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Egyptian Pyramids
Abu Rawash
Abusir
Dahshur
el-Lahun
Giza Plateau
Lisht
Meidum
Hawara
Mazghuna
Saqqara
Zawyet el-Aryan
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Ancient Egypt Pyramids > Giza Plateau The Pyramids of Giza PlateauThough the three Great Pyramids are the most famous and prominent monuments at Giza, the site has actually been a Necropolis almost since the beginning of Pharaonic Egypt. A tomb just on the outskirts of the Giza site dates from the reign of the 1st Dynasty Pharaoh Djet (Wadj), and jar sealings discovered in a tomb in the southern part of Giza mention the 2nd Dynasty Pharaoh Ninetjer. But it was the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) who placed Giza forever at the heart of funerary devotion, a city of the dead that dwarfed the cities of the living nearby. His pyramid, the largest of all the pyramids in Egypt (though it should be noted that it surpasses the Red Pyramid of his father Sneferu by only ten meters) dominates the sandy plain. On its southwest diagonal is the pyramid of his son Khafra (Khephren, Chephren, or Khafre). Although it is smaller, a steeper angle results in the illusion that they are the same size. In fact, Khafra's pyramid appears taller since it is on higher ground. The notion that this was done on purpose to out-do his father is without question. As it occupies the central point, has the illusion of greater size, and still has some of its casing stones intact, it is frequently misreferred to as the Great Pyramid, something that would no doubt please Khafra were he to know about it.
Further along the southwest diagonal is the smallest of the three, the pyramid of Khafra's son, Menkaure. It is also the most unusual. First of all, it is not entirely limestone. The uppermost portions are brick, much like the Black and White Pyramids at Dahshur, though separated from them by several centuries. One theory is that Menkaure died before his pyramid could be completed, and the remaining construction was hastily done to finish in time for the burial. It is also not along the diagonal line that runs through the Great Pyramid and the Second Pyramid, but instead is nearly a hundred meters to the southeast. This error, if error it is, is of a magnitude not in keeping with the mathematical skill known to have been possessed by the ancient Egyptians. However, an idea has emerged in the last few years that the three large pyramids of Giza are actually meant to be in an alignment resembling that of the three "belt" stars in the constellation Orion: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. This theory is largely discounted by the majority of Egyptologists, but some do believe it is a point to ponder. Giza can be subdivided into two groupings of monuments, clearly defined and separated by a wadi. The larger grouping consists of the three "Great" pyramids of Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaure; the Sphinx, the pyramids of the queens, attendant temples and outbuildings, and the private mastabas of the nobility. The second grouping, located on the ridge to the southeast, contains a number of private tombs of citizens of various classes. While the majority of the monuments of the larger grouping are made from limestone that was quarried and transported to the site, the tombs of the smaller grouping are simply carved out of the native living rock. All three pyramids stand empty, possibly plundered during the political unrest that ended the Old Kingdom when the monarchy collapsed. Yet there are the occasional surprises. Airtight pits along the southern and eastern walls of Khufu's pyramid are believed to contain boats (not small ritual boats, but fully-functional funerary barges with 40-ton displacements, one such was excavated in 1954); and most recently, evidence has been found of a tunnel linking a hidden chamber within the Great Pyramid with a previously unknown chamber beneath the Sphinx. What treasures and discoveries lie within these areas remains to be seen, but it is hoped that the wait will not be long. The advantages of Giza for a burial site are numerous, and it is fairly easy to see why it was chosen. It is high and flat ground overlooking everything. Any monument placed there would be seen from far away, especially if traveling via the Nile. It also has a ready supply of limestone on-site, eliminating the need to transport the blocks over a protracted distance. Since around the 1th Century BC and up until recently stone from the monuments was taken and used to build buildings in nearby Cairo. First the polished white limestone "casing" was taken, then the softer core stones. Many of Cairo's oldest buildings are built partly from stones from the pyramids. This destruction continued well into the 19th Century until preservation efforts and a resurgence of national pride put a stop to it. It is believed that had the pyramids not been vandalized, that they would still remain to this day much as they were when they were built. As the saying goes, "Man fears Time, but Time fears the Pyramids." Exactly how big is Giza may never be known and excavations have continued to find new tombs and artifacts since Bezoni, Caviglia, Perring, and Vyse began the first systematic study of Giza in the early 1800s. It has been explored and excavated more thoroughly than any other site in Egypt, possibly more than any other site in the world, yet no one believes it is anywhere near completion. The Khafra's Pyramid at GizaKhafra's Pyramid, is the second largest of the Ancient Egyptian Pyramids of Giza and the tomb of the 4th Dynasty pharaoh Khafra (Chephren).
The pyramid has a base length of 215.25 m (707 ft) and originally rises to a height of 143.5 m (471 ft) The Pyramid is made of Limestone blocks (weighing more than 2 tons each). The slope of the pyramid rises at an 53° 10' angle, steeper than its neighbor Khufu's pyramid which has an angle of 51°50'40". The pyramid sits on bedrock 10 m (33 ft) higher than Khufu's pyramid which would make it look taller. The pyramid was likely opened and robbed during the First Intermediate Period. During the 18th Dynasty the overseer of temple construction robbed casing stone from it to build a temple in Heliopolis on Ramesses II's orders. Arab historian Ibn Abd as-Salaam recorded that the pyramid was opened in 1372. It was first explored in modern time by Giovanni Belzoni on 2 March 1818 and the first complete exploration was conducted by John Perring in 1837. Because its apex is in better condition and it is located on an elevation (of about 10 meters), Khafra's sometimes appears to be the largest of the three great Pyramids of the Giza Plateau. However, originally it was some three meters lower than its neighboring pyramid belonging to Khafra's father, Khufu. In fact, the walls of Khafra's pyramid are steeper than the Great Pyramid of Khufu (53° 10' as opposed to Khufu's 51° 40'), so it contains considerably less mass. It's name is "Khafra is Great". Khafra may have, prior to his succession to the Egyptian throne in the 4th Dynasty, been named Khafkhufu, and according to Stadelmann, may have built a large double mastaba (G 7130-40) in the East section at Giza. However, his older brothers, Kauab and Djedefra apparently died early and upon taking the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt, his name was changed to Khafra.
As one of the grandest pyramids in Egypt, his construct has been much studied, with a history of modern research not unlike that of Khufu's monument. In 1818, the strongman of Egyptology, Giovanni Belzoni, succeeded in penetrating into the pyramid's interior after a failed attempt by Giovanni Caviglia only a year earlier. Belzoni discovered the pyramid's "upper entrance" and managed to investigate its subterranean sections. However, the first extensive exploration of the monument was made in 1837 by Perring. Mariette directed excavations of the pyramid's Valley Temple, which is also related to the Great Sphinx, in 1853. A year later, he was responsible for unearthing one of ancient Egypt's most famous and beautiful statues, that of Khafra on his throne with the protective outstretched winds of the falcon god, Horus, sheltering his head from behind. While Petrie also worked on this pyramid complex while at Giza, the first systematic modern excavations did not occur until the German Ernst von Sieglin expedition of 1909-1910 under the direction of Uvo Holscher. Later in the 1930s, Hassan unearthed the boat pits associated with the pyramid, and in recent times, Lehner and Hawass have investigated the pyramid complex under the auspices of the American Giza Plateau Mapping Project. Their work has mostly centered around modern geodetic measuring techniques, which has yielded considerable knowledge on both the pyramid, and the archaeology of architecture. The Valley TempleThe valley temple of Khafra's Giza complex, which is one of the best preserved Old Kingdom temples in Egypt. As a masterful work of ancient Egyptian monumental architecture, it was cleared of sand and in 1869 this temple, along with other monuments at Giza, became the backdrop for the ceremonial opening of the Suez Canal. The temple was fronted on the east by a large terrace paved with limestone slabs, through which two causeways led from the Nile canal. Just about in the middle of the terrace, fragments of what may have been a small, simple, wood and matting structure was unearthed that may have been the location of a statue depicting Khafra. However, others believe that this was a tent used for purification purposes, though known examples of such a structure are only found in a few private tombs.
