The Pyramids of Giza
From Exotic Egypt in Giza, Egypt on Aug 22 '07
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After a restful night at the Mena House in a room that overlooked the mighty pyramids of Giza, it was finally the day when we would visit them. I felt the same excitement build in me that I experienced on the morning that we were to see the Great Wall of China right around this time last year. It's hard to explain the feeling - you know you're about to witness something powerful - something that has withdtood the test of time - often centuries - and is a testament to history and to the people that inhabited these lands thousands of years ago.
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Since our hotel was literally a few minutes drive, we were there shortly after 8 am..when the morning sun is not quite high and there's still a bit of breeze. Another reason to arrive early was to secure tickets to the interior of the largest pyramid - the Cheopps pyramid - to which only 300 tickets are sold per day. our guide Emaan obtained tickets for us while we just stood and watched the pyramids in a combination of awe and humility.
The people of ancient Egypt believed that death on Earth was the start of a journey to the next world.
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The Pyramids of Giza are the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt. These massive stone structures were built around 4500 years ago on a rocky desert plateau close to the Nile. But the intriguing Egyptian pyramids were more than just tombs for kings. There are many mysteries surrounding their symbolism, design and purpose. It is likely that many of these mysteries will never be solved...
The people of ancient Egypt believed that death on Earth was the start of a journey to the next world. The embalmed body of the king was entombed underneath or within the pyramid to protect it and allow his transformation and ascension to the afterlife, and a place among the Gods.
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Each of the Giza Pyramids had an adjoining mortuary temple where rituals for the dead king and for the Egyptian gods may have been carried out. A causeway ran to a lower temple near the Nile floodplain that acted as an entrance to the complex. The Giza necropolis also included pits for funerary boats, small subsidiary pyramids and numerous other tombs for the royal family and officials.
The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks) ruled about 2589-2566 BCE when the Old Kingdom of Egypt was nearing a peak of prosperity and culture. After his death, he was entombed in a pyramid that is astonishing for both its size and mathematical precision. According to our guide (who is an Egyptologist) it took more than twenty yeas to build this pyramid which comprises over 2.3 contains 2.3 million stone blocks. The four sides of the pyramid are accurately oriented to the cardinal points of the compass. The base has sides 230 meters long, with a difference between them of only a few centimeters. The pyramid was originally 146 meters high until it was robbed of its outer casing and capstone.
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We were able to climb (more like crawl, actually) inside the hollow of this pyramid. From an entrance just above the base of the Great Pyramid, a cramped Ascending Passage climbs for 36 meters up through the solid stone core to a towering Grand Gallery. This climbs another 46 meters to reach the King's Chamber and the now empty sarcophagus in the heart of this colossal pyramid. Although no cameras are allowed inside, I was able to find some file photos on the net to add to this blog. I was suffocated and felt like a tunnel rat and was only to glad to come back outside into the daylight. Missy, however, thought this was all “so cool”. Oh well, I’ll just never be cool enough ;)
Alongside Khufu’s pyramid is the slightly smaller and just as majestic pyramid of his son Khafre. The last pyramid is also from that same lineage and is the tomb of Menkaure. These pharohs ruled through 2589-2504 BCE. But pyramid building soon waned as the power and prosperity of the kings of Egypt weakened with the end of the Old Kingdom.
In a depression to the south of Khafre’s pyramid sits a huge creature with the head of a human and a lion's body. This monumental statue, the first truly colossal royal sculpture in Egypt, known as the Great Sphinx.
The word "sphinx", which means 'strangler', was first given by the Greeks to a fabulous creature which had the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. In Egypt, there are numerous sphinxes, usually with the head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion
It is believed that Khafre's workers shaped the stone into the lion and gave it their king's face over 4,500 years ago. Khafre's name was also mentioned on the Dream Stele, which sits between the paws of the great beast. The Great Sphinx is believed to be the most immense stone sculpture in the round ever made by man.
The figure was buried for most of its life in the sand. It was King Thutmose IV (1425 - 1417 BC) who placed a stela between the front paws of the figure. On it, Thutmose describes an event, while he was still a prince, when he had gone hunting and fell asleep in the shade of the sphinx. During a dream, the sphinx spoke to Thutmose and told him to clear away the sand. The sphinx told him that if he did this, he would be rewarded with the kingship of Egypt. Thutmose carried out this request and the sphinx held up his end of the bargain. Of course, over time, the great statue, the only single instance of a colossal sculpture carved in the round directly out of the natural rock, once again found itself buried beneath the sand.
In the more modern era, when Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, the Sphinx was buried once more with sand up to its neck, at by this point, we believe the nose had been missing for at least 400 years. Over the years, there were various attempts at excavation and it was only between 1925 and 1936 that French engineer Emile Baraize excavated the Sphinx on behalf of the Antiquities Service, and apparently for the first time since antiquity, the great beast once again became exposed to the elements.
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In fact, the sand has been its savior, since, being built of soft sandstone, it would have disappeared long ago had it not been buried for much of its existence.
Nevertheless, the statue is crumbling today because of the wind, humidity and the smog from Cairo. The rock was of poor quality here from the start, already fissured along joint lines that went back to the formation of the limestone millions of years ago.
Missy and I then took a camel ride (the rite of passage for all tourists arriving here) and took some great photos of this very special memory!
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