Sneferu or Snofru (Snofru in Greek), was the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, reigning in 2613 BC. Until 2589 BC. His name means “Make beautiful” in Egyptian. He was married to Hetepheres who apparently was the daughter of Huni’s predecessor. According to some theories, his father-in-law might have been his father (Huni would have had Hetepheres after marrying Great Royal Wife, and Sneferu with one of his concubines.) Thus marriage allowed Sneferu access to the throne.

 

Sneferu and Hetepheres were the parents of the most famous pyramid constructor, Khufu.
Sneferu was actually more prolific than his heir, owing to the end of Huni’s pyramid at Meidum, transforming it from the pyramid into steps into a real pyramid, the first of its kind.
He then continued building his own pyramid in the stairs.
These were followed by the famous Dahshur stunning pyramid and eventually the Red Pyramid.
About a small pyramid at Seila near Medium is believed to have been built at his command.
Although taken individually, the pyramids built under Sneferu’s reign are smaller than Khufu’s Great Pyramid, the total volume of stone used in Sneferu‘s monuments Is the largest of all ancient Egypt.

Despite the construction of these monuments, relatively little is known about Sneferu‘s reign.
From an inscription on the Stone of Palermo, it is evident that the Egyptians had already begun to import high-quality wood (the inscription stating that Sneferu commanded 40 Lebanese cedar vases.
Some Sneferu-style information about the lifestyle is known from the Westcar Papyrus, written during the Middle Kingdom.
Traditionally Sneferu is described as a righteous and wise leader.

Sneferu – the first pyramid builder

Sneferu, the first of the three great builders of the Fourth Dynasty, was, unlike Kheops, his son, a mediocre architect, but he was also the owner of extraordinary ambition: to build the highest pyramid.
This ambition, however, led the architect to a series of mistakes that began at Medium, where Sneferu ordered the start of his first pyramid.

Finally, this pyramid was abandoned. The second pyramid at Dashur is twice as big as the first and is known in history as the Bent Pyramid.
This name was given to it by Egyptologists because it was initially conceived at an angle of 58 degrees but was completed at a 43-degree angle.
The construction of such a pyramid requires that soil strength is large enough to withstand a concentrated weight.
The snowman did not take this into account, and as a result, the soil gave in and the pyramid base had to be widened.

As a result, a pyramid was produced much wider than the ones before it, and in addition, the walls of the funeral chambers swelled under the external pressure of the ground and the construction had to be abandoned.
Sneferu had to build another pyramid, the third one was built less than 1 km from the Bent Pyramid, and is the first successful pyramid in history.
The last pyramid is called the Red Pyramid because it was built of red granite, with a slope limited to 45 degrees this time.
Pyramids in Egypt have remained a mystery even after 4,500 years since their rise. “How were they raised?”, “What’s inside?” Are just some of the questions that have been left unanswered to date.
But here a team of Egyptian and foreign experts has managed to discover one of the mysteries. Thus, the internal structure of a pyramid was revealed using “cosmic particles”, writes Live Science.
An archaeologist team has released the first results of this new technique at the Bent Pyramid, located about 40 km from Cairo.
3D images show two interior chambers of the 4,600-year-old structure.
Located within the Dahshur royal necropolis, the Bent pyramid was one of the oldest pyramids built during the ancient kingdom of Sarafer Pharaoh.

Images could be obtained after radiographic particles known as muons were used. These cosmic particles fall on Earth and can pass through any hard surfaces.
Scientists can assert with certainty that the Bent pyramid has large corridors leading to the two funeral chambers, one above the other.
More so far, the legends spoke of the fact that the Sneferu pharaoh himself is buried in the pyramid, but this very possibility has been ruled out by this new interior scanning technique.

By viewing these particles according to their angular distribution, we are able to reconstruct an interior image of the pyramid for the first time in history. The images clearly show two cameras located approximately 60 feet above each other, said Mehdi Tayoubi, co-chair of the ScanPyramids project.