Pyramids of Egypt

Egyptian pyramids are great monument of a great civilization that was born seven thousand years ago. The ancient Egyptians built more than 90 royal pyramids, from about 2630 BC until about 1530 BC. During that time, the pyramid shape evolved from a series of stepped terraces to sloped pyramidal shape.

When were Egyptian pyramids built?

The first pyramid, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, was constructed during the reign of King Djoser (Zoser) (2630 BC-2611 BC). The largest pyramid in Egypt is the one built for King Khufu, in Giza. Khufu’s pyramid, known as the Great Pyramid, is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that still exists.

Why were Egyptian pyramids built?

Egyptian pyramids were originally built to serve as tombs for kings and queens. After a ruler died, his or her body was carefully treated and wrapped to preserve it as a mummy. According to ancient Egyptian belief, the pyramid, where the mummy was placed, provided a place for the king to pass into the afterlife. In temples nearby, priests performed rituals to nourish the dead monarch’s spirit, which was believed to stay with the body after death. In the Old Kingdom Egyptian artists carved hieroglyphs on the walls of the burial chamber, designed to safeguard the dead monarch’s passage into the afterlife. These hieroglyphic writings, which include hymns, magical spells, instructions on how to act in front of the gods, and other pieces of useful knowledge, are known as the Pyramid Texts.

How were the Pyramids built?

There are many theories of how the pyramids were built but no body knows for sure the process ancient Egyptians followed to build the pyramids. One theory suggests that ramps were built to drag the blocks of building stones on sledges to the top. There are some evidence that this theory might be close to the truth as some parts of the mentioned ramps were found near building sites. These ramps were made of bricks and earth rubble and they were strong enough to carry the huge blocks used to build the pyramids.

Stones used in the construction process were quarried from remote or local quarries where they were either transported using wooden sleds as the wheel had not yet existed and even it had it wouldn't be of much use due to the heavy weight of the blocks.

Whatever the means of building the pyramids it remains a fact that Egyptians did all the work and there was no magic or aliens involved in the process as some naive people might think.

What is the internal layout of the pyramids?

Pyramids internal layout changed over time, but the entrance was typically in the center of the north face. From here a passage ran downward, sometimes leveling out, to the king’s burial chamber, which ideally was located directly underneath the pyramid’s center point. Sometimes, in addition to the burial chamber, there were storage chambers within the pyramid to keep objects used in burial rituals as well as items for the deceased to use in the afterlife. Some of these items were valuable, and in later years people robbed many of the pyramids and stole the objects.

A Pyramid was never built alone in the desert. Instead, it was in the middle of temples and smaller pyramids forming a complex of pyramid temples.

Most pyramid complexes had satellite pyramids and queens’ pyramids. The satellite pyramids were too small to serve as burial places, and their purpose remains mysterious. They may have contained statues representing the king’s ka, an aspect of his spirit. The queens’ pyramids were simpler, smaller versions of the kings’, sometimes with small temples all their own. They were intended for the burial of a king’s principal wives.

Egyptian pyramid of Khufu

The largest Pyramid, King Khufu’s, is often called the Great Pyramid. It lies in the desert west of Giza, accompanied by the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure (Khufu’s son and grandson). The Great Pyramid was built during Khufu’s reign (2551 bc-2528 BC). A question was commonly asked: How long did it take to build the Great Pyramid? The answer of this question is not confirmed but it probably took twenty to thirty years to complete the pyramid.

Characteristics of the Great Pyramid of Khufu

The base of the Great Pyramid forms a nearly perfect square, with only a 19-cm (about 7.5-in) difference between its longest and shortest sides, out of a total length of about 230 m (756 ft). This huge square is also almost exactly level. When newly completed, the Great Pyramid rose 146.7 m (481.4 ft)—nearly 50 stories high. Researchers estimate that 2.3 million blocks were used to build the Great Pyramid, with an average weight of about 2.5 metric tons per block. The largest block weighs as much as 15 metric tons.

In building Khufu’s pyramid, the architects used techniques developed by earlier pyramid builders. They selected a site at Giza on a relatively flat area of bedrock not sand which provided a stable foundation. After carefully surveying the site and laying down the first level of stones, they constructed the Great Pyramid in horizontal levels, one on top of the other.

