Pyramid Bar. 1

18.5335°N, 31.8170°E.

Pyramid Bar. 1 in the Reisner catalogue of the Gebel Barkal cemetery, in modern Northern State, Sudan, beneath the sacred mountain that the Kushites called the Pure Mountain and identified as the southern dwelling-place of Amun. Construction date approximately 50 BCE. Original base approximately 14 metres per side; original height around 22 metres at the steep Meroitic 70° slope. Excavated by George Reisner in the early twentieth century. The Gebel Barkal cemetery contains approximately 20 royal and noble pyramids built between the third century BCE and the first century CE — a third necropolis used by Meroitic royalty in addition to the larger cemeteries at Meroë North and South. The site is dominated by the natural rock pinnacle of Gebel Barkal itself, a 75-metre sandstone bluff with a free-standing pinnacle whose silhouette the Kushites interpreted as a rearing cobra wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt — the religious justification for siting the temple of Amun at its base.

A pyramid in a cemetery beneath a mountain the Kushites believed was the dwelling place of their chief god, in the only Meroitic royal necropolis dominated by a natural feature rather than the human-built structures around it.