Pyramids

Pyramids are amazing! What are they, you ask? Well, as you can see from the picture above, they are really large "triangles" made out of stone and are hollow inside. There are actually about 80 pyramids in Egypt, although the ones most talked about are those at Giza. These pyramids (the Giza Pyramids) are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Look at the picture below to see what the Giza complex of pyramids looked like.

Pyramids are a tombs for Egypt to bury their Pharaohs in. The pyramids of Giza are located on the West Bank of the Nile River, where the Egyptians traditionally buried their dead. These pyramids are built in groups, with mortuary temples, tombs of other members of the royal family and court and numerous priests and officials. The pyramids were built as stairs ways to heaven for the dead to follow the path to the next life.

And reach the heavens, they did! The tallest of these pyramids, The Great Pyramid, was built for King Khufu. It was about 486 feet (160 meters) tall. If you are 5 feet tall, or pretty close to that, you would have to place about 97 of you stacked on top of you from head to foot before you would reach the height of a pyramid! Wow, now's that's tall! And if you laid 140 of yourself on the ground from head to toe in a line, you would reach the length of this pyramid (almost 700 feet long). So, as you can see, they are really big. Look at the picture below showing 5 pyramids and their heights in comparison to other buildings around the world.

It took thousands of people to make a pyramid. They didn't have machines and trucks like we have now to make buildings, so they had to make the pyramids with only their hands, and the lever, the inclined plane, and the wedge. The Egyptians built carts that looked liked sleds to move the stone blocks from the quaries, where the stone was cut from, to the pyramids. Each stone weighed almost 5,000 pounds. And each pyramid took many years to build, as you could imagine.

In the pyramids, were placed many items that the Pharaohs were believed to need in the after life. Some of these things were gold, jewelery and clothes, games, pets, food, boats, and many other items. These pyramids had many chambers (rooms) in them for each of these things. See the picture to the right. For the most part, there were chambers for the Pharaoh's sarcophagus (a stone coffin), and chambers for his treasures. Sometimes chambers were built also for the Pharaoh's wife and her treasures as well. There were also false tunnels and empty rooms to make it harder for thieves to rob the tombs, but these tricks didn't work. Most of the tombs were robbed by thieves centuries ago. Except for King Tutakhamen's Tomb, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

Aside from the Great Pyramid mentioned above, there are several other pyramids at Giza. The Step Pyramid or Saqqara-Netjerykhet Pyramid was buily around 2,650BC for King Dyoser. Standing at 200 feet tall, it was the first Pyramid built, and was built, as its name suggests, with steps surrounding it from top to bottom. The Step Pyramid was the first largest building ever built of stone. The "Bent" Pyramid, or the Dahshur-Snofru Pyramid, is 350 feet tall (see the picture of the sizes of the pyramids above). It was built in the similar fashion of the True Pyramid (a pyramid without steps, but having only a flat, smooth surface), but is curiously bent from the middle toward the top. It was built for King Snefeu. King Snefeu also had another pyramid built for him. Look at the picture to the right. This pyramid was built with steps around it, like the famous Step Pyramid, but was then was reconstructed to resemble the True Pyramid. Time wore away at the poorly constructed outer surface and left only the inner part. As mentioned before there are roughly 80 pyramids in Egypt. These are just a few of the most prominent ones.

A lesson idea

Sphinxes

The Great Sphinx, carved from natural rock over 4,500 years ago, represents King Khafra with a lion's body. It guards the way to his pyramid. The Sphinx was built to represent Khafra as the sun god at the western horizon, guarding the Gates of Sunset. The lore (stories) surrounding the Sphinx is that it gives riddles to people who want to pass by. If you cannot answer the riddle, the Shinx will eat you. Of course this is only a myth. Many smaller versions of the Sphinx with heads representing different people and animals have been constructed as well.

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