Terminologies in Egyptian Architecture

Terminologies in Egyptian Architecture

List of terms covered in this article are: Mastaba, stepped pyramid, obelisks , serdab, battered walls, pylon towers, propylon, pyramids, covetto, cornices, lotus, papyrus palm and more.

Egypt Pyramids - Secret Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom

Egypt Pyramids - Secret Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom

The mysterious Egypt pyramids are the most studied structures ever built. They tell a story of the past and future with it's mathematical accuracy and synchronicity of events using the stars and constellations embedded within the design.

Terminologies in Egyptian Architecture

Terminologies in Egyptian Architecture

List of terms covering in this hub are. Mastaba, Stepped pyramid, Obelisks , Serdab, Battered Walls, Pylon towers, Propylon , Pyramids, Covetto , Cornices, Lotus , papyrus palm and other capitals , Hathor headed, Osirian column , Hypostyle halls, courts, vast processional axes ( Dromos) , Sphinx, Syrinx , Uraeus, Hieroglyphs, Pyramidia, Trabeation, Stylobates, Stelae, Mammisis, Benben, Pyramidion, Egyptian sun temples, Sarcophagus, False door The ancient Egyptians built pyramids as tombs for thepharaohs and their queens.

Why do we still not know what's inside the pyramids?

Why do we still not know what's inside the pyramids?

With their hidden chambers, the pyramids of Giza have yet to reveal all their secrets - how is that possible?

Thermal Scan of Egypt’s Pyramids Reveals Mysterious Hot Spots

Researchers using thermal cameras to scan the Egyptian pyramids have identified several intriguing anomalies, including one in the pyramid of Khufu, better known as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

In recent months, experts have been searching for hidden chambers located within the Egyptian pyramids, as well as for additional insight into how these amazing structures could have been built. Organized by the Faculty of Engineering of Cairo and the Paris-based Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute, the Operation Scan the Pyramids project aims to conduct in-depth examinations of the pyramids using non-invasive methods such as thermal imaging and muon radiography, a Japanese technique that has been used to peek inside active volcanoes as well as the nuclear reactors of Fukushima.

Last week, an initial infrared temperature scan of the famous tomb belonging to the pharaoh Tutankhamen, better known as King Tut, turned up promising results: a temperature difference in the tomb’s northern wall, which may indicate a hidden cavity behind the wall’s surface. Their work follows up on claims made earlier this year by Egyptologist Nicholas Reeve of the University of Arizona, who proposed that ultra high-resolution images of Tut’s tomb showed hidden doorways leading to previously unexplored burial chambers, possibly including the final resting place of the legendary Queen Nefertiti, who was married to Tut’s father.

Now, Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry has announced that a thermal scan of the three ancient pyramids built on the Giza plateau, some 20 km from Cairo, during the 4th dynasty (between 2613-2494 B.C.), has identified some intriguing anomalies. In particular, a scan of the largest of the three pyramids—known locally as Khufu and internationally as Cheops, but often referred to simply as the Great Pyramid—revealed higher temperatures in three of the stones at the bottom of the eastern wall. Though the authorities cannot say definitively what this anomaly means, they speculate that such differences in temperature could indicate empty areas inside the structure, internal air currents or the use of different building materials.

An international team—including scientists and architects from Egypt, Canada, Japan and France—conducted the thermal scanning at different times of the day and night. They focused particularly on sunrise, when the sun heats the limestone of the pyramids from the outside, and on sunset, when the structures were cooling down. In the case of the Khufu pyramid, they found that while much of the wall heats up and cools down uniformly (with a typical difference of only 0.1 to 0.5 degrees Celsius between adjacent stones), a three-stone spot on the eastern wall acted differently. When compared with surrounding stones, this area showed a difference in temperature of 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius), appearing as a bloom of red on the thermal scans.

By the time Operation Scan the Pyramids concludes, at the end of 2016, researchers will have scanned the Great Pyramid and the second-largest of the Giza pyramids, built for Khufu’s son Khafre, as well as the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, both built at Dahshur (about 15 km south of Saqqara) by Snefru, Khufu’s father and the founder of the 4th Dynasty. The goal of the scanning project is to find more anomalies, each of which will provide another clue for Egyptologists to investigate in their attempts to solve the enduring mysteries of the pyramids.

The Pyramid Code

Watch The Pyramid Code here!

 The Pyramid Code is a made-for-television documentary series of 5 episodes that explores the pyramid fields and ancient temples in Egypt as well as ancient megalithic sites around the world looking for clues to matriarchal consciousness, ancient knowledge and sophisticated technology in a Golden Age. The series is based on the extensive research done in 25 trips to Egypt and 51 other countries around the world by Dr. Carmen Boulter formerly from the Graduate Division of Educational Research at the University of Calgary in Canada.

The Pyramid Code features interviews with prominent scholars and authors in multidisciplinary fields (see Cast): geology, physics, astrophysics, archaeology, bilogical engineering, magnetic field theory, hieroglyphics, and Egyptology. The series explores penetrating questions:

    Who were the ancients and what did they know?
    
    Could the pyramids be much older than traditional Egyptology would have us believe?
    
    Could it be that the ancients were more technologically advanced than we are today?
    
    Why do we have so little understanding of the ancient Egyptians?
    
    Are there still secrets hidden in plain sight?
    
    Do new discoveries force the issue of establishing a new chronology?
    
    Are there little known sites that provide clues to a new understanding of our distant past?
    
    Are we really the most advanced civilization to ever live on Earth?

The Pyramid Code is on Netflix in Canada, US, UK, Australia, New Zealand & Malta! The series has aired on national TV in 38 countries 

Is there such thing as "Lost Technology", or is that a myth?

