Pyramid of King Tantamani

18.4169°N, 31.7666°E.

The pyramid of king Tantamani at El-Kurru, built for the last king of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty who reigned approximately 664–656 BCE — the king under whom Kushite control of Egypt finally collapsed under Assyrian invasion. Original base 11 metres per side; original height around 14 metres at a 70° slope. Excavated by George Reisner in 1919. The substructure preserved a granite burial chamber whose ceiling had been painted with a vault of stars in the Egyptian tradition, walls inscribed with a continuous frieze of gods and offering scenes — the earliest known fully painted royal burial chamber in the Kushite cemeteries — and the king's intact stone bench. Tantamani's reign is documented in the Dream Stela found at Gebel Barkal, recording a dream in which the goddesses Wadjet and Nekhbet appeared to him as twin serpents commanding him to reclaim Egypt from the Assyrians; he tried, was defeated by Ashurbanipal, and retreated permanently to Kush.

A pyramid for the last Kushite king to wear both crowns, with a painted starry ceiling, in the burial of a king whose god-given mission failed.