Most of the stone for the interior of the Great Pyramid was quarried immediately to the south of the construction site. The smooth exterior of the pyramid was made of a fine grade of white limestone that was quarried across the Nile. These exterior blocks had to be carefully cut, transported by river barge to Giza, and dragged up ramps to the construction site. Only a few exterior blocks remain in place at the bottom of the Great Pyramid. During the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) people took the rest away for building projects in the city of Cairo.

To ensure that the pyramid remained symmetrical, the exterior casing stones all had to be equal in height and width. Workers marked all the blocks to indicate the angle of the pyramid wall and trimmed the surfaces carefully so that the blocks fit together. During construction the outer surface of the stone was left unfinished; excess stone was removed later.

As the Great Pyramid rose, the workers built large ramps to drag their materials up the sides of the structure. The exact form of these ramps is not known, but scholars believe that they were probably built wrapping around the pyramid as they rose. These ramps were probably made of desert clay mixed with water and bonded with limestone debris left over from the construction work.

When the workers had completed the pyramid and installed the pyramidion, or cap stone, ramps still covered the surface of the pyramid. As the workers dismantled the ramps from the top down, they slowly exposed the pyramid’s stone surface, which stonemasons smoothed and polished. When the ramp was gone, the pyramid was displayed in its full majesty

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Khufu Pyramid from inside

The interior of the Great Pyramid is complex, with a series of passages leading to several rooms. The most important room is the King’s Chamber, the room in which Khufu’s body was placed during his funeral. In this room the priests left items that Khufu, like all Egyptians, would need for the afterlife. Although the builders tried to block passages and doors when they left the pyramid after the king’s funeral, tomb robbers did eventually take everything of value.

The entrance to the Great Pyramid was set 17 m (55 ft) above ground level. It was intended to be used only once, during Khufu’s funeral, when special scaffolding was erected. Once the scaffolding was dismantled, the entrance’s height served as a security measure against tomb robbers. The entrance leads to the Descending Passage, which runs down through the pyramid into bedrock beneath the pyramid and levels out until it reaches the Subterranean Chamber. About 18 m (60 ft) from the pyramid entrance, before entering the bedrock, the Descending Passage intersects another corridor, called the Ascending Passage, now sealed with three large granite blocks.

The Ascending Passage runs upward for about 39 m (129 ft), until it levels out and enters the so-called Queen’s Chamber. Early Arab explorers of the Great Pyramid gave it this name in the mistaken belief that the queen was buried here. Instead, it most probably held a statue of the king that represented his ka, a form of his spirit. The walls of the unfinished Queen’s Chamber grow closer as they rise and meet at a single point at the ceiling. This form results from each level of stones in the walls projecting slightly outward from the level beneath it, an arrangement called corbeling.

Where the Ascending Passage levels off horizontally and runs toward the Queen’s Chamber, it also intersects with one end of the Grand Gallery, a large, corbeled passageway 47 m (153 ft) long and 8.5 m (28 ft) high. The Grand Gallery most probably held some of the large stones that were used to plug passages after the king’s funeral. In the western wall at the point where the Ascending Passage and the Grand Gallery meet, there is an opening to a tunnel that winds its way down through the core of the pyramid and the bedrock to meet the Descending Passage near the Subterranean Chamber. It probably provided air to the workers carving out the Subterranean Chamber.

At the upper end of the Grand Gallery, another level corridor runs south into the King’s Chamber, a simple, rectangular room faced entirely with red granite. All that remains in the room now is a granite sarcophagus in which King Khufu was buried, near the western wall. About 1 m (3 ft) above the floor, near the center of the northern and southern walls of the King’s Chamber, are openings to shafts that run upward through the pyramid to the exterior of the pyramid. The exact purpose of these shafts is not known. Similar shafts lead out from the Queen’s Chamber but are blocked after 65 m (213 ft) and never reach the exterior of the pyramid.

Development of Pyramids in Ancient Egypt

Djoser step pyramid in Saqqara

King Snefru pyramid in Meydum

The Egyptian pyramids developed from royal tombs of the earliest periods of Egyptian history. In the 1st and 2nd dynasties (2920 bc-2770 bc and 2770 bc-2649 bc), kings were buried at the city of Abydos in graves topped with a pile of clean sand inside low-lying brick walls. By the 3rd Dynasty (2649 bc-2575 bc), kings were being buried underneath large mud brick rectangles called mastabas, from the Arabic word meaning “bench.”

