The Great Pyramid should be on your "bucket list" but why not go now?
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The Great Pyramid
The Great Pyramid, is the first and only existing one of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”. It was originally 481 feet tall but now is only 451 ft due to losing its top 30feet. It was built by Pharaoh Khufu known as Cheops by the Greeks, who was the second king of the 4th dynasty, ruling from 2589-2566 BC. It was built to be Khufu’s monumental tomb and his vehicle to the afterlife but when his sarcophagus was opened it was empty. It was yet another robbed burial place. Such a big pyramid needed a firm foundation and this was provided by the Giza Plateau to the south west of Cairo. Oddly, when you see it next to his son, Khafre’s pyramid, it looks smaller but this is due to Khafre’s being built on a higher part of the plateau. Possibly, out of deference to his father, Khafre’s is smaller. Khufu’s pyramid was the highest building on the planet for the next 4000 years!
Above; you can recognise this pyramid from neighbouring Khafre’s pyramid due to its top missing and it has a lack of casing stone.
Above; Khufu’s pyramid is next to some of his queens’ much smaller pyramids. It was made of 2.3 million blocks of stone which may have weighed 2.8 tons (2.5 tonnes).
Above;The Great Pyramid with its small original entrance. This is not open nowadays, the tourist entrance is north entrance created by the tomb robbers. To its right are the Queens’ tombs and to their right are mastabas.(See my post on Djoser)On the far right is the Sphinx.
Today’s brown pyramid would have seemed unusual for people living in Egypt at the time because they would have gazed at a stunning white pyramid, shining in the midday sun. It was originally cased in polished white limestone that came from the Tara quarries on the other side of the River Nile. In medieval times, all of the casing stone were stolen to make mosques and other important buildings in Cairo. You can now see a few placed at the bottom level.
Above and the two below; Inside the Great Pyramid. If you feel fit and it is not too hot, you can clamber up to Khufu’s burial chamber. We have to thank our son, Joe and his partner, Cat, for these photos, we are a bit too old to consider scrambling all that way.
Above; on the left is the 26 feet high “Grand Gallery” and on the right is Khufu’s red granite burial chamber. The granite for this was brought nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Aswan.
Below, Khufu’s empty sarcophagus. It must have been put in place before it was roofed over with 9.45 ton granite slabs because it is too big to pass through the corridor.
2. What happened to Khufu’s body after he died?
After Khufu died the priests took charge over the preceedings and left the body untouched for two days. What happened next was the lengthy mummification process, a procedure to imitate what used to go on naturally when a body was preserved when it was buried in the dry sand of the desert.
The next process was to remove all of the organs except the heart and place them in canopic jars. The aim of this whole procedure was to end up with a preserved body that would allow the king to live in the afterlife. A decayed body would fail, thus by removing all of the organs, decomposition from the inside would not take place. The heart was seen as vital for the afterlife and so was left inside the body. It was thought that the heart was responsible for all the functions that we now attribute to the brain, ie wisdom, feelings, thoughts etc. The brain, they believed, was of little importance and so was hacked out through the nose with a brass hook and then thrown away. The organs would be preserved in spices and would therefore be retrieved when Khufu reached the afterlife.
Having removed Khufu’s organs, his body would be covered in natron, a salt which would desiccate over a period of 40 days. The aim here was to replicate what the sand did to the body when buried in the desert. As we all know, mummies were wrapped in bandages and this was the next stage. Linen strips would be dipped oils, resins and honey ( plus bitumen later on) and wrapped around his body. Nearly 4000 square feet or 370 square metres of cloth would be used in a process that took another 15 days. As the body was being wrapped, amulets with supposed magic properties would be submerged under the cloth to help Khufu reach his goal. Added to all of this, the priests would be saying numerous prayers as they carried out their various duties.
