White Pyramid

29.7969°N, 31.2069°E.

Twelfth-Dynasty pyramid at Dahshur, built for pharaoh Amenemhat II, who reigned approximately 1929–1895 BCE. The local Arabic name is el-Haram el-Abyad — the White Pyramid — from the white limestone debris of the casing that once covered it. Original base approximately 50 metres per side, with an irregular plan that has been reconstructed as either square or rectangular; original height 55 metres at a steep slope. The superstructure has been almost entirely robbed for its limestone, leaving only the substructure trenches and a low mound of mudbrick fill. Excavated by Jacques de Morgan in 1894 and 1895; the dig produced four intact royal women's tombs in the pyramid's enclosure containing the Dahshur treasure — gold pectorals, jewellery, mirrors, and cosmetic vessels now in the Egyptian Museum and the Metropolitan Museum. The king's own burial chamber had been thoroughly looted in antiquity.

A pyramid whose superstructure is gone, whose plan is debated, and whose enclosure produced one of the most spectacular caches of royal jewellery ever recovered from Egypt.