In 1995, Zahi Hawass re-cleared the area in front of the Valley temple and in doing so, discovered that the causeways passed over tunnels that were framed with mudbrick walls and paved with limestone. These tunnels have a slightly convex profile resembling that of a boat. They formed a narrow corridor or canal running north-south. In front of the Sphnix Temple, the canal runs into a drain leading northeast, probably to a quay buried below the modern tourist plaza. The causeways connected the Nile canal with two separate entrances on the Valley temple facade that were sealed by huge, single-leaf doors probably made of cedar wood and hung on copper hinges. Each of these doorways were protected by a recumbent Sphinx. The northern most of these portals was dedicated to the goddess Bastet, while the southern portal was dedicated to Hathor. The temple was laid out in almost a square ground plan. It is situated just next to the Great Sphinx and its associated temple. Not surprisingly, since the valley temple was a gateway or portal to the whole complex, it is very similar to the fore part of Khafra's mortuary temple. Its core wall was built of huge blocks that sometimes weighed as much as one hundred and fifty tons. This inner core was then covered by pink granite slabs, a material used extensively throughout the complex that was quarried near Aswan far to the south. This wall was slightly inclined and rounded at the top, making the whole structure appear somewhat like a mastaba tomb.
Between the two entrances to the valley temple was a vestibule with walls of simple pink granite that were originally polished to a luster. Its floors were paved with white alabaster. A door then led to a T-shaped hall that made up a majority of the temple. This area too was sheathed with polished pink granite and paved with white alabaster, though it was also adorned with sixteen single block pink granite pillars, many of which are still in place today, that supported architrave blocks of the same material, bound together with copper bands in the form of a swallow's tail. These in turn supported the roof. Here, in the dim light provided by slits at the tops of the walls, stood as many as twenty four statues of the king (though one statue base in the middle that is larger than the others may have been counted twice) made from diorite, slate and alabaster. This line of statues continues along the cross of the T shaped hall ending at a doorway that leads to a corridor from which a stairway ramp winds clockwise up and over the top of the corridor before terminating on the roof of the valley temple. On the south side of the roof was a small courtyard, situated directly over six storage chambers also built of pink granite and arranged in two stories of three units each. These were embedded in the core masonry of the T shaped hall. Symbolic conduits lined in alabaster, a material specifically identified with purification, run from the temple's roof courtyard down into the deep, dark chambers below. These symbolic circuits run through the entire temple, taking in both the chthonic and the solar aspects of the afterlife beliefs and of the embalming ritual for which the valley temple was the stage, according to some Egyptologists. Hence, the Polish scholar Bernhardt Grdseloff proposed that purification rituals were carried out on the roof terrace in a tent especially constructed for that purpose. Afterwards, he theorized that the body was embalmed in the temple antechamber. A French Egyptologist, Etienne Drioton proposed a similar view, only switching the locations to the antechamber for the purification and the embalming on the roof terrace. However, Ricke correctly pointed out that these types of rituals required considerable water that was only available near the canal, so at best the priests of the valley temple could have only performed the rituals symbolically. At the other end of the cross in the T shaped hall (north), an opening gave way to a passage, also paved with alabaster, that led to the northwest corner of the temple and there joined the causeway.
The CausewayA corridor cut from the rock separated the ruined causeway from the Great Sphinx temple and the valley temple. The causeway stretches some forty-six meters connecting these structures with the the mortuary temple just before the main pyramid. It did not run exactly along the east-west axis of the pyramid and mortuary temple, but instead somewhat to the southeast of it due to the fact that the valley temple was erected slightly out of line with the Great Sphinx and the mortuary temple. Archaeologists believe that causeway was probably a covered corridor built of limestone and lined on its exterior by pink granite blocks. Within it may have been decorated with reliefs. The Mortuary TempleThe mortuary temple, unlike later pyramid complexes, did not border directly against the pyramid but was rather separated from its east wall by the pyramid courtyard. Rectangular in its ground plan, it is oriented east-west and has walls built of local limestone that are cased in finer limestone, a technique introduced in this structure. Inside, the building was almost completely lined with granite. The mortuary temple has, in its elemental design, the basics for the mature mortuary temples ultimately perfected by Sahure at Abusir, including an entrance hall, an open courtyard, five statue chapels, various storehouses and an offering hall. This structure marks a real architectural advance, being both larger then previous examples and for the first time, including all five elements that were to become standard. The entrance to the mortuary temple in the east led through to a small antechamber adorned with a pair of monolithic pink granite pillars. About the entrance area were a few small chambers (two granite chambers immediately to the left of the entrance, and at the other end of a short corridor running along the front of the temple, four more chambers lined with alabaster) that are thought to have been storage annexes or serdabs. Ricke, in his investigation of the mortuary temple, found this area strikingly similar to the valley temple, and considered it a kind of repetition. He designated this area as the "ante-temple" (Vortempel) and the remaining area of the mortuary temple as the "worship temple" (Verehrungstempel).