With the body preserved, it would now be placed in a cedar wood sarcophagus and would be followed by the “Opening of the Mouth Ceremony”. On Khufu’s sarcophagus, a picture of his head would have been painted which would represent Khufu inside it. Next, in turn, his eyes, nose, ears and mouth were touched by the priest. This would enable him to see, smell, hear, eat, drink and speak in the afterlife, it is a kind of switching on his senses ceremony.
Having taken a lot of care to get the preparation right, the sarcophagus had to be arduously carried up into the burial chamber in the pyramid without damaging it or Khufu’s mummy inside. The first phase was to carry the sarcophagus down an 80 feet or 24 metres tunnel. The second phase was to carry it up the “Ascending Passage” which was set at an angle of 26 degrees for 125 feet or 38 metres. It was a very tight squeeze with the passage being only 4.1 feet high (1.25 metres) by 3.4 feet (1.05 metres) wide.The last phase was to move along the 150 feet (45 metres) long “Grand Gallery” which again rose at an angle of 26 degrees. Khufu’s next move was planned to be to the afterlife but sadly, for him, his pyramid was robbed just like most Egyptian royal tombs.
Inside the burial chamber are are two 6 inch (15cm) holes in the walls that extend all the way to the outside, nearly 200 feet (60 metres) and these were thought to be Khufu’s escape routes to get to the afterlife among the stars in the evening sky.
3. How was Khufu’s great pyramid built?
For years egyptologists have argued about how Khufu’s pyramid was built and as yet, no-one has come up with a totally convincing theory. The obvious one is that stones were dragged up a long ramp which was continually lengthened and raised as the pyramid grew in height.
One problem with this is that the building blocks could only be dragged up shallow inclines and therefore the ramp would have had to be ridiculously long. Added to this, is the argument that a ramp so long would leave a lot of evidence of its existence behind and although Dr Mark Lehner has argued that he has found the remains of a ramp's foundation in the Giza Plateau, it still is not sufficient for all egyptologists.
The wrap around design that spirals around the pyramid steadily going upwards. See below.
Others have suggested the ramp would have wrapped around the pyramid following each course upwards. Researchers from the University of Liverpool have suggested that the long ramp was really a series of stairs and a pulley system raised the blocks. Some of those who have been unconvinced by these have referred to the words of Herodotus to develop a theory. He wrote that the pyramid was built as a series of terraces that had blocks placed on them using “contrivances made of short timbers”. These timbers apparently acted as levers.
Houdin’s “internal ramp theory”.
Lastly, Jean Pierre Houdin, his father and Professor Bob Brier have devised an internal ramp theory. They believe, construction began with an external ramp as proposed by others that was used to build the first third of the pyramid. The stones that were used to build the external ramp were then used to build the rest of the pyramid which also explains the lack of evidence for the ramp. Inside the pyramid, ramps were created to go up in a spiral made of straight lines and 90 degree bends. Each ramp would end in a 10 square metre open space where a crane would be temporarily located. The crane was used to lift and turn a 2.5 tonne block onto the next ramp so that a team of 8 men could pull it upwards to where it was required or to the next turning point. They argue that this theory also explains some of the empty areas that have been discovered in the pyramid. This revolutionary theory has yet to be proven and has faced a lot of criticism. An example of this is the comment of Egyptologist David Jeffreys who described the internal spiral hypothesis as "far-fetched and horribly complicated". So, the jury is still out on how the Great Pyramid was built!
4.What do we know about Khufu?
There are numerous complications when investigating the man who built the Great Pyramid. Starting with his name, if you speak to a guide whilst visiting the pyramid he might confuse you by referring to a pharaoh called Cheops! This is simply what the Greeks often called Khufu, although they also referred to him as Suphis! His full name was Khnum-Khufy, with Khnum being the god who guarded the source of the Nile (highly important) and who was also the creator of children.
