Queens Pyramid of Senusret I (8)

29.5607°N, 31.2211°E.

Queens' pyramid 8 of Senusret I at el-Lisht, eighth of nine small queens' pyramids around the main pyramid of pharaoh Senusret I. Construction date approximately 1950 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 a sandstone sarcophagus broken open in antiquity. The mortuary chapel on the east face produced relief fragments and broken canopic equipment whose inscriptions are illegible. The choice of nine queens' pyramids — rather than the more typical three or four of earlier Egyptian royal complexes — has been interpreted as reflecting either an unusually large royal harem in this reign or a ritual significance attached to the number nine itself, which appears repeatedly in Middle Kingdom religious texts as a marker of completion.

One of nine queens' pyramids whose count is itself a religious decision, in a complex whose individual occupants are subordinate to the structure that holds them.