Pyramid Texts Online

Photographs of the Pyramid of Unas


Colour photographs of the inside and outside of the pyramid of Unas



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View a Flickr slideshow of others' photos of the Pyramid of Unas and surrounds



High resolution scans of the negatives used in Alexandre Piankoff's 'The Pyramid of Unas'

Plate IV: Antechamber, North Wall (right) and West Wall
Plate V: Antechamber, West Wall
Plate VI: Sarcophagus Chamber, East Wall
Plate VII: Sarcophagus Chamber, West Wall
Plate 31: Antechamber: East Wall, upper
Plate 32: Antechamber: East Wall, lower
PLate 69: Sarcophagus Chamber: Western Gable, center
Antechamber: West Wall, lower

The first seven images presented here are high-resolution scans of negatives used for the edited (and, hence, sometimes different) images in Alexandre Piankoff, The Pyramid of Unas (Bollingen Series 40; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968).

I located the original negatives in 2010 through a combination of sleuthing, intuition and assistance from the Brooklyn Museum. Dr Richard Steiner then had these scans made, with support from Yeshiva University to accompany his new book, Early Northwest Semitic Serpent Spells in the Pyramid Texts (Harvard Semitic Studies 61; Eisenbrauns, 2011). The last image is from the Brooklyn Museum's Lantern Slide collection.