Hello Lee

You mention in your post that Vyse claimed to have discovered pieces of the broken sarcophagus lid. Do you know if these found their way into a museum collection or are they alleged, together with the basalt box, to be in Davy Jones' locker?

I understand that the fragments of the anthropoid coffin as drawn by Vyse to be stylistically much, much later than the O.K. and on display in the British museum.

I noted with interest the similarity of Meresankh III's sarcophagus lid and that depicted by Vyse in Menkaure's burial chamber. Something else that is akin to both Menkaure and Meresankh's burials: the date of their deaths appears on the entry facade. This was not customary in the period and while some have claimed that the inscription in Menkaure to be a later addition, no-one seems to question the inscriptions on the limestone pillars which flank the entrance way to Meresankh's chapel.

See photo on page 15 with caption attesting to this here:

[www.gizapyramids.org]

Zahi Hawass writes of the Menkaure inscription:

"At the pyramid's entrance, there is an inscription records that Menkaure died on the twenty-third day of the fourth month of the summer and that he built the pyramid. It is thought that this inscription dates to the reign of Khaemwas, son of Ramsses II."

More here: [guardians.net]

Do you know for what reasons scholars hold this view that the inscription in Menkaure is not contemporaneous with the structure?

Thank you in advance.

:)



Post Edited (19-Jul-15 16:02)