Sneferu

Sneferu came to the throne after Huni, and the Instruction for Kagemni says simply that when Huni died, Sneferu was raised as king over the whole land. His mother was Queen Meresankh I, but it is not known whether his father was Huni. Manetho begins a new dynasty with him, which suggests that later Egyptians saw a new royal family. Sneferu married Hetepheres I, who became the mother of his successor Khufu. Many of his sons became high officials and builders. Prince Rahotep, probably one of them, and his wife Nofret are known from their painted statues from Meidum, among the masterpieces of Egyptian art.

Sneferu's first great project was at Meidum, near the entrance to the Fayum. There a step pyramid of seven steps was built and then enlarged to eight. Years later the steps were filled in and the whole structure was cased to give it smooth sides, an early attempt at a true pyramid. Graffiti left by visitors of the New Kingdom praise it as the pyramid of Sneferu. Today only the steep core stands, like a tower on a hill of rubble, because the outer casing slid away, perhaps already in antiquity, perhaps much later. For a long time the monument was wrongly attributed to Huni.

At Dahshur, south of Saqqara, Sneferu began a pyramid that was planned from the start with smooth sides. The builders chose a steep slope of about 54 degrees, but the ground was soft and the chambers inside began to crack under the weight. They widened the base, and at about half the height they changed the angle to about 43 degrees. That is why the monument is called the Bent Pyramid. It still keeps much of its original limestone casing and has two entrances, one on the north side and one on the west, a rare arrangement. A small pyramid beside it was probably meant for the king's cult.

A little to the north the builders started again, this time with the gentler slope of about 43 degrees from the base. The result was the Red Pyramid, named after the reddish colour of its stone, the first true pyramid to be completed successfully. With a base of about 220 metres and a height of about 105 metres, it is the third largest pyramid in Egypt, after the two great pyramids of Giza. Sneferu was probably buried here. In 1950 fragments of a human body were found inside it, but whether they belong to the pharaoh is unknown. Together his pyramids contain more stone than the Great Pyramid of his son.

The Palermo Stone, a copy of the royal annals, records the main events of several of Sneferu's years. A campaign to Nubia brought back 7,000 captives and 200,000 animals, a campaign to Libya 11,000 captives and 13,100 head of cattle. The annals also mention 40 ships laden with cedar wood, which must have come from Lebanon, and the building of royal boats 100 cubits long, about 52 metres. In Sinai a rock relief at Wadi Maghareh shows Sneferu striking down an enemy, and his expeditions mined turquoise and copper there. Such a state could feed and organise the many thousands of workers on his pyramids.

Later Egyptians remembered Sneferu as a kind and generous ruler. In a tale of the Westcar Papyrus he is a bored king who goes rowing on the palace lake with twenty young women. When one of them loses her turquoise pendant in the water, the magician Djadjaemankh folds one half of the lake over the other, picks up the jewel from the bottom and puts the water back. The Prophecy of Neferti, a text of the Middle Kingdom, is also set at Sneferu's court. Officials of later times liked to name their estates after him, and in the Middle Kingdom he was worshipped in Sinai as a protector of the mining expeditions.

Sneferu turned the experiments of the Third Dynasty into the true pyramid. His builders learned from their failures at Meidum and Dahshur, and the knowledge they gained made the Great Pyramid of Giza possible. With his campaigns, his ships and a state able to feed tens of thousands of workers, he opened the great age of the Fourth Dynasty.