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Babylon & Beyond

EGYPT: Make that 118 pyramids

By Jeffrey FleishmanStaff Writer 
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Desert winds blow, sands shift, archaeologists dig, and one day you find a pyramid.

Egyptian authorities announced today they discovered what’s left of the base of a pyramid estimated to be 4,300 years old near Saqqara.

The site has been under excavation for 20 years and is believed to have belonged to Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Teti, who ruled the Sixth Dynasty around 2291. (View photos of the excavation.)

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“It’s common for us to find a tomb or a statue, but to find a pyramid, that is rare,” Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council on Antiquities, told reporters. “There are probably many more discoveries to be made around this site.”

Archaeologists have yet to enter the pyramid’s tomb. About 12 miles south of Cairo, Saqqara was a necropolis for rulers of ancient Egypt.

The newest find brings to 118 the number Egypt’s discovered pyramids.

It lies near the oldest existing step pyramid, which when the light is right, and a camel lumbers in silhouette, seems to defy time, looters and all the elements.

-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

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Babylon & Beyond
Jeffrey Fleishman

Jeffrey Fleishman is a senior writer at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, he was the foreign and national editor. A 2002 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, Fleishman was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing. A longtime foreign correspondent, he served as bureau chief for The Times in Cairo and Berlin, and was previously based in Rome for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He also was a writer on film, art and culture. Fleishman has been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and a finalist for the Center for Public Integrity’s Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. He is the author of five novels, including “Good Night, Forever” and “Last Dance.”

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