This antechamber in turn led into the entrance hall itself where there were twelve more similar pairs of pillars to those in the antechamber. This entrance hall had an original ground plan of an inverted T. Hence, the first part of the entrance hall was transverse, with recessed bays. It led in turn to a rectangular section. Off of the transverse part of the hall, two long, narrow chambers branched off from either end, and it has been suggested that huge statues of the king once graced these dim passages. After the entrance hall there is a large, open courtyard situated in approximately the middle of the temple. Paved in slabs of alabaster and oriented north-south, along its sides runs a covered ambulatory with a flat limestone roof made of slaps supported by broad pillars of pink granite. The lower part of this ambulatory was formed by a dado in red granite and limestone. It was covered by brilliantly colored reliefs of which only fragments remain. Ricke thought that the ambulatory was fronted by 3.75 meter high statues of Khafre sitting on his throne overlooking the courtyard, but Lehner thinks these were standing statues of the ruler. Lehner bases his belief on the discovery of a small statuette in the workshops west of the pyramid. This artifact shows the ruler, wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, standing in front of a kind of pillar. The remains of a small canal suggest that it was drainage for an altar that stood in the middle of the courtyard. A door in the west side of the ambulatory communicated with five, long chapels (actually niches) that also originally housed statues of the king. Another narrow corridor opens from the southwest corner of the courtyard and led to an offering hall located in the west part of the temple. The hall was a narrow, long room oriented north-south (in contrast to later mortuary temples) with a false door positioned on the west wall, precisely on the pyramid's long axis. Between the five cult chapels and the offering hall, a group of five storage rooms were provided for cult vessels and offerings used during various ceremonies. A stairway in the northeast corner of the temple led up to the roof terrace, while in the northwest corner of the courtyard, another corridor led to the paved pyramid enclosure. Though all of them had been plundered apparently in antiquity, there were five boat bits discovered outside of the mortuary temple. Two of these stood on the north of the temple, while three were to its south. Another pit may have been planned. All of these were carved into the rock in the shape of a boat. Two of the pits still retained their roofing slabs, though all of the pits had been looted, probably during antiquity. The Pyramid ProperKhafra's pyramid is surrounded by an inner, huge stone perimeter wall, within which is an open courtyard barely ten meters wide that bounds the four sides of he pyramid proper. This courtyard is paved with limestone slabs of irregular form. Because of the two different entrances to this structure, some Egyptologists believe that the main Pyramid of Khafra was originally meant to be larger and to stand slightly farther north then its completed position. However, modern scholars with considerable expertise on this pyramid, such as Lehner, doubt this assumption. Like the pyramid of Khufu and others in Egypt, Khafra's structure takes advantage of a rock outcropping to both increase the stability of its core, as well as to conserve the amount of necessary building materials needed for its construction. In fact, the lowest levels of its southwest corner are actually hacked out of the rock subsoil. The bedrock surface to the northwest had to be cut down some 10 meters by its ancient builders, while the southeast corner had to be built up using mammoth blocks of masonry. However, by far the substance of the pyramid core is made up of locally quarried limestone blocks of approximately equal height. Nearby to the north of the pyramid, one may still clearly see the traces of how these blocks were quarried. The blocks were not laid with the care that was given to the core of Khufu's pyramid, for the layers do not always run exactly horizontally, and the joints are at times very wide. Often, there is no mortar between the blocks. In fact, because the four corner angles were not quite aligned correctly to meet the pyramid apex, there is a very slight twist at the top. The base levels of the casing were made of pink granite, while the higher layers, which become much smaller towards the top (about one cubit thick) are of fine Turah limestone. The outside faces of the casing blocks are often staggered by a few millimeters rather than flush, which may mean that they were faced prior to their placement. While the pyramidion and the apex have been lost, at the top of the pyramid, a small portion of the original casing remains in place, which helps us see how the finishing blocks were laid and bound to the pyramid core. However, because it is clear that the remaining casing is eroding, recent investigations by Italian experts have shown that the remaining corner edges of the mantle are not completely straight. Individual blocks are slightly turned in various directions. An analysis of this peculiarity suggests that this was the result of seismic activity. Small earthquakes were not uncommon in ancient Egypt, as they are likewise known to occur in modern times. The oldest of the two entrances into the subterranean depths of Khafra's pyramid is now located in the ground about thirty meters north of the pyramid. Carved completely out of the rock subsoil, it is sometimes called the "lower entrance". This portal communicates with a corridor that at first descends before running horizontally. In this horizontal leg of the corridor, a passage gives way on the west wall to a small chamber cut from the bedrock and provided with a pented roof, where part of the burial equipment was possibly stored. After the horizontal section of the entrance corridor, it finally ascends into a horizontal corridor shared by the "upper entrance". The second portal, known as the "upper entrance", is located in the north wall of the pyramid's face about twelve meters above ground level. It communicates with a corridor lined in pink granite that first descends before running horizontally at the base of the pyramid. At the transitional point between its descending and horizontal sections, there is a barrier made of pink granite, which in antiquity, grave robbers managed to dig around. The horizontal passage continues south after the barrier, eventually arriving at the burial chamber, which lies on the vertical axis of the pyramid. Given the location and relatively simple construction of the access corridor and the burial chamber, it is likely that the architects of this pyramid sought to avoid the complications that builders of Khufu's pyramid had encountered with their technically difficult system of passageways, barriers and chambers. As with earlier pyramids, the burial chamber has a rectangular, east-west oriented ground plan which places it at a right angle to the passage system. With the exception of its ceiling, it was excavated completely out of the rock. Located over the pyramid's base, the burial chamber's gabled ceiling is built from enormous pented, limestone blocks. Originally, the intention may have been to cover the burial chamber's walls of this chamber in pink granite. There are shaft entrances in both the north and south walls of the burial chamber that, at first, appear similar to those in the Queen's and King's cambers of the great Pyramid, but are rather short, horizontal openings that could have been used to reinforce a wooden structure inside the tomb. Near the west wall of the burial chamber, almost directly under the vertical axis of the pyramid and situated within a niche stands the black granite sarcophagus of the king that originally was surmounted by a sliding lid. The lid was found in two pieces close by. Near the sarcophagus, a small shaft in the floor probably held royal canopic vessel, which would have been the first instance of this funerary equipment placed in a pyramid. No positively identifiable remains of the king's mummy or his other funerary equipment were found within the pyramid. The Cult PyramidA small, almost completely destroyed cult pyramid (G 2a) sits on the axis of the south side of the main pyramid of Khafre. Cult, or Satellite pyramids as they are sometimes called, are thought to have derived from the south tomb of Djoser's complex at Saqqara, and may have been for the burial of statues dedicated to the ka, or spiritual double, of the king. Originally, it was surrounded by its own enclosure wall. It has a simple substructure that consists of a descending corridor that gives way to an underground chamber with a T-shaped ground plan. Because this chamber contained bits of wood, carnelian beads, fragments of animal bones and vessel lids, Maragioglio and Rinaldi concluded that it must have served as a tomb for one of Khafra's consorts. However, Stadelmann opposed this view, believing that it was a cult pyramid. His opinion is supported by the cult pyramid attached to Khufu's complex on its southeast corner. More to the point, Lehner believes that the wood made up a frame of cedar in the form of a sah netjer, or divine booth, which was used to transport a statue to be buried in the subsection of this small pyramid. Other StructuresIn the early 1880s, Petrie also discovered west of Khafra's pyramid beyond the so called outer perimeter wall, the ruins of a structure that contained long, mostly east-west oriented rooms. He assumed, as did some later investigators such as Holscher, that this was a worker's village that lodged as many as four to five thousand men in 111 large rooms. However, later work by Lehner and Hawass seem to suggest that that this facility, rather than a settlement, was instead a storehouse as well as the workshops for the pyramids complex. Interestingly, the great number of mollusk shells that were found here also suggest that the surrounding area was, rather than arid desert as it is today, a kind of savanna with the corresponding flora and fauna. Violation of the PyramidPerhaps as early as the First Intermediate Period, as in the case with other pyramids, thieves had probably already broken into Khafra's tomb. Inscriptions by the "overseer of temple construction" indicate that already by the 19th Dynasty, considerable damage had already occurred. In fact, written sources indicate that, on the orders of Ramesses II, casing from Khafra's pyramid was used for the construction of a temple in Heliopolis. Other sources suggest that a large part of the pyramid casing was removed between 1356 and 1362 for use in the Mosque of al-Hassan. At any rate, the Arab historian Ibn Abd as-Salaam records that the pyramid was opened up in the 774 after the hegira (1372 C.E.), during the reign of the Great Emir Jalburgh el-Khassaki. It is possible that the tunnels going around the granite barriers in the entry passage could have been dug at that time. The Great SphinxOutside perimeter walls may have extended around the entire Khafra pyramids complex, including within it the great Sphinx. Close study by geologist Thmas Aigner of the geological layers of the Sphinx show that it was closely related to the quarrying and building of the Khafra complex. Hence, there is some indication that it was a part of Khafra's pyramids complex. However, the latter is by no means certain, so here we have avoided the issue for the time being, electing rather to discuss the Great Sphinx separately. The Great Pyramid / Khufu's Pyramid at GizaThe Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for 4th Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Visibly all that remains is the underlying step-pyramid core structure seen today. Many of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base of the Great Pyramid. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories regarding the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction theories are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place.
