Why Haven't You Heard of . . . Dahshur?

Crowd-free Egypt

By Daniel Chamberlin, Tuesday, Nov 22, 2005, 1:50 PM


Fifteen miles south, however, at the other end of the Egyptian pyramid field, is Dahshur. It's where the ancient king Snefru built two pyramids, both of which are as intact as those raised at Giza by Snefru's son Cheops, the famous second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. One, the Red Pyramid, is the second largest in Egypt--just 120 feet shorter than Cheops's Great Pyramid. It's the only Dahshur pyramid open to visitors. Inside, there's not much to it: A ramp leads down to an antechamber, from which a modern staircase ascends to an empty burial chamber. As with many other pyramids, its contents were looted by grave robbers, and anything that remained was removed by archaeologists for studying.


Dahshur is an inconvenient hour-long ride each way from Cairo, and the half-day taxi rental costs about $15. And the pyramids' facilities are meager, with only two outhouses. Yet, according to officials, Dahshur still gets 640,000 visitors a year--that's about 6 million fewer than Giza. Or does it? Over the course of a two-hour visit in August, only five people showed up. It was so quiet, in fact, that a police officer kindly extended this visitor an invitation to tea. Egypttourism.org, $4.50.