The pyramids are a pretty good example. There's some controversy surrounding them, of course, in various communities. People have believed for a long time that they are tombs but as evidence rolls in, especially from engineers, it becomes increasingly questionable that they are. We don't understand the construction methods for making the pyramids, or have confidence in what they were for.


Did you know that the number of original burials in the pyramids - in any of the 80+ of them in Egypt - is 0? There hasn't been a body, an inscription, or anything, telling us that the pyramids had bodies entombed in them originally. Traditional theorists say that tomb-raiders are responsible for this... but for all of them? Real tombs leave lots of clues, as I will show you.


Read Graham Luke's answer to

Is there such thing as "Lost Technology", or is that a myth?

on Quora

How the Pyramids Were Built.

Should readers object that I have chosen a single unfortunate misstep (everyone makes mistakes) out of 600+ pages of otherwise careful analysis to prove a point, similar strictures apply to the Ogilvie-Herald/Lawton 'analysis' of pyramid building. Now, this is not quite the same situation as Domingo's forensic work, which is the result of a carefully developed methodology that commonly works in practice. Here, Ogilvie-Herald and Lawton do not incriminate themselves in a single glorious paragraph, but rather over the space of some 60 diffuse, ultimately self-contradictory pages.

This comes from their entry in the Daily Grail website but it is a resume of their treatment of the subject in their book:

Our readers will be aware that our research for Giza: The Truth led us t o come out in favour of the orthodox explanations as to when the Giza pyramids were built (c. 2500 BC) and why (primarily as funerary edifices, but accepting that there was a great deal of esoteric symbolism and ritual involved). As to how they were built , we feel that there is no conclusive evidence in the pyramids themselves which requires us to look outside of essentially orthodox explanations, even in the "worst" case of the 70-tonne granite blocks which had to be dragged up (in our view via a spiral ramp) to between one third and one half of the height of the Great Pyramid to form the ceilings/floors of the King's and Relieving Chambers. Nor do we feel that the logistics of Khufu building the Great Pyramid in something like 20 years - or even his father Sneferu's achievement of erecting three sizeable pyramids in a similar period - were impossible, or required anything other than massive commitment and dedication to a national cause, and superb project management skills. This is notwithstanding our boundless admiration for the quality of the workmanship, and our acceptance that, for example, tube drills were used with great skill - albeit that we do not believe at this stage that these tools were powered by anything other than human or animal labour; (for more on the "advanced technology" issues refer to our ongoing debate with Chris Dunn which will be posted on both our web sites shortly).

Readers will also be aware that we have provided a thorough analysis of the issues relating to many of the other "alternative" theories, such as the redating of the Sphinx and the Orion correlation, and ultimately we believe these too to be fatally flawed - not from any ideological perspective, merely because we do not believe that the evidence in these cases supports the hypothesis.

However there are two areas in which we might be said to depart from the orthodox line. The first is that of acoustics, where ongoing work by researchers such as John Reid is suggesting that the ancient Egyptians had a highly advanced understanding of acoustic properties and design - although we feel it is critical that such theories be evaluated in the context of, for example, other 4th Dynasty pyramids such as those at Dashur, as opposed to concentrating exclusively on the Great Pyramid and to a lesser extent its counterparts at Giza. And the second is that of sonic levitation - which is clearly not entirely unrelated.

To elaborate further, many of the huge limestone monoliths which form the core of the walls of the surviving mortuary and valley temples on the Giza Plateau are acknowledged by Egyptologists to weigh as much as 200 tonnes. This is a different order of magnitude again from the largest 70-tonne blocks in the Great Pyramid (or any other). Although the orthodox school has been happy to deliberate at length on the use of ramps etc. to erect the pyramids, these larger temple monoliths have tended to be swept under the carpet by them. (For example, in the otherwise excellent reference works such as Edwards' The Pyramids of Egypt' and Lehner's 'The Complete Pyramids', whole chapters are devoted to construction methods but the temples are ignored.) If we are to be totally honest and unbiased in our analysis, this is not acceptable just because it raises uncomfortable questions.

We are not qualified engineers. However, within the constraints of the tight time limits imposed when we were writing and researching the book - and despite our reasonable satisfaction with the logistics etc. of pyramid construction - we were unable to rationally explain the use of such massive blocks in the temples. Remember that the layout of these edifices is completely different. Suppose you could erect a presumably straight ramp of sufficiently dense material - and we have heard it suggested that once we are dealing with these kind of weights, only a ramp made of solid stone itself would not collapse - in order to drag these blocks up to the second and third courses of the temples. You need at a conservative estimate something like 600 men to drag a 200-tonne block (this estimate of a third of a tonne per man seems reasonably sound from experiments when slopes are involved). Irrespective of how many columns they are arranged in, where do they go when they get to the top of the ramp? There is no huge flat platform awaiting them as there is in a pyramid. So perhaps after each pull the lead line jumps down the other side, although this is hardly an ideal situation for pulling one's weight effectively! But what about once the opposite wall, or an intermediate partition wall, is in place? The size of these edifices is simply not sufficient, at least in some cases, for such obstructions not to be encountered well before the column of men had completed their hauling. So then we might suggest that the interiors were completely filled in with sand or whatever in order to provide a flat platform for the men to continue their hauling. But it seemed to us when we were researching this topic, and it still does, that once you get to this stage you are clutching at straws in your attempts to provide an "orthodox" explanation.

Occams Razor is certainly no longer at work. Accordingly we felt that the question posed correctly and legitimately by the alternative school had not been satisfactorily answered - that is that even if you can come up with an orthodox solution as to how these blocks were erected, it would be so convoluted and difficult that the further question remains: why on earth would the builders make life SO difficult for themselves?