There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was unfinished. A passage from the Grand Gallery leads to the Queen's Chamber, while an antechamber leads from the Grand Gallery to the King's Chamber. Despite precautions such as covering the entrance hole with casing and the portcullises, even before the Old Kingdom ended thieves simply bypassed all the barriers, digging through the soft limestone and breaking a corner of Khufu's red granite sarophagus while removing the lid. This sarcophagus of the King's Chamber was hollowed out of a single piece of Red Aswan granite and has been found to be too large to fit through the passageway leading to the chamber. Both the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber contains small shafts that ascend out of the pyramid. Egyptologists now conclude they were instead used for ceremonial purposes. The Great Pyramid is the only pyramid known to contain both ascending and descending passages. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the main part of a complex setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite" pyramids, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles.
Wonder of the Ancient WorldIt is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for 4th Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. Khufu's vizier, Hemon, or Hemiunu, is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. It is thought that, at construction, the Great Pyramid was 280 Egyptian royal cubits tall, 146.6 meters, but with erosion and the loss of its pyramidion, its current height is 138.8 m. Each base side was 440 royal cubits, with each royal cubit measuring 0.524 meters. The total mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes. The volume, including an internal hillock, is believed to be roughly 2,500,000 cubic metres. The first precision measurements of the pyramid were done by Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1880-82 and published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. Almost all reports are based on his measurements. Petrie found the pyramid is oriented 4' west of North and the second pyramid is similarly oriented. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, unsurpassed until the 160 metre tall spire of Lincoln Cathedral was completed c. 1300. The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have a mean error of only 58 mm in length, and 1 minute in angle from a perfect square. The base is horizontal and flat to within 15 mm. The sides of the square are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points to within 3 minutes of arc and is based not on magnetic north, but true north. The design dimensions, as confirmed by Petrie's survey and all those following this, are assumed to have been 280 cubits in height by 4x440 cubits around originally, and as these proportions equate to 2p to an accuracy of better than 0.05%, this was and is considered to have been the deliberate design proportion by Petrie, I. E. S. Edwards, and Miroslav Verner. Verner wrote "We can conclude that although the ancient Egyptians could not precisely define the value of p, in practise they used it". The PyramidWith its 146.59m in height, Khufu's pyramid has indeed deserved its modern-day nick-name of The Great Pyramid. Khefren's adjacent pyramid appears to be somewhat higher, but this is only because it was built on a higher part of the Giza platform. It is, in fact, slightly over 3m "smaller".
Like the pyramids at Dahshur, built by Khufu's father Sneferu, the Great Pyramid consisted of huge core blocks, laid in horizontal courses, encased in fine limestone. As with most pyramids, the outer casing has been removed over the centuries to be reused in other buildings, leaving only the pyramid's naked core. What does remain of the outer casing shows a high degree of craftsmanship and precision. The pyramidion of this monument is, like with so many other pyramids, missing as well. A wooden structure was put on top of the pyramid in modern days, to give the many visitors of this monument an impression of its original height. Like Sneferu's pyramids at Dahshur, a part of the Great Pyramid's internal structure was built inside the pyramid's core, rather than underneath it; a practice that would be abandonned by later pyramid builders. Khufu's internal structure, however, is somewhat less complex than that of Sneferu's pyramids at Dahshur. From the entrance, traditionally located slightly off-centre in the northern face of the pyramid, sloping at an angle of 26° 34' 23", leads down to a subterranean chamber. The first 28.8m of the passage run through the pyramid's core, an then another 30.3m through the natural rock of the plateau. The subterranean chamber is roughly hewn and gives the impression of not being finished. It has longtime been assumed to have been intended as the burial chamber in the pyramid's original plan, before Khufu and his architects had decided to go for a completely different internal structure. It was planned to measure 14m by 7.2 and a height of 5.3m. From its southern corner, a roughly cut passage leads further south to a dead end. As the king's burial chamber was always the last chamber of a series, it seems unlikely that the subterranean chamber would have been intended as such. This is confirmed by the fact that the descending passage leading to the chamber is too small to allow a sarcophagus the size of the one found in the King's Chamber, to be entered. A more recent theory has suggested that this chamber was built below the ground level on purpose, for it represented the underworld. Its unfinished state suggests it was the last chamber that was built, rather than the first and that it was not completed at the time of the king's death. It could also be that it was left unfinished deliberately, to symbolically mark the coming into being of creation out of the primeval, subterranean waters.
Several metres before the descending passage plunges into the the natural bedrock, a second passage leads up to the rooms inside the pyramid's core. The first room is named Queen's Chamber, a name which is the result of an old misinterpretation that once the king's wife was buried in this room. The chamber is entered via a horizontal passage that connects with the ascending passage from just before the Grand Gallery. It measures 5.8m by 5.3 and a height of 6m. A corbelled niche, 4.7m high, in the east wall may once have housed a Ka-statue of the king. If so, the purpose of the so-called Queen's Chamber was the same as that of the serdabs found connected to private mastabas and to the Step Pyramid of Netjerikhet: it marked the place where the deceased king could come and collect his daily offerings. At the point where the ascending passage connects to the horizontal passage leading to the Queen's Chamber, a low narrow passage connects to the Grand Gallery, a monumental passage of 46.7m by 2.1 and a height of 8.7m, leading further up to the King's Chamber. The corbelling of its roof does not run op entirely to the top, which is covered by slabs. Regular holes in the walls are believed to have been sockets for large beams that were to hold back the blocks which sealed the ascending passage. The Grand Gallery eventually leads up to a relatively small antechamber which, in turn, opens on to the Kings' Chamber, the actual burial chamber of Khufu. This rectangular chamber, made entirely out of red granite, measures 10.5 by 5.2m and a height of 5.8m. The king's sarcophagus is traditionally located in the west of this room. It is slightly larger than the passages leading to the chamber where it was located, which means that it put in place as the pyramid was being built around it. Above the King's Chamber, there are five equally size stress-relieving chambers. The topmost chamber has a pented roof to distribute the weight and stressed of the pyramid's core above. Grafitti left behind in these chambers give us the names of the teams that built them. Interesting is the fact that Khufu's name is also present in the grafitti. As these chambers were completely sealed off since they were built only to be accessed again for the first time in the 19th Century, the grafitti provide the ultimate proof that this pyramid was indeed built for Khufu. Both the Queen's and the King's chambers have so-called air-shafts leading up from the northern and southern walls through the pyramid's core, a unique feature of Khufu's pyramid. The air-shafts of the King's Chamber lead all the way up to the outside, but as the outer casing is missing, it is not certain if the casing stones locked these shafts or not.
