Queens Pyramid of Senusret I (2)

29.5593°N, 31.2208°E.

Queens' pyramid 2 of Senusret I at el-Lisht, the second of nine small queens' pyramids arranged around the main pyramid of pharaoh Senusret I (r. 1971–1926 BCE). Original base approximately 20 metres per side; original height around 16 metres at a steep slope. Excavated by the Metropolitan Museum's expedition from 1906 onward. The substructure preserved a small vaulted burial chamber and an emptied sandstone sarcophagus; no inscribed material identifying the occupant has been securely recovered. The nine queens' pyramids of Senusret I were each built to a near-identical architectural template — a uniformity that has been read either as evidence of a centrally directed building programme or as a sign that the queens themselves were architecturally interchangeable in the funerary tradition of this reign.

One of nine near-identical queens' pyramids built in a row around a single king, in a complex whose architectural uniformity erases the individual identity it was supposed to commemorate.