For safety reasons, tourists are advised to avoid this region. This is thought to have been the first attempt at increasing the height of the pyramids. In fact, this "false pyramid", as it is known to the inhabitants of Meidum, is a mastaba to which eight degrees were added, to reach a height of 93.5m. It was covered with a facing to smooth its slopes and nowadays looks like a rectangular tower. The Egyptologist Gaston Maspero was the first person to go inside (in 1882) and he found no sarcophagus. A mortuary temple and necropolis of mastabas (only n° 17 can be visited) are laid out around the pyramid.