The Secret Vault Inside Egypt's Forgotten Bent Pyramid

The beautiful mistake that made all pyramids possible. The Bent Pyramid of Dahshur, sealed for fifty four years, reopened in twenty nineteen for the first time since Lyndon Johnson was president. One hundred five meters of limestone rising from the Egyptian desert. The lower half climbs at fifty four degrees. Then, at forty seven meters, the angle suddenly shifts to forty three degrees. The pyramid bends. The name writes itself.

Twenty six hundred years before Christ, Pharaoh Sneferu began the most ambitious construction program Egypt had ever seen. His first pyramid at Meidum collapsed. His second pyramid at Dahshur started cracking halfway through construction. The architects faced a choice: abandon the project or adapt. They adapted. They bent the pyramid to save it. And in saving it, they discovered the engineering principles that made every pyramid after it possible, including the Great Pyramid of Giza built by Sneferu's son Khufu.

Inside the Bent Pyramid: two separate chamber systems with separate entrances, something found in no other pyramid. Corbelled ceilings rising seventeen meters high. Original cedar beams from Lebanon still spanning the burial chambers after four thousand six hundred years. And the greatest mystery: no body. The pharaoh who built three pyramids left no trace of where he was buried.

The Bent Pyramid still wears its original polished limestone casing, the shining white skin that once covered all pyramids before time and theft stripped them bare. The ancient Egyptians called it Sneferu is Shining in the South. Four thousand six hundred years later, it still shines.

Who paid for this dream? Workers who hauled the stone. Architects who adapted under pressure. A pharaoh who refused to quit after failure. And the Egyptian government, which finally opened the doors after half a century of silence. What would you have done at forty seven meters, when the cracks appeared and the pyramid started killing itself? Would you have stopped, or would you have bent?

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This video is a non commercial, educational history documentary created for commentary, criticism and research.
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