It is believed that he was the son of Sneferu but some Egyptologists have cast some doubt on this claim. His first wife was his half sister Merityetes and his second wife was Henutsen, another possible half sister. Both are buried in the “Queens’ pyramid complex but he may have had two more wives, one called Nefert-kau the eldest of Sneferu’s daughters and another, unnamed one. Marrying the pharaoh’s daughter brought strength to his claim to the throne, reducing the challengers and making him seem like a god because gods did this kind of thing whereas ordinary Egyptians didn’t.
His wives produced 15 children, 9 sons and 6 daughters. Two of his sons became pharaohs, Djedefra and Kafre with Khafre building a huge pyramid next to the Great Pyramid that is slightly smaller, possibly in deference to his father. Many egyptologists also believe Khafre built the Sphinx. Khufu’s grandson, Menkaure, built the third largest pyramid on the site but it was only one tenth of the size of the Great Pyramid.
Khufu’s cartouche
Everywhere in Egypt, a tourist can come across huge statues of various pharaohs especially Ramses II or Ramses The Great. Some were ordered by Ramses II and some simply were renamed to depict him. Unfortunately, the same is not the case for Khufu. There is only one small complete statue of him made of ivory which is in the Egyptian Museum and is only 3 inches (75cm) high. Almost all of what we know about Khufu comes from inscriptions in his Giza necropolis (his cemetery complex around the Great Pyramid) and from documents written much later eg, the “Westcar Papyrus” from the 13th Dynasty beginning in 1773 BC (remember Khufu was from the 4th dynasty around 2589 BC). Most documents come from 300 BC and were written by Manetho, Diodorus of Sicily and Herodotus. Manetho was an Egyptian but writing under the Greek influence of the Ptolomies. Likewise both Diodorus and Herodotus were both Greek “historians”, with the later taking a rather negative view of Khufu. He saw Khufu’s as a tyrant who built the Great Pyramid with slave labour and through “greed and misery”. We now know that this was totally not the case, with the workers given a large area for their houses near the pyramid, and more food than they would eat at home. John Romer even goes as far as to say that the pyramid was so carefully and accurately built, that this would have been impossible under slavery. He talks about passion and pride driving them to create such a perfect structure and not the whip! Their end product was the construction of the tallest building on planet Earth for 4000 years. It was only surpassed when Lincoln Cathedral was built in 1311 AD and only temporarily, because the cathedral’s spire that was higher, unfortunately, fell down !
Added to the confusion over Khufu’s details, is that we are not one hundred percent certain about how long he reigned. Currently, we believe it was 23 years but Herodotus gives him 50 years and Manetho credits Khufu with a long reign of 63 years! Today we try to use what is called a cattle count to do the calculation. That is to say, every 2 years a cattle count took place across the whole country counting not just cattle but all farm animals that could result in a tax payment eg cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and donkeys. This usually took place every 2 years but not always and therefore resulting in inaccuracy. Events were often referred to as being in the 13th cattle count of the reign of a certain pharaoh.
To get to and remain in the afterlife, Khufu had to be remembered and celebrated. This can be seen to have happened with Khufu being revered by 67 mortary priests carrying out various rituals in his mortuary temple and feeding his Ka. Furthermore, Khufu’s name often can be seen on various objects made over time. However, by the time of the Greek Empire such “oversized tombs” appalled historians and philosophers and could only be explained in their view by arguing that Khofu was a megalomaniac! Later, Romans such as Pliny the Elder called the Egyptian pyramids, “"the idle and foolish ostentation of royal wealth".
Essential information.
Safety.
In all the places we went there were numerous police officers and soldiers carrying guns. The Egyptians are great hosts and are desperate to build up tourism and as a consequence are going out of their way to ensure the safety of the growing numbers of tourists. Most of the places we went to had airport style baggage checks with few queues.
Getting there.
Take a taxi to the entrance (Uber is great in Cairo and no negotiating prices) or negotiate for half a day to take you inside the complex.
For the best advice and how not to be conned as a foreign tourist click on the following link, my son’s website.
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