The Point of the Pyramids

Did you know the tip of an Egyptian pyramid had its own name and its own celebration? It's called a pyramidion, or benbenet in the ancient Egyptian language, after the benben: the first mound of land in the creation story of Heliopolis where the sun god stood as the world began. Every pyramid tip was a copy of that mound. We even have a picture of one being delivered. Reliefs from the causeway of King Sahure's pyramid at Abusir, built about a century after Khufu, show crews dragging the capstone to the site while dancers and officials celebrate. The inscription says it was covered in electrum, a mix of gold and silver, so the tip would have caught the sun before anything else at Giza did. One survives almost intact. The black stone pyramidion of Amenemhat III was found at Dahshur in 1900 and now sits in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, carved with a pair of eyes looking up so the king could watch the sun cross the sky. Do you think the capstone went on first or last? #greatpyramid #giza #ancientegypt #pyramidion #archaeology