Here again, as non-engineers and non-movers-of-stone, they beg to differ with the engineers, quarrymen and crane drivers familiar with moving huge chunks of heavy matter. These acknowledged experts in various relevant fields assert that their own level of expertise is insufficient to account for the very large FACT of carefully fitted 200 ton blocks in the Sphinx and Valley temples and 70 ton blocks in the Kings chamber halfway up the pyramid. After concerted studies of the problems involved in pyramid building, they maintain that no known simple method of ramps, levers and sledges (which was apparently all the ancient Egyptians had at their disposal) explains their ability to move the stones into place.

In and of itself, that expert opinion does NOT mean that the Egyptians COULDN'T have done it that way. What it does mean is that Ogilvie-Herald and Lawton's characteristically uninformed conviction that that is how they did do it is as arrogant as it is uninformed.

To support that conviction there are only the opinions of non-engineer Egyptologists, which are by definition suspect, and a single clever but manifestly inappropriate ramp-and-rope experiment by Mark Lehner in which average size 1/2 - 2 ton blocks blocks, similar to those in the core masonry of the Great Pyramid were successfully but roughly wrestled more or less into place up mud-slicked rubble ramps to the height of twenty feet . (Note: When the cameras weren't trained on the action, a bulldozer was pushing the recalcitrant blocks into easy striking distance. Shortage of time was the reason given.)
This admittedly interesting little exercise was then cited by Lehner et al as 'proof' of how the ancients must have done it, and Ogilvie-Herald and Lawton agree. They decide, meticulous scholars that they are, that they (like Lehner) will ignore for the moment, the problems involved in getting 70 ton granite blocks up ramps 200 feet high to roof over the King's Chamber.

This is roughly equivalent to me deciding to get into body building. I start off maybe able to press 100 lbs. After six months of hard work say I can press 200 pounds and I then claim that at that rate, doubling my prowess every six months, in five years I can press five tons.

Technology doesn't work that way. Most technological methods, like the human body, tend to have inherent, self-imposed limits. What works with a ton does not, in and of itself, mean that it will work with 70 or 200 tons.

But now, having thrown their joint inexpertise in behind orthodoxy --while ignoring all those informed contrary opinions, along with the 70 ton blocks-- they reverse themselves and decide that ramps/levers/unlimited manpower will not suffice, after all, to explain the 200 tons blocks in the Sphinx and Valley Temples. What will? Well, acoustic levitation maybe? And off they go on another diffuse ramble into the resonant properties of the King's Chamber and 'burial' chambers of the Red Pyramid (Dahshur), citing various sound experiments done there and then off into the sound levitation experiments that we, in our Mystery of the Sphinx video, cited as a possibility in principle. In principle because, at present an elaborate space age machine is capable only of levitating a pea-size pebble. They speculate that, hey! if the resonant properties of the chambers cited above are deliberately 'tuned' to specific frequencies (I think they are, too) then maybe that knowledge combined with some (totally unidentified and undemonstrable) ancient Egyptian gravity-reversing technology was what put the 200 ton blocks into place after all.

But of course, if they had such a technology in place for 200 ton blocks, then why go to the prodigious trouble of building gigantic building ramps to put the smaller stones of the pyramids into place? (It should be noted that engineers have calculated that the ramps --nearly a mile long-- necessary to haul the blocks into place would take up several times more material than the pyramid itself. Moreover, the ramps would have to be added to continually as the levels went up.) The point is that orthodox explanations for how the pyramids were built, do NOT --except in principle-- suffice to explain how they were built, while the speculation about acoustic levitation is no better, actually worse, since we DO know the Egyptians had ramps, ropes and plenty of manpower, while they do not appear to have had anything resembling an acoustic technology.

It is a non-argument, circular, vulnerable, silly and as always, selective. Yet for those without detailed knowledge of the vast body of work done on these problems, and a grasp of the numerous pros and cons, it looks like scholarship -- hence those favorable reviews proudly posted by them on various websites. Some respondents to these Giza: The (Half) Truth posts have expressed quite different opinions. Here's one that I suspect will not find its way onto their website, though I hereby give permission to use it.

Nigel Fox, who owns an advertising agency in South Africa and who is widely read on these matters, writes:

'The mind picture it evoked was of a rooster scratching over an old manure heap, keeping a beady eye cocked for any palatable morsels and passing over those not to its taste. Just a tad selective in the choice of facts and very liberal with the - "It didn't convince us, so it must be wrong" - opinionated judgements. Some of the language was disparaging to the point of being slanderous and delivered from the high and mighty throne of the supreme pontiffs of Egyptology. As an apologia for the Establishment, I'm sure it does a job for the hidebound, added an extra skin to the already thick coat they wear. But for anyone with an open mind, the odour of bigotry and the careful selectivity of the material screamed bias loud and clear. Peck, peck goes the rooster's beak, another nugget that sits well in my crop. Ptooi ! That bit stuck in the craw, so we'd best get rid of it before anybody notices.'

Even Zahi Hawass, as orthodox an Egyptologist as any, acknowledges that no one REALLY knows how the pyramids were built, (though he, too, ascribes to the ramp theory in one form or another). The credentialed engineers, quarrymen and crane drivers, on the other hand, tend to believe that since they can't figure out how the task was accomplished with simple technology, it couldn't have been done that way. But this is erring in the other direction. In other words, the field is open. Pyramid building is a game without agreed-upon rules and anyone can play.

It seems to me that the best way to approach this game is VERY gingerly ... and systematically. And to this end I offer my own contribution -- the result of vast (non-expert) reading of the various experts who've played this game. Unlike Ogilvie-Herald and Lawton, given the data to hand, I prefer to avoid conclusions of any sort, but at least I like to think that by categorizing the problems a more fruitful approach to them may be opened.

There are, it seems to me, but four possible explanations for building the pyramids, none of them necessarily mutually exclusive.