The shafts of the Queen's Chamber stop somewhere inside the pyramid. A small camera riding up one of these shafts stumbled upon what looked like a stone door. A hole drilled in that stone door, revealed that the shaft continued after it, only to be blocked again by another stone door. It should also be remarked that the northern air-shafts point to the circumpolar stars, while the southern ones were oriented towards the stars that form what we call the belt of the constellation Orion. The circumpolar stars where visible every night of the year and were considered to be indestructable stars. It was hoped that the king's spiritual remains would travel to these stars after his burial, and share in their indestructability. The shafts pointing to Orion's belt may have played an important part in the king's burial ritual. Queens' PyramidsTo the southeast of the main pyramid, there are three Queens' Pyramids, G 1a, G1 b and G1 c. The foundations of the these three pyramids were not leveled out, causing their bases not to be completely square and level. Each pyramid had a stepped core, which was then encased in limestone to complete the pyramid shape. The entrance was located in the northern face of the pyramids, with a descending passage leading down to a subterranean burial chamber. The identity of the queens for whom these monuments were built, is not known for certain. The presence of a cache just north of the northernmost pyramid containing objects that belonged to Hetepheres I, the mother of Kheops, has led to the assumption that she may have been buried in this pyramid. An inscription found in the chapel of the mastaba of Kawab, one of Khufu's sons, may indicate that the middle pyramid was built for Kawab's mother,a queen Meretites. The mortuary chapel that was built to the east of the southernmost pyramid, was converted into a temple for Isis during the Late Dynastic Period. Henutsen, whose name is known only from Late Dynastic sources, may perhaps have been the queen buried in this third pyramid. Satellite PyramidA satellite pyramid, measuring only 20m per side and almost totally demollished, was found next to the southeastern corner of the pyramid itself. It has a descending passage that ends in a small room that may, at one time, have housed a Ka-statue of the king. Mortuary TempleThe funerary chapels that Snofru built to the east of his pyramids, was extended into a small, squarish Mortuary Temple. Unfortunately, this temple has been almost entirely destroyed over time, which makes it hard to identify the different elements that originally made up the temple. The general shape of the temple, however, does make it clear that this was just an intermediate monument between the funerary chapels of Sneferu, and the traditional mortuary temple, as it would be defined just one generation later, during the reign of Khafra. Khufu's mortuary temple was entered via a doorway in the eastern wall. Sockets in the basalt pavement mark the location of megalithic granite pillars that once surrounded an open court. Beyond the open court, there was an inner sanctuary, but no trace of a false door or perhaps a statue of the king, have been found. Only a vague outline of both the 739.8m long causeway and of the Valley Temple now remain. Boat PitsSeveral long and narrow pits were found south and east of the king's pyramid, north of the causeway and between the queens' pyramids as well. Some pits were found to contain the dismantled remains of the boats which were presumably used in the king's last journey, his burial.
One boat, buried in one of the southern pits, has been rebuilt and can now be seen in the Boat Museum, next to the king's pyramid. The reassembled boat, made of cedar wood that was imported from the Lebanon, measures 43.3m in length. Its prow and stern were shaped like papyrus stalks. The other southern boat pit was examined in the 1980s and was also found to contain a dismantled boat, which was left in situ. Contrary to the eastern pits, the two southern pits are located outside of the now lost enclosure wall that marked the boundaries of the pyramid complex. This seems to imply that the boats of the eastern pits may once have been part of the deceased king's funerary cult, for his transportation in the hereafter, while the southern boats were not. The southern pits also differ from the eastern pits, in that they were rectangular rather than boat-shaped. The fact that they were dismantled is seen as an indication that they had been part of the royal funeral. Any objects that participated in the royal funeral were considered improper for further use and appear to have been ritually taken apart, as opposed to destroyed, and buried. If this also applies to the two boats in the southern pits, then we may well have here the two boats that once carried the mortal remains of the king, along with some of the objects that he would need in his afterlife, to their final resting place. The Pyramid of Menkaure at GizaMenkaure's Pyramid, located on the Giza Plateau on the southwestern outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, is the smallest of the three Pyramids of Giza. It was built to serve as the tomb of the 4th Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Menkaure. Menkaure's Pyramid had an original height of 65.5 meters (215 feet)[citation needed]. It now stands at 62 m (203 ft) tall with a base of 103.4 m (339 ft). Its angle of incline is approximately 51°20'25?. It was constructed of limestone and granite.
Menkaure apparently intended for his pyramid on the Giza Plateau to be the last of that specific area of the Memphite necropolises which it is, as well as being the smallest. The valley temple lies at the mouth of the main wadi, closing what had been the principal conduit for construction materials brought to Giza for three generations. Named "Menkaure is Divine", the pryamid was thought by some Greeks, according to Herodotus, to belong to the Greek hertaera Rhodopis. Manetho thought that it belonged to Psamtik I's beautiful daughter, Nitocris. Diodorus Siculus first described the inscription that bears the name of Mykerinos on this pyramid, but it was not until Vyse in 1837 that anyone actually entered Menkaure's pyramid. He began by investigating its substructure by following a tunnel dug earlier by Caviglia out of a breach in the north wall. The original entrance was not discovered until later. Surprisingly, Lepsius paid almost no attention to this pyramid, and even Petrie worked on it for only a short period in the 1880s. Luckily, George Resiner who was one of the most advanced archaeologists of his time, won the concession for Menkaure's pyramid when archaeologists drew lots for excavating Giza on the balcony of the Mena House Hotel in 1899. He knew before that this pyramid, though small, could provide some rich finds because his assistant, Arthur Mace, had reconnoitered the site. He began a very thorough excavation of the entire complex in 1906 directing a team from Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Those excavations continued until 1924.
Menkaure's pyramid, with its original height of some 65-66 meters, represents only about 1/10th of the mass we find in Khufu's pyramid. However, this may be the result of a theology which dictated more emphasis on the temples and less on the pyramid, a process evident to us already in the reign of Khafra which continued throughout the Old Kingdom. The CausewayThe causeway of this pyramid complex leading from the Valley temple to the Mortuary Temple was most likely completed by Shepseskaf. It had floors made of limestone blocks and highly compressed clay mixed with limestone fragments. The mudbrick walls that were a little more than two meters thick supported a roof. Reisner believed that the roof was made of wooden beams and mats because he found the remains of such material at the end of the causeway. However, others Egyptologists, because of the width of the side walls and architectural elements of nearby tombs of close family members, believed that there would have been a vaulted roof of brickwork. Nevertheless, the causeway was never completed. Work seems to have stopped at the point where it meets the west side of the old Khufu quarry. From there to down to the valley temple, the causeway was probably never more than a construction ramp for delivering stone. Hence, we really do not know how it was to connect to the valley temple. Yet some Egyptology resources believe that it would have not begun at the west part of the valley temple, but rather would have actually run along its whole south side and part of its west side. They believe it was even accessible from the storerooms in the valley temple's southern section. The Valley TempleThe reconstruction of Menkaure's valley temple is more difficult than any other element within his pyramid complex. The west part of the limestone block base and lower part of the core of the temple's north wall were probably completed during the ruler's lifetime, while the remaining clay masonry would be attributable to his son, Shepseskaf. Just behind the portal to the temple there was a square antechamber adorned with four columns. The alabaster (calcite) bases of these columns, pressed into the clay floor, have been preserved. On either side of this room are four storerooms. Behind the entrance antechamber, the whole middle part of the valley temple consisted of a huge open courtyard with inner walls decorated with niches (similar to the mortuary temple's courtyard). A path, paved with limestone slabs, ran from the pillared antechamber through the center of the courtyard to a low stairway, which in turn led through a portico with two rows of wooden columns. This terminated at an offering hall, in which an alabaster altar may have once stood. To the north of the offering hall were twelve storerooms, and to its south were five additional storerooms. This was the area where Reisner found the famous, mostly triad statues of the ruler, along with four unfinished statuettes of Menkaure, fragments of other statues and stone vessels. Three of the statues discovered by Reisner depicted the goddess Hathor on the ruler's right side, with divinities symbolizing three Upper Egyptian nomes on his left. These may have been part of a larger collection of statues for each of the provinces of Egypt, or perhaps only the nomes that provided endowments for the complex.
