Granite Sarcophagus of Senusret II Found
MENA press release:
CAIRO – Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the burial chamber and coffin of King Senusret II who was believed to have ruled Egypt from 1897 BC to 1878 BC, official MENA news agency reported today.
The burial chamber was found in Al Lahun, the town built by Senusret which became Egypt’s political capital during the 12th and 13th dynasties, and where the king built his pyramid.
“The coffin is made of pink granite and the burial chamber is lined with red granite,” said Ahmed Abdel Aal, head of antiquities in Fayum, south of Cairo.
The team also discovered “corridors and passageways inside the pyramid built to mislead thieves”, Abdel Aal said.
Wooden parts belonging to the king’s boat were also found as well as alabaster and ceramic containers decorated with hieroglyphs.
Senusret II was known for launching major irrigation projects in the Fayum area, turning vast areas of marshland into cultivable land.
From Petrie’s survey:
The sarcophagus is perhaps the finest piece of mechanical work ever executed in such a hard and difficult material. The form is quite unlike that of any other coffin known, having a wide lip all around the top. Another strange peculiarity is that the bottom is of varying thickness; or the inside depth being equal all over, the outside depth slopes down nearly 4 inches from end to end. As the sides are cut square with the top, and the floor is level, the ends all lean over, and the top slants; in short the whole thing is tilted by standing on a sloping bottom. I carefully measured it by stretched threads and plumb lines, with offsets read to a thousandth of an inch. The surface, though not polished, is smooth-ground to an impalpable fineness, and most exquisitely flat…
…Thus the mean error from a true scale averages only 28 thousandths of an inch on one dimension ; or less than one 2000th of the lengths ; that is to say, the scale by which the dimensions were laid out, and the errors of workmanship of size, together do not exceed a hundredth of an inch on the cubit length. This is indeed a brilliant piece of skill in such an untractable material.
Source: Illahun, Kahun and Gurob – W.M.Flinders Petrie
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Tags: faiyum, sarcophagus, senusret II
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