The Great Pyramid
is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.
It is one of the oldest structures on the face of the earth and arguably
the best built. Its mortar joints are consistently 1/50 of an inch, which
is incredible craftsmanship, considering that of the over two million stones
that make up the Pyramid, there is no stone weighing less than a ton, most
weighing about two and a half, and some as much as 20 tons! The Pyramid
covers over 13 acres and is solid masonry, not hollow or earth-filled like
the Central American pyramids. When it was built, the Great pyramid was
145.75 m (481 ft) high. Over the years, it lost 10 m (30 ft) off its top.
It ranked as the tallest structure on Earth for more than 43 centuries,
only to be surpassed in height in the nineteenth century AD.While being the oldest structure on the face of the earth, the Great Pyramid is the most accurately oriented, being laid out almost exactly due north, south, east, and west. Modern man's best effort, the Paris Observatory, is six minutes of a degree off true north. The Great Pyramid is only three minutes deviant and E. Raymond Capt1 claims that is due mainly to subsidence. Many architects and engineers who have studied the Pyramid's structure contend that, with all our vaunted technological prowess, we could not build the structure today.
The Great Pyramid is sometimes called the "Great Pyramid of Gizeh". "Gizeh" means "border', thus indicating in still another way that the Pyramid is associated with a "border". The name "Gizeh" is probably drawn from the fact that anciently the borders of Egypt were considered to extend as far as the watered, green areas all along the Nile. The desert outside this fertile strip was not really part of the country. Thus the division line between fertile strip and desert is the natural "border" of Egypt. It is along this "border" that the Pyramid is situated. Thus by two separate sets of triple confirmation, the Great Pyramid answers the apparent riddle of being at both the border and center of Egypt.
Pharaohs,
noblemen and regents were buried in small buildings called mastabas, looking
almost like a large bar of gold in the dester sand. Tombrobbers started
to loot these chambers, and no one was free from their hunts. Finally,
a Pharaoh named Djoser decided that he didn't want a normal mastaba, since
they didn't look like they did the job of keeping the dead safe. He brought
it upon his architect to design a structure for his resting place, and
that architects name was Imhotep. He created the very first pyramid, known
as a step pyramid. It was plainly six mastabas placed one on top of the
other. As time progressed, we saw the step pyramid transform into the true
pyrmaids that we see today.
The most recognized Pharaoh when it comed to pyramids is Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops. He was in control of Egypt when he began work on the Great Pyramid, the largest of all of the super-structures to date. Sources say that it took over 100, 000 men twenty years to complete the job. Thousands of years ago the pyramid would have been covered over with a white lifestone casing to hide the brittle sandstone underneath. As the years went by people began to steal this polished stone, leaving behind the crumbling wonder that Egypt has right now.
Today, the Great Pyramid is enclosed, together with the other pyramids and the Sphinx, in the touristic region of the Giza Plateau. Also in the area is the museum housing the mysterious Sun Boat, only discovered in 1954 near the south side of the pyramid. The boat is believed to have been used to carry the body of Khufu in his last journey on earth before being buried inside the pyramid. It may also serve him as a means of transportation in his afterlife journey according to Ancient Egyptian beliefs.
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