King Djoser, who reigned from 2630 bc to 2611 bc, built a more elaborate royal tomb known as the Step Pyramid at ?aqq?rah. This tomb started out as a mastaba, but its architect, Imhotep, first expanded the mastaba then topped it with successively smaller mastabas. In the end, Djoser’s tomb looked like a rectangular wedding cake with six layers.

The Step Pyramid and later pyramids of the 3rd Dynasty were constructed of small, almost brick-sized stones that were laid in vertical courses and inward-leaning to create the sloped sides.

King Snefru pyramid in Meydum

King Sneferu, the father of Khufu, built the initial true pyramids, developing the new technique during construction. The earliest true pyramid, at the town of Maydom, began as a step pyramid with inward-leaning walls and eight levels. After working on the structure for 14 years, Sneferu moved his burial ground north to Dashur for unknown reasons, and construction began on another pyramid. This one, too, was made of stone blocks that leaned inward. The architects had designed it with an angle of 60 degrees (to the ground), but as the pyramid rose, it started to sink because of the weight and angle of the stones. To solve this problem, the builders put up an outer supporting wall, giving the half-finished pyramid a shallower angle of 55 degrees. After this, the architects finished the upper portion of the pyramid off with a slope of only 43 degrees. This shift in angle from 55 to 43 degrees gives this pyramid its name—the Bent Pyramid.

During construction of the Bent Pyramid, the architects made a discovery: On the upper portion, instead of leaning the stones inward, they laid down horizontal layers of larger stone blocks. With the new technique, the pyramid shape resulted because each level was slightly smaller than the one it lay upon. The new technique was then used to construct another giant pyramid for Sneferu, now called the North Pyramid, located about 1.6 km (1 mi) north of the Bent Pyramid. It proved so successful that Sneferu returned to Maydom, while construction was still in progress on the two Dashur pyramids, and refined the Maydom pyramid by adding an outer level constructed with the new approach.

All Egyptian pyramid builders of the 4th Dynasty (2575 BC-2467 BC), including the builders of the Great Pyramid at Giza, used Sneferu’s new technique. Over the course of the 5th Dynasty (2465 BC-2323 BC), however, the quality of the royal pyramids declined. The cores were made of smaller blocks of stone, laid more irregularly. By the end of the Old Kingdom around 2134 BC, the pyramids had a core of shoddy masonry and debris covered with a veneer of fine limestone.

After a chaotic period in Egyptian history called the First Intermediate Period (2134 BC-2040 BC), Egyptian kings chose to be buried in pyramids at their new capital city near modern Lisht. These pyramids of the Middle Kingdom resemble those of the late Old Kingdom, being loosely constructed of rough stones, debris, and mud-brick, and coated with fine limestone. However, the associated temples were much larger than those of the Old Kingdom.

Egyptian pyramids built early on in the Middle Kingdom were entered through an opening cut into the center of the north face, from which a simple passage descended. By the reign of Senwosret II (1897 BC-1878 BC), builders altered this simple and predictable arrangement. At his pyramid at Illahun the entrance led to a system of shafts on the south side of the pyramid and a passageway that circled the burial chamber before opening into it. During the rest of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, royal pyramids became increasingly complicated in plan, presumably to foil the intentions of tomb robbers.

In the New Kingdom (1550 BC -1070 BC), kings were no longer buried in pyramids. The site of royal tombs had shifted to the Valley of the Kings near modern Luxor. But private citizens used small pyramids for tombs that were barely higher and wider than the entrances to them.

The pyramids of Egypt have long captivated people’s imaginations. The Greek historian Herodotus described his visit to Egypt and its pyramids in the middle of the 5th century BC, and later Greek and Roman travelers admired and climbed the Great Pyramid. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder, who lived in the 1st century AD, told of local Egyptians who would help tourists in their ascents.

Today Pyramids stand witness to a great civilization once existed several thousands years ago challenging time to stay in place maybe for other several thousands years to come.