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Pyramids English Project

The pyramids of Egypt, particularly the Great Pyramids of Giza, were built during a time when Egypt was extremely powerful and wealthy. The pharaoh, or king, was seen as a god among the people. As such, it was important for the pharaoh to be provided for eternally, so they built elaborate pyramids and buried treasures and servants with them. The largest of the pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was built for Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC and originally stood over 480 feet tall.

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300 views8 pages

Pyramids English Project

The pyramids of Egypt, particularly the Great Pyramids of Giza, were built during a time when Egypt was extremely powerful and wealthy. The pharaoh, or king, was seen as a god among the people. As such, it was important for the pharaoh to be provided for eternally, so they built elaborate pyramids and buried treasures and servants with them. The largest of the pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was built for Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC and originally stood over 480 feet tall.

Uploaded by

Margina Bianca
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The history of the pyramids

 Egiptian pyramids
Built during a time when Egypt was one of the richest and most
powerful civilizations in the world, the pyramids—especially the
Great Pyramids of Giza—are some of the most magnificent man-
made structures in history. Their massive scale reflects the unique
role that the pharaoh, or king, played in ancient Egyptian society.
Though pyramids were built from the beginning of the Old Kingdom
to the close of the Ptolemaic period in the fourth century A.D., the
peak of pyramid building began with the late third dynasty and
continued until roughly the sixth (c. 2325 B.C.). More than 4,000
years later, the Egyptian pyramids still retain much of their majesty,
providing a glimpse into the country’s rich and glorious past.

 The Pharaoh in Egyptian Society


During the third and fourth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, Egypt
enjoyed tremendous economic prosperity and stability. Kings held a
unique position in Egyptian society. Somewhere in between human
and divine, they were believed to have been chosen by the gods to
serve as mediators between them and the people on earth.
Because of this, it was in everyone’s interest to keep the king’s
majesty intact even after his death, when he was believed to
become Osiris, god of the dead. The new pharaoh, in turn, became
Horus, the falcon-god who served as protector of the sun-god, Ra.
Ancient Egyptians believed that when the king died, part of his
spirit (known as “ka”) remained with his body. To properly care for
his spirit, the corpse was mummified, and everything the king would
need in the afterlife was buried with him, including gold vessels,
food, furniture and other offerings. The pyramids became the focus
of a cult of the dead king that was supposed to continue well after
his death. Their riches would provide not only for him, but also for
the relatives, officials and priests who were buried near him.
 The Great Pyramids of Giza
No pyramids are more celebrated than the Great Pyramids of
Giza, located on a plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, on the
outskirts of modern-day Cairo. The oldest and largest of the three
pyramids at Giza, known as the Great Pyramid, is the only surviving
structure out of the famed seven wonders of the ancient world. It was
built for Khufu (Cheops, in Greek), Sneferu’s successor and the
second of the eight kings of the fourth dynasty. Though Khufu reigned
for 23 years (2589-2566 B.C.), relatively little is known of his reign
beyond the grandeur of his pyramid. The sides of the pyramid’s base
average 755.75 feet (230 meters), and its original height was 481.4
feet (147 meters), making it the largest pyramid in the world. Three
small pyramids built for Khufu’s queens are lined up next to the Great
Pyramid, and a tomb was found nearby containing the empty
sarcophagus of his mother, Queen Hetepheres. Like other pyramids,
Khufu’s is surrounded by rows of mastabas, where relatives or officials
of the king were buried to accompany and support him in the afterlife.
The middle pyramid at Giza was built for Khufu’s son Khafre
(2558-2532 B.C). A unique feature built inside Khafre’s pyramid
complex was the Great Sphinx, a guardian statue carved in limestone
with the head of a man and the body of a lion. It was the largest statue
in the ancient world, measuring 240 feet long and 66 feet high. In the
18th dynasty (c. 1500 B.C.) the Great Sphinx would come to be
worshiped itself, as the image of a local form of the god Horus. The
southernmost pyramid at Giza was built for Khafre’s son Menkaure
(2532-2503 B.C.). It is the shortest of the three pyramids (218 feet)
and is a precursor of the smaller pyramids that would be constructed
during the fifth and sixth dynasties.
Approximately 2.3 million blocks of stone (averaging about 2.5
tons each) had to be cut, transported and assembled to build Khufu’s
Great Pyramid. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that it
took 20 years to build and required the labor of 100,000 men, but later
archaeological evidence suggests that the workforce might actually
have been around 20,000. Though some popular versions of history
held that the pyramids were built by slaves or foreigners forced into
labor, skeletons excavated from the area show that the workers were
probably native Egyptian agricultural laborers who worked on the
pyramids during the time of year when the Nile River flooded much of
the land nearby.

 The Pyramids Today


The robbers and other vandals in both ancient and modern times
removed most of the bodies and funeral goods from Egypt’s pyramids
and plundered their exteriors as well. Stripped of most of their smooth
white limestone coverings, the Great Pyramids no longer reach their
original heights; Khufu’s, for example, measures only 451 feet high.
Nonetheless, millions of people continue to visit the pyramids each
year, drawn by their towering grandeur and the enduring allure of
Egypt’s rich and glorious past.

Khufu’s pyramide
Khrafe’s pyramide(khufu’s son)
Queen Hetepheres pyramide(Khufu’s mother)
3 small pyramides for Khufu’s queens

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