Pyramid of Senusret II

The Pyramid of Senusret II is the funerary monument at El Lahun built for the Egyptian pharaoh Senusret II of the Twelfth Dynasty in the early 19th century BC. Its complex centers on a mudbrick pyramid built atop a yellow limestone outcrop, with a base around 106 meters wide and sides rising to an apex about 48.65 meters high. The pyramid was originally encased in fine white Tura limestone, later plundered by Ramesses II for his own building projects, and capped with a black granite pyramidion. Senusret II hid the entrance to the burial chamber beneath a princess's tomb southeast of the main pyramid, departing from the long standing practice of placing it beneath the north chapel, in an effort to protect his burial from robbers; the complex also included a small mortuary temple on the pyramid's east face, an unexplored causeway, and a valley temple, and it was served by a pyramid town known to the ancient Egyptians as Hetep Senusret and today as Kahun.