Perhaps curiously, the function of the valley temple changed over time. Reisner retraced the process by which houses of the pyramid town first crowded up against the front wall of the temple, and then began to be built within it. People began living in the temple itself, particularly in the courtyard, where grain storehouses and lodgings were built. Perhaps as early as the 5th Dynasty, the temple was badly damaged by water after a particularly heavy rain tore away the temple's west side. Reisner believes that the temple was rebuilt, at least roughly, during the reign of Pepi II. More recently, an Egyptian archaeologist, Selim Hassan, while excavating the nearby tomb complex of queen Khentkaues I, discovered a small brick structure with a platform, low benches and a small drainage canal, together with a basin at the northeast corner of Menkaure's valley temple. Stored there were a large number of flint blades and stone vessels. Some Egyptologists believe that this structure was used for a "purification ten" and was only a part of a larger structure where the mummification ritual took place. Another modification of the valley temple was a brick structure built in front of the temple's west wall. It may have provided a widened portal, giving better access between the temple and the pyramid town. The Mortuary TempleLike Menkaure's predecessors on the Giza Plateau, his mortuary temple was not built adjacent to his pyramid's east wall. The original temple obviously remained partially uncompleted, we believe, as a result of Menkaure's sudden death. Menkaure began this mortuary temple, as had Khafra, with core blocks of limestone that were locally quarried. The heaviest of these, found at the northwest corner of the temple, is the heaviest known at Giza, weighing some 200 tons. Though we know the mortuary temple had an almost square ground plan, its appearance can only be partially reconstructed. Reisner believed that an entrance corridor led from the east terminating in an open courtyard that was meant to be ornamented by pillars. The inside wall of this courtyard was lined with plastered and whitewashed brickwork decorated with niches, which was probably added by his successor in order to complete the temple after Menkaure's death. There was also a small shrine built within the courtyard, that Reisner also dated to the reign of Shepseskaf.
In the west part of the temple, a portico made up of two rows of pillars provided access to a long offering hall. According to Reisner, there was a false door in the offering hall's west wall. However, because of statuary fragments, and the fact that the temple was not immediately adjacent to the pyramid, scholars such as Maragioglio and Rinaldi rejected the idea of a false door, instead seeing a statue of the ruler standing in its stead. They do believe that a false door existed, but that it stood on a small, pink granite platform in front of the pyramid's east wall. In Maragioglio and Rinaldi's view, it would have at first been easily accessible from the east wing of the pyramid's courtyard, before additional rooms were built in the area. A limestone altar and fragments, including a head, chest, lap, knees and shins of a seated statue of Menkaure, rendered in pink granite were found in the five, two story magazines that form a northwestern part of the mortuary temple. This statue was perhaps meant to be the centerpiece of this entire complex. Originally it stood at the back of a tall and narrow east-west hall at the end of the center axis of the temple, so that the king looked across the open country, through the entrance hall, and down the line of the causeway to the land of the living. The southwest part of the temple remained uncompleted. Reisner, as well as other Egyptologists, thought that the whole mortuary temple was originally meant to be constructed of pink granite. In fact, we can see that Menkaure's masons had just started bringing in a series of granite blocks on both sides of the corridor. They were cutting back the large limestone core blocks to ensure that the front faces of the granite blocks were flush. When Reisner removed the mudbrick from the casing he found bright red paint on the core blocks marking leveling lines, measurements and the names of the work gangs. However, Ricke rejected this analysis, believing that only the dado was to be made of this fine stone. Irregardless, the temple was not completed by Menkaure, but by his son, using mudbrick, evidenced by an inscription on one of the fragments of a stela that Reisner discovered. Interestingly, there was also within the mortuary temple a small square room with a single pillar. It had a strikingly similar appearance to the antechamber carree that actually first appears in the mortuary temples of the 5th Dynasty pyramids. Some elements within the temple may even be dated beyond the reign of Menkaure's son, including the stelae of Merenre I and Pepi I at Saqqara. The Pyramid ProperMenkaure's pyramid lies at the far end of the Giza diagonal on the very edge of the Mokattam Formation, where it dips down to the south and disappears into the younger Maadi Formation. Just as with his father, Khafra's nearby pyramid, Menkaure's construct had to have a very well prepared rock subsurface, particularly around the northeast corner. This base is two and one half meters higher than his father's pyramid and and occupies a mere quarter of the area consumed by Khafra and Khufu's pyramids. It has a core of local limestone blocks, with casing made of unfinished pink granite from Aswan up to a height of about fifteen meters. Further up, the casing was probably made of fine, Turah limestone. Because completely finished casing blocks would have probably been damaged during transport and installation, particularly at their edges, the final finishing touches were not completed until the very end of the construction process. This also made it possible to achieve a very accurate fitting along the whole surface of the pyramid walls. There is an inscription on the granite casing of the north wall that dates from the Late period, and may be the one mentioned by Diodorus.
Original access was provided to the inner chambers by an entrance on the axis of the north wall, about four meters above ground level. From there, a descending corridor, only partially lined with pink granite, sloped down at an angle of a little more than 26 degrees for 31 meters through the masonry core to the chambers below. This "lower corridor" terminates in a room with walls that were provided with niches. The purpose of this unusual room is still debated among scholars. However, the niches represent the first purely decorative element inside a pyramid since Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara. At the beginning of the next corridor, there is a granite barrier that is made of three blocks that were lowered after its completion. The following corridor continues at a slight downward angle until it comes out in a relatively small, east-west oriented upper antechamber with wall that are completely undecorated. The east end of this chamber is located directly under the vertical axis of the pyramid. Here, another passageway known as the "upper corridor" runs over the "lower corridor" through a short horizontal section before climbing in a north-south direction into the pyramid core, were it terminates. It is very likely that this double corridor system signals a change in the original construction plans. The "upper corridor" was probably abandoned when the floor of the antechamber was lowered. From this, Petrie believed that the original pyramid was only about half the size that it is today, though others such as Stadelmann doubt his analysis.
In fact, the substructure of this pyramid underwent significant changes. Investigations of both this pyramid, and the tombs of his royal family that are closest in time (Mastabat Faraun and Khentkaues I's stepped tomb) point to the development of these subchambers in three phases, during which the original plan was enlarged. In the antechamber, Vyse unearthed the remains of an anthropoid wooden coffin with, Menkaure's name Within were human bones. Most scholars today believe this coffin was inserted, perhaps in an effort of restoration, into the pyramid during the Saite period late in Egypt's ancient history. However, the bone fragments were even more recent as revealed by radio carbon dating, that shows hat they probably date to the Coptic Christian period of some two thousand years ago. There is a rectangular indention in the west section of the antechamber floor, suggesting that a sarcophagus may have once been intended for this room. However, from the middle of the floor of the antechamber, another granite corridor leads downward before becoming horizontal shortly before the actual burial chamber. Just before the entrance to the burial chamber, a short flight of steps leads to an area with six small, deep niches, sometimes known as the "cellar", which has an undetermined function, though there is a similarity to architectural elements in the Mastabat Faraun of Shepseskaf and the stepped tomb of Queen Khentkaues I. Four of the niches are on the east side, and Ricke believed that these were to hold the four canopic vessels containing Menkaure's entrails. He believed that the two additional niches on the north side may have been graced with the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. However, others believe it may be a forerunner of the three chambers to the left (east) in the standardized substructures of 5th and 6th Dynasty pyramids, though it may have simply been used to store funerary equipment and supplies.