1. A simple technology (ramps/levers/sledges) brilliantly applied.
This is of course the only solution allowed by Egyptologists, even though we cannot reproduce such results today. On the other hand, despite what the starry-eyed New Agers (and indeed, the hard-nosed engineers) may say, this cannot be dis-allowed. Put a violin in my hands and I will quickly prove to you that music cannot be wrung from this intractable device. But give the violin to a virtuoso and out comes Bach's Partita or the Paganini Violin Concerto . Just because we can't move 200 ton blocks up a ramp, doesn't mean they couldn't. To use another analogy: did the Kitty Hawk prefigure the space shuttle and 'prove' that soon there would be space travel? The first generation of aeronautic engineers might well have scoffed at such a notion, (this was the stuff of science fiction) yet there is the space shuttle. But it is not even an exponential extension of existing Kitty Hawk technologies that make the space shuttle possible; rather it is the simultaneous application of a spectrum of new techologies undreamed-of a century ago: plastics, computers, rocketry, lasers and so on...

Our present-day engineers scoff at the ramp/rope/ manpower hypothesis, yet there are the pyramids. Does this mean that's how they must have been built? To Ogilvie-Herald and Lawton that's what it means, but it doesn't mean that to anyone who can think straight, or think at all. It means that in a best case scenario, given the evidence to hand, perhaps it should be given precedence over other explanations, all of them hypothetical (including this one!) and that is all that it means.

2. A hard technology for which there is no evidence.
This sounds on the surface outrageous, but who knows what ancient technology may have looked like. Suppose, 5000 years from now, a computer is found, and technology at that time does not use electricity or microchips and there is no record of such instruments. Computers turn up in archeological digs but they are mute bits of plastic with no moving parts. They might be fobbed off as ceremonial/religious artifacts (with some justification perhaps.) Who could guess that the Library of Congress could be stored on a few internal chips, or that prodigious mathematical calculations could be performed on them with the touch of a few keys? Maybe certain familiar but mysterious symbols of Egypt --the djed column for instance-- were actually technological devices, and we just don't know how to use them?

Who knows? Graham Hancock, in his book The Sign and the Seal makes what I think is a pretty good case for the Ark of the Covenant as just such a technological device. Given the Old Testament evidence to hand (for whatever that may be worth) it sure doesn't sound like a purely 'religious' symbol. (Acoustic levitation might fit in here, or in '3' following, or possibly in both.)

3. A soft technology -- mind power-- for which, by definition, there can be no evidence, and the knowledge was a priestly secret and/or references in the texts have been mis-translated.

The Egyptians were very good at keeping secrets; the texts refer to secret knowledge over and over again. It was the garrulous Greeks, Pythagorean defectors, who let the secrets outs of the bag. Ancient Egyptian, unlike Sanskrit, is not a living tradition and has had to be re-constructed from scratch mainly by scholars hostile to a mystical and esoteric tradition. Thus, possible references to such a soft technology may have been misunderstood or ignored. Yogis, Zen masters, advanced martial artists, and shamans can routinely perform physical feats that to the rest of us look and are impossible. But there is a volume of evidence to prove they can do it. There are recorded cases where a woman, with her child trapped beneath a car, lifts up the car to get the child out, something she could not even imagine doing in a normal state of consciousness. Maybe the pyramids were massive group consciousness-raising exercises, in and of themselves, or in conjunction with a simple or even a hard technology? Or both?

4. Aliens dunnit.
I personally like this explanation less than the others. I prefer to think that people rather like ourselves, but unencumbered with our stultifying and banal rationalist/materialist baggage, did it. Still, anyone who looks seriously into UFO literature, has to acknowledge that something is going on out there and they (whoever 'they' may be) are periodically coming here. Why I cannot imagine. But who knows? We go up there, why shouldn't they come down here -- and once here, for alien reasons of their own, build pyramids? Alien builders perhaps should not be dismissed out of hand. And since no one to date can adequately explain how they did it with simple ramps, levers and sledges either, or any other way, this explanation is hardly goofier than those.

The point is that the facile assurances given by Ogilvie-Herald/Lawton endorsing the orthodox viewpoint are illegitimate, their exclusion of contrary, genuinely informed opinion is typical of their selective bogus sch olarship, and their long-winded acoustic levitation hypothesis is pure speculation and self-contradictory besides. We still don't know how the pyramids were built. Period. Full stop. Over to you...

Meereen

 

 The Great Pyramid overlooking the city.

Meereen and the Great Pyramid.

Meereen is the northernmost and greatest of the three great city-states of Slaver's Bay, north of Yunkai and Astapor. It is located at the mouth of the Skahazadhan River, which flows from its origins in Lhazar through the mountains separating Meereen and the rest of Slaver's Bay from the Red Waste. The Dothraki Sea lies to the north, beyond the river. The wealthiest residents live in pyramids.

Like the other major cities of Slaver's Bay, Meereen was founded as a colony of the old Ghiscari Empire, which was later conquered by the Valyrian Freehold when it destroyed the Ghiscari Empire 5,000 years ago. Similar to the Free Cities to the west, after the Doom of Valyria (four hundred years before the War of the Five Kings) the local slaver-cities reasserted their independence. Meereen is by far the largest of the now-independent city states, bigger than Astapor or Yunkai. At the time that Daenerys Targaryen arrives at the city, there are about three slaves in the city for each free man.

Robot to explore mysterious tunnels in Great Pyramid

For 4,500 years, no one has known what lies beyond two stone doors deep inside the monument

By Andrew Johnson

For 4,500 years, the Great Pyramid at Giza has enthralled, fascinated and ultimately frustrated everyone who has attempted to penetrate its secrets.

