Pyramid of Teti

29.8750°N, 31.2200°E.

Pyramid at North Saqqara built for Teti, founder of the Sixth Dynasty, ~2345–2333 BCE. Original base 78.5 metres per side; original height 52.5 metres at the standard late-Old-Kingdom 53° slope. The superstructure has collapsed into a low rounded mound the locals call the Prison of Pharaoh, but the interior is intact and accessible. Teti's burial chamber preserves the second-oldest set of Pyramid Texts ever inscribed — directly continuing the tradition Unas began one reign earlier — and the basalt sarcophagus is the earliest royal sarcophagus carved with hieroglyphic spells on its exterior. The complex includes the satellite pyramids of Queen Iput I (his mother) and Queen Khuit II (his consort), both excavated from 1996 onward by Zahi Hawass's mission and yielding the only known queens' Pyramid Texts of the early Sixth Dynasty. Manetho records that Teti was assassinated by his own bodyguard.

The dynasty he founded would last 180 years, end in chaos, and never again produce a pyramid larger than the one he built in his first decade on the throne.