Мысырдың Гиза пирамидаларындағы Менкауре пирамидасы

Smallest main pyramid of Giza in Egypt

The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three main pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex, located on the Giza Plateau in the southwestern outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. It is thought to have been built to serve as the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Menkaure.

Menkaure's pyramid had an original height of , and was the smallest of the three major pyramids at the Giza Necropolis. It now stands at tall with a base of Its angle of incline is approximately 51°20′25″. It was constructed of limestone and Aswan granite. The first sixteen courses of the exterior were made of the red granite. The upper portion was cased in the normal manner with Tura limestone. Part of the granite was left in the rough. Incomplete projects such as this pyramid help archaeologists understand the methods used to build pyramids and temples. The descending passage to lower burial chamber is in the 'large apartment' floor, probably original hidden by floor blocks. It is theorised that originally the pyramid was planned to be smaller. The blind alley being the originally planned entrance passage.

The pyramid's date of construction is unknown, because Menkaure's reign has not been accurately defined, but it was probably completed in the 26th century BC. It is a few hundred meters southwest of its larger neighbors, the pyramid of Khafre and the Great Pyramid of Khufu in the Giza necropolis.

In 1837 Howard Vyse and John Shae Perring discovered the basalt sarcophagus of Menkaure, described as beautiful black and rich in detail with a bold projecting cornice, which contained the bones of a young woman. It was loaded onto the ship Beatrice, but wrecked off the Spanish coast on the way to Great Britain. A wooden anthropoid coffin inscribed with Menkaure's name and containing the remains of a mummy were found in the upper burial chamber and later transferred safely to the British Museum.

In the mortuary temple, the foundations and the inner core were made of limestone. The floors were begun with granite and granite facings were added to some of the walls. The foundations of the valley temple were made of stone. Both temples were finished with crude bricks. Reisner estimated that some of the blocks of local stone in the walls of the mortuary temple weighed as much as 220 tons. The heaviest granite ashlars imported from Aswan weighed more than 30 tons. It is assumed that Menkaure's successor Shepseskaf completed the temple construction. An inscription was found in the mortuary temple that said he "made it (the temple) as his monument for his father, the king of upper and lower Egypt." Subsequent architectural additions and two stelae from the Sixth Dynasty suggest that a cult for the Pharaoh was maintained, or was periodically renewed, for two centuries after his death.

The Menkaure Valley temple was excavated between 1908 and 1910 by American archaeologist George Andrew Reisner. Neither of the other two progressed beyond the construction of the inner core. Reisner speculated that the structures were likely tombs for the queens of Menkaure, and that the individuals buried there may have been his half sisters. The archaeologist Mark Lehner argues that pyramid G3 a has a layout akin to a ka pyramid, which would have housed a statue of the king rather than a body. The fact that the structure once contained a pink granite sarcophagus, has led scholars to speculate that it may have been reused as a queen's burial tomb, or that it served as a chapel where the body of Menkaure was mummified.

In AD 1196, Al Aziz Uthman, Saladin's son and the Sultan of Egypt, attempted to demolish the pyramids, starting with that of Menkaure. Workmen recruited to demolish the pyramid stayed at their job for eight months, but found it almost as expensive to destroy as to build. They could only remove one or two stones each day. Some used wedges and levers to move the stones, while others used ropes to pull them down.

In January 2024 a project commenced which aims to move the fallen granite blocks of the facade back to their original location on the pyramid of Menkaure. It is planned to take three years to complete. The outer casing of the pyramid used to have 16 layers of granite, seven of which remained in situ. The excavation of the perimeter of the pyramid might uncover a still undiscovered boat pit, which was indicated by a boat hieroglyph found nearby.