyramid was one of many victims of robbery.

One can understand Dr. Naunton’s disappointment when he glanced into the empty burial chamber, but the fact remains this discovery is intriguing and raises specific questions.

“There are two questions here that we need to start trying to answer. One is who was buried here? Who was this pyramid built for? And then secondly, how is it that an apparently completely sealed, unbreached burial chamber comes to have been disturbed?” Dr. Nauton says.

Was a mummy stolen from the Dahshur pyramid? How did looters get past the untouched seal? Did the original ancient builders plunder the burial chamber before they sealed it? These are some of the many questions this ancient Egyptian mystery pose.

Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II’s ‘handsome’ face revealed in striking reconstruction

The face of the ancient Egyptian ruler Ramesses II — possibly the pharaoh of the biblical Book of Exodus who persecuted Moses and the Israelites — has been reconstructed from his mummified remains. And although the pharaoh died in his 90s, his visage has been “reverse aged” by several decades to show him in his prime, at about age 45. 

“We carried a three-dimensional age regression process to remove some of the signs of ageing in order to depict him in his middle-age, at the peak of his power,” Caroline Wilkinson, director of the Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, told Live Science in an email. 

The result is a portrait of the pharaoh Ramesses II described as “handsome” by Sahar Saleem, a professor of radiology at Cairo University in Egypt and the leader of the project.

“King Ramesses II was a great warrior who ruled Egypt for 66 years,” Saleem told the radiology magazine AuntMinnieEurope.com. (An “Aunt Minnie” is a radiological term for an unquestionable diagnosis “Bringing Ramesses’ face to life in his old age and as a young man reminds the world of his legendary status,” she said.

Mummy scan

The mummy of Ramesses II is now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo. It was discovered in 1881 near Luxor in southern Egypt, and at some point after that, it was partially unwrapped to show the pharaoh’s mummified features.

For the latest facial reconstruction, Saleem made a three-dimensional virtual model of the pharaoh’s head and skull from new CT scan data — effectively, thousands of X-rays assembled into a 3D image — which Wilkinson then used to reconstruct his face with computer software used in criminal investigations. 

Next, Wilkinson used computer-generated imagery (CGI) techniques to add skin, eye and hair textures, based on what Saleem reported would have been common among Egyptians at the time — which showed what the pharaoh may have looked like when he died — and finally used the age regression software to show how he had likely appeared decades earlier. “The age regression was challenging, as this was in 3D,” she said.

Wilkinson explained that the field of estimating the face of someone from their skull is dominated by two approaches: “facial approximation,” which uses average data, templates and biological profiles to produce an “average” face, which might result from several different skulls; and “facial reconstruction,” a more detailed attempt to determine what a particular person looked like, based on anatomical standards, measurements and morphological analysis. A related term is “facial depiction,” which adds colors and textures, she said. 

In this case, the team used the more detailed approach. “The face of Rameses II was produced using 3D facial reconstruction and then a 3D facial depiction process,” Wilkinson said.

Famous pharaoh

The pharaoh who is said to have persecuted Moses and the Israelites in the story of Exodus is never named in the Bible, but several historians think his depiction most closely resembles Ramesses II, who was a celebrated ruler at a height of Egyptian power in the 13th century B.C.

As a result, Ramesses II — also called Ramses II or Ramesses the Great — has often been depicted in literary and film adaptations of Exodus, including in the 1956 movie “The Ten Commandments.”

However, American historians Megan Bishop Moore and Brad Kelle wrote in “Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History” (Eerdmans, 2011) that no archaeological evidence has been found to support the idea that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, nor for any of the other events described in Exodus, including the destruction of the pharaoh’s army as it pursued the Israelites across the Red Sea.

Historical records attest that Ramesses II was born in about 1303 B.C. into the family of the pharaoh Seti I and that he became pharaoh when his father died in about 1279 B.C.

During his reign, Ramesses II expanded the Egyptian empire as far north as modern-day Syria and built many monumental structures, including the expansion of the Karnak Temple. He died in about 1213 B.C. 

Ramesses II also influenced later culture: he was the inspiration for the 1818 poem “Ozymandias” by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had seen a huge broken statue of Ramesses II — known as Ozymandias in Greek — in the British Museum in London, leading him to pen the words “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”