THE Museum is fortunate in Expedition having secured excavation rights for the Fourth Dynasty pyramid site of Meydum. Although the site was explored in 1881-82 by Maspero, and in 1909-10 by Petrie, it has never been as thoroughly excavated as its probable importance warrants. The Pyramid lies in the Libyan desert about fifty miles south of Cairo; it is one of a long line of pyramid sites stretching for sixty miles along the western edge of the desert, from Gizeh to Hawara.
Site of the Museum’s Egyptian Excavations
Image Number: 35921
Mr. Alan Rowe, hitherto director of the Museum’s expeditions in Palestine, which have been temporarily suspended in order to excavate in Egypt, left Philadelphia in June to organize his staff and to build an expedition house which is shown in the accompanying photograph. [Plate III].
He began digging on November 2nd at the northern and western sides of the pyramid of Seneferu, father of Cheops, (about 2900 B. C.) which rises in three stages (originally seven) to a height of two hundred and fifty feet above the plain. He has discovered a shaft missed by other explorers, but has not yet proceeded far enough to determine its significance; he writes, “There are thousands of tons of debris to remove from the sides of the pyramid, and this is rather slow work, but I hope the eventual results will prove satisfactory, as there certainly should be tombs near the bases of the four sides of the structure.” Mr. Rowe hopes this year to clear the pyramid and adjoining small temples, the surrounding wall, and the causeway leading to it from the shore of the Nile.