Now a robotics team from Leeds University, working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is preparing a machine which they hope will solve one of its enduring mysteries.

The pyramid, known as the Pyramid of Khufu after the king who built it around 2,560BC, is the only wonder of the ancient world still standing. At its heart are two rooms known as the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King's Chamber at 45-degree angles and lead to the exterior of the monument. They are believed to be a passageway designed to fire the king's spirit into the firmament so that he can take his place among the stars.

In the Queen's Chamber, there are two further shafts, discovered in 1872. Unlike those in the King's Chamber, these do not lead to the outer face of the pyramid

No one knows what the shafts are for. In 1992, a camera sent up the shaft leading from the south wall of the Queen's Chamber discovered it was blocked after 60 metres by a limestone door with two copper handles. In 2002, a further expedition drilled through this door and revealed, 20 centimetres behind it, a second door.

"The second door is unlike the first. It looks as if it is screening or covering something," said Dr Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council who is in charge of the expedition. The north shaft bends by 45 degrees after 18 metres but, after 60 metres, is also blocked by a limestone door.

Now technicians at Leeds University are putting the finishing touches to a robot which, they hope, will follow the shaft to its end. Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom Khufu consulted when planning the pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through the second set of doors to see what lies beyond.

Dr Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, said they would continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts.

"We have been working on the project for five years," he said. "We have no preconceptions. We are trying to gain evidence for other people to draw conclusions. There are two shafts. The north shaft is blocked by a limestone door and nothing has penetrated that door. With the south shaft a previous team has measured the thickness of the stone, drilled through it and put a camera through it and found there was another surface. We are going to determine how thick that is and we could drill through it. We are preparing the robot now and expect to send it up before the end of the year. It's a big question, and it's very important not to cause unnecessary damage. We will carry on until we find the answer. We hope to get all the data possible which will be sufficient to answer the questions."

The Djedi Project: The Next Generation in Robotic Archaeology

Kushite Pyramids

The Twenty-fifth Dynasty (712–657 B.C.E.) was Nubian, but these rulers faced an Assyrian invasion and could not maintain their hold on the land. The MEROË culture then emerged, but lasted only until 350 C.E. This kingdom was relatively free of contact with others, being willing and able to do battle to halt the advances of conquerors. The Romans found them to be formidable foes at ASWAN in 24 B.C.E. The Meroë culture included modern Sudan and established trade relationships with other cultures, both on the Nile and on the Red Sea. In time, after a revival of arts and architecture, a period of extensive pyramid construction was conducted at Meroë. The reliefs and artistic projects of this culture demonstrate skills and a thorough knowledge of the Egyptian canons. In time, Meroë was beset by tribal assaults and climatic changes, bringing about its collapse and the introduction of other influences.

Meroë
A site on the eastern bank of the Nile in NUBIA (modern Sudan), north of modern Kabushiyah, it contains royal remains and unique monuments dating to the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (712–657 B.C.E.) and other historical periods. In the fifth century B.C.E., the great Kushite Empire was seated in Meroë. Vital and energetic, the people of Meroë remained powerful even in the Greco- Roman Period on the Nile. The necropolis of Meroë, Begarawiga, was filled with Kushite pyramids and royal burials. A temple to ISIS dates to the Napatan Period (c. 1000–300 B.C.E.) at Meroë, and lavish palaces were erected there as well. A temple of AMUN was built in the second century B.C.E., as well as a temple of APEDEMAK, a Nubian lion deity.

Saqqara Complex

The mortuary complex of Netjerikhet at Saqqara is one of the most impressive monuments in the Memphite necropolis (Lauer 1936, 1939). It represents a staggering achievement, and remains one of the most important sources for Early Dynastic religion and kingship. The name of the king features most prominently on the six panels from the galleries beneath the pyramid and South Tomb (F.D.Friedman 1995). Lintels from the false doors framing the inscribed panels give the king’s complete titulary (Firth and Quibell 1935, II: pls 16, 39, 43), whilst boundary stelae from the complex are inscribed with the names of the king and female members of his family (Firth and Quibell 1935, II: pl. 87; Porter and Moss 1974:407; reconstructed by Lauer 1936:187, fig. 209). Sealimpressions with Netjerikhet’s serekh have also been found in the galleries beneath the North Court granaries (Firth and Quibell 1935, I: 141, figs 19–21) and beneath the pyramid itself (Lauer 1939:74, pl. XIX.9). Recently, some unique decorated blocks thought to derive from a gateway in the complex have been published (Hawass 1994). They feature the king’s serekh and a series of recumbent lions, the whole design framed by snakes.

The dominance of the Step Pyramid complex is something of a mixed blessing for ancient historians. It certainly highlights the reign of Netjerikhet as a period of great artistic, architectural and administrative innovation. However, it tends to obscure the king’s other accomplishments and the evidence for his activities in other parts of Egypt. Only fragments now survive of a decorated shrine from Heliopolis (W.S.Smith 1949:133–7, figs 48–53). The scenes in raised relief may be connected with the celebration of a Sed-festival and/or with the ennead (assembly of nine gods) worshipped at Heliopolis.

The pyramid complex had been developed by the rulers of the Old Kingdom as the customary burial place for kings, and it appeared in its earliest form as the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. From this design, perhaps intended to represent a ramp or ‘stairway’ to enable the deceased ruler to ascend and to join the gods in the sky, the Egyptians developed the true pyramid form, best exemplified by the famous three pyramids of Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus at Giza. The true pyramid may be an attempt to represent in stone the form and appearance of a sun’s ray and again to provide the king, whose body rested within the pyramid, with a means of access to the sky. There are various indications that the development of the true pyramid was closely associated with the increased importance of the Solar cult, centred around the worship of Rec, the Sun-god. This cult, particularly linked to the kingship in the Old Kingdom, promoted the belief of the king’s divinity as the Sun-god’s son. It was envisaged that the king upon death would join Rec in his barque, journeying across the skies, and that he therefore needed a means of ascent. However, he was also believed to descend to re-occupy his mummified body which was placed in the pyramid, and to partake of the essence of the food offerings presented to the dead king through the medium of his mortuary ritual.

