King Huni
After King Jzoser built the Step Pyramid, two other kings built similar step pyramids for the same purpose--to harvest rainwater. King Sekhemkhet and King Khaiba both quarried vast cisterns under their pyramids to store the water. Unfortunately, it seems they began building their pyramids before it was realized that Jzoser's Step Pyramid was not practical. The problems with the subterranean cisterns was that they tended to leak, so pure water would escape and tainted ground water would enter. Both of the new step pyramids were mysteriously abandoned before they could be finished. Most likely, the kings died, but why didn't the next king finish it as a rain harvester? Because of the problems that were occurring at Jzoser's step pyramid.
Next on the scene comes King Huni, and he has some new ideas about building a pyramid rain harvester. Instead of creating vast courtyards that drained to an underground cistern, he devised a new system that would convey the water to an above-ground cistern. He built his pyramids on a much smaller scale, but they harvested a significant amount of rainwater. He built a paved corridor around the base of the pyramid to capture the rainwater. This corridor filled quickly because it was narrow (about 20 feet wide), so the water was quickly drained to an aqueduct that transported it to a cistern built at ground level. This worked so well that he built five more of them in different parts of Egypt. It seems he was providing outlying settlements with a way of harvesting rainwater with pyramids that could be quickly built and easily maintained. His last great project is known today as the Collapsed pyramid of Meidum. This was an engineering marvel. It was later covered up by more stones, and these collapsed, but you can still see the stable pyramid of Huni underneath. That's why the exterior is so smooth even though it seems like the core in the center of rubble. The rubble is the ruined second pyramid, which Huni's son, Senefru built about 20 years later. I'll describe why this happened in the next post. In the book by Patrick Giles Rainwater: The Answer to the Pyramids", the pavement around the pyramid is termed the catchment basin. The aqueduct is referred to as a causeway by most Egyptologists--and they certainly do not agree with me that it was used to carry water. The call the cistern a valley temple, which indicates the widely held belief that the cistern was actually a sacred temple for the king. However, it has all the features of a cistern, including waterproof pavement and walls, no windows whatsoever, inlets for water in the roof, and high ceilings.The causeways (aqueducts) were also built in the same manner. After King Huni's son began to rule, a whole new era of pyramid building began that was destined to become the Golden Age of Egypt. King Senefru built on Huni's ideas and designed some of the greatest rain harvesters of the Old Kingdom and some of the best pyramids ever created.
King Huni's step pyramid at Meidum.
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