In 1837 Perring and British archaeologist
Richard William Howard Vyse began excavating at
Giza; they were later joined by
Giovanni Battista Caviglia. They used gunpowder to force their way into several monuments and then to reach hidden chambers within them, such as the burial chamber of the
pyramid of Menkaure, documenting them as they went. When Caviglia left the team to work independently, Perring became Vyse's assistant and when Vyse himself left for England in 1837 Perring continued the excavation with Vyse's financial support. As part of his work, Perring created several maps, plans and cross-sections of the pyramids at
Abu Roasch,
Gizeh,
Abusir,
Saqqara and
Dahshur. He was the first to explore the interior of the
Pyramid of Userkaf at Saqqara in 1839, through a robber's tunnel first discovered in 1831. Perring thought the pyramid belonged to
Djedkare. The pyramid was first correctly identified by Egyptologist
Cecil Firth in 1928 (though Firth died in 1931 and excavations there only recommenced in 1948, under
Jean-Philippe Lauer). Perring opened the northern entrance into the
Bent Pyramid and added some graffiti inside the nearby
Red Pyramid at
Dahshur, which can still be viewed today. Perring's work resulted in his three-volume
The Pyramids of Gizeh, published from 1839 to 1842. Vyse also published Perring's sketches in the third volume of his own three-part work
Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 with an Account of a Voyage Into Upper Egypt and an Appendix. ==References==