The pyramid itself was only one element in a complex of buildings, designed to ensure the king’s resurrection and the continuation of his power as a ruler in the hereafter. In the Old Kingdom it was believed that the king alone enjoyed an individual afterlife, and all his subjects experienced eternity only through him. Later, in the Middle Kingdom, when a process of democratisation occurred in funerary and religious beliefs, every individual might expect a chance of eternity. The idea of a pyramid had been fully developed by the early 4th Dynasty, and indeed the second pyramid at Giza, built for Chephren, is the best-preserved example of this type which later became the standard layout. It consisted of a Valley Building, a covered Causeway, a Mortuary Temple, and the pyramid itself.

The Secret Pyramid Engineering of Egypt

Ancient engineering secrets that they used in Ancient Egypt like in the movie "The Ten Commandments," the Monumental epic Biblical film about the story of Moses (Old Testament), USA 1956 (Die Zehn Gebote) Directed by Cecil B. Demille Produced by Cecil B. DeMille Music by Elmer Bernstein Starring Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Vincent Price & Woody Strode. This video WILL explain the awesome mystery surrounding the pyramids like no other. blog, vlog, mysteries

Editor Note: Well urr unique theory...

"Cult of Re" theory

So, why were they built? It is generally accepted that they were tombs for the kings who built them; the fact that some of the pyramids had granite sarcophagi inside them being a major clue, as well as the lack of actual burial tombs being found for the majority of these kings (though one or two did have tombs built as well). But there are those who will point to the fact that no body, or mummy, of a king was ever discovered in any of these pyramids, which is a very good point, until other facts are brought in; namely the known fact that the pyramids were broken into in antiquity and any objects within, if any, were stolen and sold. If one goes into the main burial chamber of the Great Pyramid (the Pyramid of Khufu, or Cheops), which is known as the "King's Chamber", why would a massive granite sarcophagus be in there if it was not to hold a body (inside a coffin), and who, but the king, would be in a position to build such a grandiose edifice? Sometimes it is easier to look at things using common sense rather than looking at ways to disprove the obvious.

How were they built? There are literally thousands of books and papers on this subject, as well as a vast plethora of websites. Learned scholars have written theories about it right through to glorified science-fiction authors, with various architects; archaeologists; engineers; dedicated pyramidologists (yes, they do actually exist); laymen; and an assortment of interested parties, all thrown in for good measure. The simple answer is that there is no answer, or at least no answer that everyone agrees on! Straight ramps; spiral ramps; multi ramps; internal ramps; internal spiral ramps; levers; pulley systems; pulleys based on the Djed symbol; counterweighed shuttles; even aliens! Every known, and unknown, concoction has been theorised and we are still not any closer to the answer as Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, whose 'Histories: Book II' is the first known work that actually mentions a theory on how they were built.

Only if you believe that the ancient Egyptians were simple people, not Einstein's, and would have done things the simple, and easiest, way. They did not go out of their way to invent things, most of their inventions happening by chance, though they were good at adapting things for their own needs: they did not invent the chariot, but when it was introduced by the Hyksos, at the end of the Second Intermediate Period, they adapted it and became one of the most feared, if not THE most feared, chariot armies in the ancient world. Because of our modern day interpretations of hieroglyphs, as well as our better understanding of what tomb reliefs mean, we know that very little changed during the pharaonic period. Because of this many of the theories can be discounted, due to the lack of evidence for them being used for other construction work from the time of Djoser (2667BCE) until the invasion by the Persians (525BCE). Even when the rest of the world was starting to use iron, the ancient Egyptians continued using brass and so there was nothing that can be called unique in the way that they did things. So the pyramids had to be built using the simple tools that they had, as well as the simple methods of transportation, especially for heavy objects. How did the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids? By the simplest method possible!

Why were they built at those sites? Recently this has become a popular question and more books and papers are starting to fill library shelves, with just as many websites dedicated to the subject as well. Again, there is a simple answer to this question and this is that the pyramids were built where they are because they are all on solid outcrops of limestone (well, not so solid in South Dashur, as the Bent Pyramid will testify). This serves 2 major purposes:

1/ a strong base on which to build the pyramid

2/ an adjacent supply of limestone to quarry for building the pyramid
But yet again, the simple is not good enough for some people and various theories have sprung up "proving" why the pyramids were built in those locations. The one that has been most prominent over the past 20 years or so is that they were built where they were to ape the stars in the sky, or the Orion Correlation Theory, with the 3 Giza Pyramids representing the 3 major stars in Orion's belt and the other pyramids representing other stars in the constellation. Many different people have tried to push this theory forward, but just as many have managed to discredit it: the angles are wrong; the land map is reversed; the alignment would have meant the pyramids being about 10,000-15,000 years old. Every theory has its critic! Yes, on paper it looks good, but there would have to be one huge coincidence for the outcrops of rock to be in just the right place as well.

Recently a new theory has been put forward and most of what it says matches known evidence. It is called the "Cult of Re" theory and has shown that the positioning of the pyramids in the various pyramid fields create lines which, when elongated, all reach the same point in modern day Heliopolis in Cairo. Prior to the Greeks renaming the site as the "City of the Sun" it was known as Iunu and there was a huge sun temple, dedicated to the sun god Re, built here. Apart from this idiosyncrasy another interesting fact is that each of the pyramids that line up with Iunu was built by a pharaoh whose name ended with Re. The only field that does not measure up is the one at Abu Sir; the hill on which Saladin's Citadel sits obscures the line of sight, yet interestingly enough, just a few hundred metres to the northwest of the Abu Sir field lie the remnants of a couple of sun temples; and these are in the direct line of site from Iunu. Sun Temples are not near as heavy as pyramids, so could these have been used as some kind of mirror to the cult? Whether this is just another coincidence or not, at least the facts and figures measure up, so perhaps there was another reason for the pyramids being built on the exact spot they occupy in each of the fields.