Unlike the pyramids of his father and grandfather (Khufu), the rectangular burial chamber is oriented north-south. It is completely covered in pink granite, including even the gabled ceiling, which was actually hollowed out from beneath to make a round, barrel vault. The chamber lies some 15.5 meters beneath the level of the pyramid's base so that the ceiling could be constructed of nine pairs of enormous granite blocks. This construction was carried out after the modification of the plan for the substructure, which made it both difficult and laborious to complete. It required a large descending tunnel to be built in the west part of the upper antechamber, from which visitors today may actually view the top of the vaulted burial chamber. It is very possible that both the granite burial chamber and the set of niches were built after the after the death of Menkaure on the instructions of his son and successor, Shepseskaf. On the burial chamber's west wall, Vyse discovered a wonderful, dark basalt sarcophagus that was decorated with niches in the palace facade style. The sarcophagus was empty, and its lid was missing. However, fragments of the lid were discovered, which indicate that it was ornamented with a concave cornice. Ricke saw in this design certain similarities with the decorations in shrines dedicated to the god Anubis, and thought that they were an attempt to provide additional protection for the tomb by means of that divinity. Alas, we are left with only drawing of this piece of funerary equipment, for the ship, Beatrice, which was taking it from Egypt to the British Museum leaving Leghorn sank somewhere between Malta and Spain in 1838. Fortunately, the anthropoid coffin was sent in a separate ship that reached its destination.
Interestingly, in contrast to Khufu's and Khafra's pyramids, there have been no boat pits discovered in relationship to Menkaure's pyramid, despite intensive investigation by an Egyptian archaeologist named Abdel Aziz Saleh, who obviously thought that they should exist. Already in the late 1630s, the English scholar and traveler John Greaves noted that the casing had largely been removed. The destruction of the pyramid lasted well into the 19th century, when Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805-1848) used some of the pink granite blocks taken from its casing to construct the arsenal in Alexandria. The Three Queen's PyramidsNotable on the Giza Plateau are the three much smaller subsidiary that stand in a row along the south wall of the principal pyramid. Designated G 3a-c, archaeologist attribute them to Menkaure's royal consorts. Of these, only G 3a was a true pyramid, the other two having a four step core, and some Egyptologists believe that it functioned as a cult pyramid, though it was also clearly used for a burial. All three of these pyramids were surrounded by a common perimeter wall. G 3a, the easternmost, of these pyramids, actually had a small, east-west oriented mortuary temple of its own that was accessible from it's pyramid's courtyard. This mortuary temple was probably partially built of limestone, but was hastily finished with mudbrick. The west end of the mortuary temple was dominated by a fairly large, open courtyard that had niches built into its northern wall. On its south side was a row of wooden columns. A small cult chapel with an entrance adorned with deep, double niches to either side, lead into an offering room that included a false door. storage annexes were located in the northwest part of the temple, and in the southwest a staircase led to the roof terrace. Pyramid G 3a was the largest of the three constructs, with an entrance situated in the middle of the north wall, only a little above ground level. It has a substructure consisting of a burial chamber dug from the rock under the center of the pyramid's base, which communicates with a descending entrance corridor equipped with a barrier. This burial chamber was originally equipped with a pink granite sarcophagus, embedded in the floor next to the west wall. Unfortunately, it soon fell prey to tomb robbers. There were also fragments of ceramics and charred remains of wood and matting found in this chamber.
We really have little idea who was interred in Pyramid G 3a. Reisner thought that it might be Menkaure's principal consort, Khamerernebti II, but based on a statue of that queen found in the so-called Galarza tomb in the central part of the Giza necropolis, others believe that she was buried alongside her mother, Khamerernebti I in that tomb. In fact, it is not impossible that this pyramid was originally simply a cult pyramid that was latter transformed into a tomb. Besides being smaller, and lacking the shape of a true pyramid, G 3b also differs in other details. These include the placement of the descending corridor, which lacks a barrier. The bones of a young woman were found in the pink granite sarcophagus which stood against the west wall of the burial chamber that was located under the northwest part of the pyramid. Like G 3a, it also had a small mortuary temple, though in this case it was oriented north-south. G 3c was never completed with its casing. Like G 3b, the burial chamber was constructed under the northwest part of the pyramid, and was likewise not finished. Though no burial was found within this pyramid, there was clear evidence of a cult following in the small mortuary temple that stood in front of the east side of this pyramid. Also like G 3b, this mudbrick structure was oriented north-south. Unfortunately, the owners of G 3b-c are completely lost to us and may never be known. We are relatively certain that they were consorts of Menkaure, but otherwise there no information on these royal women. The Great Sphinx of Giza
The Great Sphinx, the symbol of Egypt itself. The Sphinx dates to the Old Kingdom according to Egyptologist. Its context suggest that it belongs to Khafra's complex, but there is no direct evidence for this. It is 20 meters high and over 50 meters long. It is a symbiotic creature, part man, part lion. The Sphinx was carved directly into the limestone plateau. You can see the layering across the body. The head is of a harder stone thus its better preservation. The Sphinx gazes due east. The Sphinx was covered up to its neck in sand until the mid nineteen twenties. Even in Ancient times there are accounts of the Sphinx being dug out from the sand. The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, yet basic facts about it such as the real-life model for the face, when it was built, and by whom, are debated. These questions have collectively earned the title "Riddle of the Sphinx," a nod to its Greek namesake, although this phrase should not be confused with the original Greek legend. The Great Sphinx is thought by most Egyptologists to represent the likeness of King Khafra (also known by the Hellenised version of his name, Chephren) who is often credited as the builder as well. This would place the time of construction somewhere between 2520 BC and 2494 BC. Because the limited evidence giving provenance to Khafra is ambiguous and circumstantial, the idea of who built the Sphinx, and when, continues to be the subject of debate. As Dr. Selim Hassan stated in his report regarding his excavation of the Sphinx enclosure of the 1940s:
"Taking all things into consideration, it seems that we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's most wonderful statue, to Khafra, but always with this reservation that there is not one single contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx with Khafra, so sound as it may appear, we must treat the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to the world a definite reference to the erection of the Sphinx." Supporting Egyptologists believe that the context of the Sphinx resides within part of the greater funerary complex credited to Khafra which includes the Sphinx and Valley Temples, a causeway, and the 2nd pyramid. Both temples display the same architectural style employing stones weighing up to 200 tons. It is generally accepted that the temples, along with the Sphinx, were all part of the same quarry and construction process. One circumstantial piece of evidence used to support the Khafra theory includes a diorite statue of the king that was discovered buried upside down along with other debris in the nearby Valley Temple. Because of its relative proximity to the Sphinx, it is from this relationship that Egyptologists further associate Khafra with the Sphinx. In addition, the Dream Stela erected by Pharaoh Thutmose IV in the New Kingdom is believed by Egyptologists to associate the Sphinx with King Khafra. When discovered, however, the lines of text were incomplete, only referring to a "Khaf," and not the full "Khafra." The missing syllable "ra" was later added to complete the translation by Thomas Young, on the assumption that the text referred to "Khafra." Young's interpretation was based on an earlier facsimile in which the translation reads as follows: "...which we bring for him: oxen... and all the young vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ...Khaf.... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet." Regardless of the translation, the stela offers no clear record of in what context the name Khafra was used in relation to the Sphinx, as the builder, restorer, or otherwise. The lines of text referring to Khafra flaked off and were destroyed when the Stela was re-excavated in the early 1900s. In contrast, the "Inventory Stela" (believed to date from the 26th dynasty 664-525 BC) found by Auguste Mariette on the Giza plateau in 1857, describes how Khufu (the father of Khafra, the alleged builder) discovered the damaged monument buried in sand, and attempted to excavate and repair the dilapidated Sphinx. Because of the Late Dynasty origin of the document and reference to Khufu as the builder and not the accepted Khafra, this particular section of the Inventory Stela is often dismissed by Egyptologists as late dynasty historical revisionism despite other sections relating to Khufu being used by Egytologists as plausible historical reference.
