The Meidum Pyramid Mystery

[The One]

A discussion of the many oddities and mysteries of the construction and collapse of the Meidum Pyramid. A map showing it position to the south of Giza. I thought it might be a good start to a discussion about the Meidum pyramid which has not been discussed to death like the one's at Giza.



Mark Lehner in his book ‘The Complete Pyramids’states; “In many ways Meidum is the most mysterious of all the great pyramids









The problem

The second extension turned the original step pyramid design into a true pyramid by filling in the steps with limestone encasing. While this approach is consistent with the design of the other true pyramids, Meidum was affected by construction errors. Firstly, the outer layer was founded on sand and not on rock, like the inner layers. Secondly, the inner step pyramids had been designed as the final stage. Thus the outer surface was polished and the platforms of the steps were not horizontal, but fell off to the outside. This severely compromised the stability and is likely to have caused the collapse of the Meidum Pyramid in a downpour while the building was still under construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meidum

A detailed guide to this pyramid

https://www.academia.edu/32410244/The_Meidum_Pyramid

So who built it? Why the strange design? Why did it collapse? Why was it abandoned instead of repaired and who was it for?

[ZShawn]

apparently these are not as old as the great pyramid...... and as time went on the skills degraded thus the pyramids had less integrity..
similar to spelt being most perfect in form in the oldest fragments they found in the highlands of the middle east, and they followed it and its spread into the rest of the surrounding areas...already perfected before the so called gathering society began to farm..... anomalies, they really make archaeology fun....hmmm

[Emil El Zapato]

good point...it is not unlikely that if any 'regular' people built the pyramidal structures, they were likely 'gatherers' looking for mystical ways to fend off the 'farmers' and 'herders'. If all else failed they could use the big rocks to konk the bad guys in the head with. The more threatening of the two were the 'herders'. Unfortunately, they made us instead of pyramids.