Pyramid of Elephantine

24.0847°N, 32.8869°E.

The pyramid of Elephantine on the island of Elephantine in the Nile at Aswan, southernmost of the seven small provincial step pyramids attributed to pharaoh Huni or Sneferu of the Third or early Fourth Dynasty, ~2600 BCE. Original base approximately 18 metres per side; original height around 11 metres on three or four stepped tiers. The structure is built of dressed granite blocks rather than the limestone of the other provincial pyramids — granite was the local stone of the Aswan quarries — and is the only one of the seven pyramids built from that material. No internal substructure: no burial chamber, no corridor, no entrance. Excavated by the German and Swiss Institutes from the 1970s onward. A foundation block recovered at the site bears a hieratic inscription naming Huni — one of the only inscriptions from any of the seven provincial pyramids that names a builder.

A small granite pyramid on an island in the Nile at the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt, built to a template repeated six times along the river, with no tomb inside it.