Why they were built, how they were built and why were they built where they were will go on giving many peoples hours of pleasure working out. The main fact is that they were built and still stand majestically on the edge of the Western Desert for us all to look at, except for those at Zawyet el-Mayitin (near Minya), which is on the East Bank of the Nile, and the pyramid on Elephantine Island that has been accredited to Huni . How many are there? Well, estimates range from 93 to 138 and this discrepancy is mainly due to arguments over what constitutes a pyramid. Most main pyramids had "queens" and/or supplementary pyramids built close to them, but sometimes it is hard to determine whether a pile of rocks is the remains of a pyramid, or just a pile of rocks.

Related links:

• Pyramids of Giza
• Pyramids of Sakkara
• Pyramidsof Dahshour
• Pyramids of Abu sir
• Pyramids of Mydoum
• Pyramids of eleisht
• Pyramids of Hawara
• Pyamrids of Abu Rawash
• Pyramids of EL- Lahoun
• Pyramids of Hawara

Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

The techniques by which the Egyptian pyramids were built is a matter of much speculation. Many theories have been developed and published, and new theories are still being created, but there is not yet any real consensus in the scientific world.

One factor that almost all agree on is that construction techniques developed over time; the earliest pyramids were built in different ways than the later ones.

Most construction theories are based on the idea that the pyramids were built by moving huge stones from a quarry and somehow dragging and lifting them into place. The disagreements center on the method by which the stones were conveyed and placed. There is, however, one other theory that is based on the "stones" being manufactured in-place from a kind of "limestone concrete".

In addition to the many theories as to the techniques involved, there are also disagreements as to the kind of workforce that was used. One theory, suggested by the Greeks, posits that slaves were forced to work until the pyramid was done. A more widely accepted theory in the modern era, however, suggests that the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built by hundreds of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of paying taxes until the construction was completed.

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Pyramids: Engineering by Trial and Error?

The Bent pyramid. The lower portion of this pyramid rises at the same angle as the pyramid at Meidum, but ancient Egyptian engineers reduced the slope for the upper portion to ensure its stability. The Bent and Meidum pyramids were apparently constructed concurrently with engineers decreasing the angle of the Bent pyramid once they learned of the failure at Meidum.

The pyramid at Meidum. Built at a steep angle, the outer casing of the pyramid at Meidum collapsed around its central core during construction.

Monumental architecture in the form of pyramids, temples, and palaces is diagnostic of high civilization and is remarkable in the history of technology, not only as a set of extraordinary technical accomplishments, but also as indicative of the institution and practice of architecture and the developed crafts and trades associated with engineering. The Egyptian pyramids provide the classic example of monumental building by an early civilization. The case is well documented, and it encapsulates the themes raised thus far regarding agriculture, civilization, and the Urban Revolution.

Consider first the sheer immensity of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Built on the west bank of the Nile during the zenith of the pyramid-building era between 2789 and 2767 bce (or possibly 2589–2566 bce) by Khufu (Cheops), the first pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, the Great Pyramid is the largest solid-stone structure ever built: it consists of an unbelievable 94 million cubic feet of masonry, made up of 2.3 million blocks averaging 2.5 tons apiece, with a total weight of 6 million tons; it covers 13.5 acres, in 210 courses of stone, and stands 485 feet high and 763 feet on a side; chambers, buttresses, and passageways lie within. Sheathed with polished stone, the scale of the construction—not to mention the beauty of the finished structure—has not been surpassed in the nearly five millennia of human history since the Great Pyramid was built.

The architects and engineers who built the Great Pyramid and the others like it commanded some elementary and some not-so-elementary practical mathematics. Design and material requirements demanded such expertise, as did the very exact north-south and east-west alignment. Ancient Egyptian engineers and architects understood the mathematics and appreciated the elegance of perfect pyramids, but the Egyptian pyramids (and monumental building generally) need to be seen primarily as stupendous engineering achievements.

According to a report by the fifth-century bce Greek historian Herodotus, 100,000 people toiled for twenty years to build the Great Pyramid; perhaps 4,000–5,000 craftsmen worked at the site year round. The techniques of pyramid construction are now well understood, and excepting the possible use of a cantilevered machine to lift stones, no categorically new building methods developed compared to what one finds in Neolithic building techniques. Simple tools and practical procedures carried the day but, characteristic of the new powers of civilization, more people, by orders of magnitude, were deployed and construction completed that much faster than at Neolithic sites.

Such an extraordinary monument did not suddenly appear in the Egyptian desert. Rather, the Great Pyramid culminates a clear progression of pyramid building coincident with the growth and expansion of the Egyptian agrarian state.

Several fanciful theories have been put forward to explain why the Great Pyramid and preceding and succeeding pyramids were built, but the function of these structures as tombs for pharaohs seems irrefutable, even if it may not have been their only purpose. A problem exists, however: at some periods at least, the number of new pyramids exceeded the number of pharaohs; and several pyramids were built simultaneously by a single pharaoh. Moreover, most of the truly monumental pyramids came into being in just over a century in the late Third and early Fourth Dynasties. According to one account, in four generations over 112 years between 2834 and 2722 bce, six pharaohs built thirteen pyramids. Clearly, something more than burying the dead is needed to explain the extraordinary socio-cultural phenomenon of the Egyptian pyramids.