Traditionally, the evidence for dating the Great Sphinx by Egyptologists has been based primarily on fragmented summaries of early Christian writings gleaned from the work of the Hellenistic Period Egyptian priest Manethô, who compiled the now lost revisionist Egyptian history Aegyptika. These works, and to a lesser degree, earlier Egyptian sources, mainly the "Turin Canon" and "Table of Abydos" among others, combine to form the main body of historical reference for Egyptologists, giving a consensus for a timeline of rulers known as the "King's List," found in the reference archive; the Cambridge Ancient History. As a result, since Egyptologists have ascribed the Sphinx to Khafra, establishing the time he reigned would date the monument as well. In 2004, French Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev announced the results of a 20-year reexamination of historical records, and uncovering of new evidence that suggests the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little known Pharaoh Djedefra, Khafra's half brother and a son of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Dobrev suggests it was built by Djedefra in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty.
Former director of the German Institute of Archaeology in Cairo, Rainer Stadelmann, suggests it was Khufu, and not his son Khafra, who was responsible for constructing the monument. Stadelmann bases his ideas on the distinct iconography of the headdress and missing, collapsed, beard (the remains are housed in the Cairo museum), which he argues is more indicative of the style of Khufu than Khafra. He supports this by suggesting that Khafra's causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx. Senior forensic expert Frank Domingo of the New York Police Department, using his own detailed measurements taken of the Sphinx, determined through forensic drawings and computer analysis that the face of the Sphinx and the face seen on signed statues of Khafra could not be one and the same person. Many of the most prominent early Egyptologists and excavators of the Giza plateau believed the Sphinx and its neighboring temples to pre-date the 4th Dynasty. British Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge stated in his 1904 book Gods of the Egyptians: "This marvelous object [the Great Sphinx] was in existence in the days of Khafra, or Khephren, and it is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the end of the archaic period." French Egyptologist and Director General of Excavations and Antiquities for the Egyptian government, Gaston Maspero, who surveyed the Sphinx in the 1920s asserts: "The Sphinx stela shows, in line thirteen, the cartouche of Khafra. I believe that to indicate an excavation carried out by that prince, following which, the almost certain proof that the Sphinx was already buried in sand by the time of Khafra and his predecessors." Not withstanding this, the Sphinx' link with Khafra continues to be the view most widely held by Egyptologists. Missing NoseThe one-meter-wide nose on the face is missing. It has long been presumed that the nose had been broken off by a cannon ball fired by Napoleon's soldiers. However, sketches of the Sphinx by Frederick Lewis Norden made in 1737 and published in 1755 illustrate the Sphinx without a nose. The Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, writing in the fifteenth century, attributes the vandalism to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi fanatic from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose. Al-Maqrizi describes the Sphinx as the "Nile talisman" on which the locals believed the cycle of inundation depended. In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Rainer Stadelmann has posited that the rounded divine beard may not have existed in the Old Kingdom or Middle Kingdom, only being conceived of in the New Kingdom to identify the Sphinx with the god Horemakhet. This may also relate to the later fashion of pharaohs, which was to wear a plaited beard of authority - a false beard (chin straps are actually visible on some statues), since Egyptian culture mandated that men be clean shaven. Pieces of this beard are today kept in the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum. The HeadThe head of the Sphinx was altered many times by the Pharaohs therefore it is best remembered with the head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion. Many believe that the original head was that of the lion and the Sphinx dates to the Age of Leo - 12,000 years ago.
Based on the current head, many researchers have concluded that the Sphinx was built by the Pharaoh Khafra (Chephren) in the 4th Dynasty around 2500 BC. Interestingly the features of the face of the Sphinx bear a far more striking resemblance to an older brother of Khafre, the Pharaoh Djedefra - Radjedef. In 1996, a NY detective and expert in identification, took various measurements of the size, angles and proportions of the head and concluded that it did not match known representations of Khafra's face. There was a greater resemblance to Khafra's elder brother Djedefra. Djedefra's short lived reign occurred just prior to the reign of Khafra. Unlike Khafra, Khafra's father, and later Khafra's brother Menkaure, Djedefra did not construct his pyramid on the Giza plateau. Instead Djedefra built his pyramid at Abu Rawash where it now lies badly damaged. Some believe that Khafra usurped the throne of Djedefra and then built his pyramid and Sphinx at Giza. The sphinx has been repaired many times due to erosion by water and wind. Some people believe that the Sphinx was painted and was quite colorful. Since then, the nose and beard have been broken away. The nose was the unfortunate victim of target practice by the Turks in the Turkish period. It is often erroneously assumed that the nose was shot off by Napoleon's men, but 18th century drawings reveal that the nose was missing long before Napoleon's arrival. Traces of the original paint can still be seen only near one ear. In 1905 the sand was cleared away to expose the full body of the Sphinx. The head has been replaced by several different heads - the original the head of a feline cat. The most recent period of restoration began in 2006. The cement which had been used in earlier attempts at restoration was now found to be causing problems. The statue is mostly constructed of porous limestone, which allows the passage of air. Because cement is non-porous and rigid, changes in the basic proportions of the statue were found to be occurring.
The BodyIn the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became a symbol of kingship and many kings of this period built temples and stelae (upright stone tablets bearing inscriptions) in the area surrounding the statue. Amenhotep II built a mud-brick temple to the north-east of the Sphinx, and Rameses II, one of the ancient kingdom's most prolific builders, constructed an altar of granite between its paws. Ancient tablets also show images of worshippers presenting burnt offerings to the Sphinx. Two passages were found in 1978 - one behind the head of the Sphinx and another on the tail. Far from leading to the Pyramids, however, these tunnels merely led downwards under the monument and were made during the past century by treasure-hunters. During the past two centuries many have come to study and excavate the monument. These include French scholars accompanying Napoleon's army in 1798, Caviglia in 1816, H. Vyse in 1840, Mariette in 1853, Kamal and Daressy in 1909 and Baraize in 1926. It was Baraize who first began restoration work, by renovating the head using cement, and clearing the sand completely around the Sphinx. Another problem is caused by the rising water table, which evaporates, leaving salts behind. These salts react with the limestone, causing it to become powdery and to crumble. Pollution from the nearby city of Cairo, together with heat, wind, sand and humidity are all agents in the monument's slow process of disintegration. In 1982, stones were lost from the north paw and in 1988 a large stone fell from the Sphinx's shoulder. From 1989 onwards, the restoration project entered a more enlightened phase, with more thought being given to the monument's long-term preservation in its original form. The restoration project was planned in three stages: first, to restore the southern side, next the northern side and the chest and lastly, to protect the whole monument from the ravages of the elements. The large old stones and cement were removed from the southern side and replaced with new stones from a quarry at Helwan, which contains rock consistent with the limestone of the original structure. Mortar made of lime and sand replaced the cement as a fixative, and the chest was protected by a limestone course. The Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics at Helwan conducted important studies on the level of the water table, and this has been found to be seven metres below the base of the monument. An electronic weather station nearby at the Getty Institute now records wind, heat and humidity, and a study of the bedrock under the Sphinx has been undertaken by the Engineering Faculty at Cairo University. |
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The Egyptian Pyramid Mystery Is Solved!: Volume 1: The Mysteries
How the Great Pyramid Was Built
