The Layer Pyramid of Zawiyet el-Aryan: Its Layout and Context

Abstract

In their seminal work on the pyramids, Vito Maragioglio and Celeste Rinaldi1 point out the curious fact that the two excavators of the Layer Pyramid at Zawiyet el-Aryan,2 Alessandro Barsanti in 1900,3 and George Andrew Reisner, working with Clarence Fisher, in 1910-1 1,4 drew sections of the substructure that differ not only in detail, but in fundamental dimensions and also in the very number of galleries (fig. 1)! Furthermore, the dimensions derived from the scale drawings (or, rather, sketches) in some cases differ from the figures mentioned in the respective excavators' texts (fig. 2; table I).5 It is not possible to check the data at present, since the pyramid is both sanded up and now lies directly adjacent to a military zone. Interestingly, the Reisner-Fisher version of the pyramid's layout has seemingly been accepted by almost all subsequent pyramidwriters, presumably on the basis of the relative academic standings of the American and Italian excavators, and is enshrined in such standard publications as those of I. E. S. Edwards,6 Rainer Stadelmann7 and Mark Lehner.8 Such partiality is instructive.