Buried Pyramid

The Sekhemkhet Pyramid, called the Buried Pyramid in Arabic, lies a few hundred meters southwest of the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser at the Saqqara necropolis. It was planned as the tomb of Pharaoh Sekhemkhet of the 3rd Dynasty around 2700 BCE and was intended to rise as a six-stepped pyramid, but remained unfinished after only a few years of construction because the king died prematurely. The complex was discovered only in 1951 by Egyptian archaeologist Zakaria Goneim. The sealed sarcophagus contained no mummy, a riddle still unsolved today. The pyramid itself is visible only as a low sand mound; the area is normally closed to the public and can only be glimpsed from the Djoser Pyramid.