One explanation of pyramid building from an engineering point of view attempts to explain the more or less continuous construction that took place on the west bank of the Nile during the heyday of pyramid building. In this interpretation, pyramid building was an activity pursued in its own right as an exercise in statecraft. The sequence of the early pyramids comprised giant public-works projects designed to mobilize the population during the agricultural off-season and to reinforce the idea and reality of the state in ancient Egypt. More than one pyramid arose simultaneously because a labor pool—and surely an increasingly large labor pool—was available and because the geometry of pyramids dictates that fewer laborers are required near the top of a pyramid than at the bottom, thus permitting the transfer of labor to newly started projects. Monumental building was therefore a kind of institutional muscle-flexing by the early Egyptian state, somewhat akin to the arms industry today.

The engineering key to this argument comes from two particular pyramids. The first, the pyramid at Meidum, begun by the pharaoh Huni (Uni), who reigned for 24 years between 2837 and 2814 bce, and continued by his son Sneferu, stood 80 feet high and ran 130 feet on its side. It was to have been the first true pyramid with sheer, sloping sides and no visible steps. However, the pyramid at Meidum turned out to be an engineering disaster and a monumental structural failure, as the outer stone casing collapsed in rubble around the inner core of the pyramid. Designed with the evidently excessive slope of 54 degrees, the collapsed ruin may still be seen by the traveler.

The second pyramid at issue is the succeeding “Bent” pyramid at Dashur, also built by King Sneferu. It is a huge pyramid 335 feet high, 620 feet on a side, with a volume of 50 million cubic feet. Extraordinarily, the Bent pyramid is truly bent, angled, like Meidum, at 54 degrees on the lower half and 43 degrees on the top. One supposes that when the pyramid at Meidum failed, engineers reduced the slope of the Bent pyramid, still under construction, as a precaution. The next pyramid built by Sneferu, the Red pyramid, retained the safer slope of 43 degrees. (The Great Pyramid and later pyramids returned to increased elevations over 50 degrees, but used improved internal buttressing techniques.)

One does not have to follow every detail in order to accept the general point. The Egyptian pyramids were large state-run construction projects. A surplus of idle agricultural workers available seasonally for three months a year during the Nile floods provided the labor pool. (Agricultural productivity was thus not affected by the demand for labor for pyramid building.) Contrary to a once-common belief, forced slave labor did not build the pyramids, but labor was conscripted (like military conscription today) and organized in work gangs. Workers received food supplied by state granaries, and the completed pyramids served as tombs for departed pharaohs. Inevitably, elaborate theologies, priestly ceremonies, and ancillary technologies (such as mummifying) grew up around burying pharaohs. But in their construction the pyramids functioned primarily as gigantic public-works projects, the effect of which helped maintain the economy of irrigation agriculture in the Nile River Valley and bolstered centralizing political and social forces, notably the state. Indeed, the heyday of pyramid building was the heyday of political centralization in Old Kingdom Egypt. The pyramids were symbolic as well as literal exercises in state building.

Pyramids without Wheels

A new Pyramid building method by Franz Löhner

Architect Jean-Pierre Houdin theory at Dassault

Mysteries of the Past

Pyramid: Afterlife Machine?

Early Third Dynasty kings faced serious internal political problems and could not yet afford to concentrate on tomb-building. They granted large estates, herds, and rich gifts to trusted nobles who promised to keep the provinces quiet. These nobles enjoyed enormous local power and prestige, setting up a dangerous pattern repeated throughout the dynastic era: powerful local nobles becoming too wealthy and independent.

Besides putting down internal squabbles, kings were also busy obtaining reliable supplies of the industrial materials they needed and the luxury goods they craved. Third Dynasty kings began extensive mining in the Sinai Peninsula, especially for copper and turquoise. Keeping the mines open often meant military action against local Bedouin tribes.

Keeping prized gold flowing north from Nubian mines was a problem faced by kings throughout the dynastic era. Third Dynasty king Djoser extended the boundary of Upper Egypt to the first cataract at Aswan to help secure the southern trade routes.

Djoser’s success at managing internal affairs let him turn attention to his tomb. He wanted to do something different, and had just the man to do it: his brilliant vizier (chief official), Imhotep. Imhotep designed the world’s first pyramid, the Step Pyramid, at Saqqara. The Step Pyramid is a stack of successively smaller mastabas (the Arabic word for “bench”; it is a small, oblong tomb with sloping sides and a flat roof) piled atop one another. It measures 467 feet by 393 feet, and is 200 feet tall. It was the first all-stone building in the world.

The Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom spans Dynasties 4 through 8, a period of 495 years from 2625 B.C.E. to 2130 B.C.E. It was the age of the great pyramids. The rule of the god-king was absolute. He alone was privileged to enjoy eternal life. As chief priest, he controlled the Nile and the inundation, and made sure the sun rose every day. As leader of an increasingly prosperous country, he commanded enormous power and wealth. Old Kingdom kings poured all of Egypt’s resources into ensuring that their afterlives would be as luxurious and glorious as possible.

For a few hundred years at the height of the Old Kingdom, all Egypt’s wealth—stone, gold, and gems, every peasant’s labor, every artisan’s skill, the central government, and the entire religious establishment—were harnessed for a single goal: building royal tombs. Advances in architecture, astronomy, surveying, construction, quarrying, stonework, sculpture, art, and hieroglyphic writing were focused on designing, building, decorating, and maintaining the king’s tomb and vast necropolis—a city of the dead, where tombs were laid out like a well-planned town.

Like Djoser, later kings also wanted pyramids. And now they had the wealth to build on a large scale. They tried several designs. During his 40-year reign, Fourth Dynasty king Sneferu built at least two pyramids of different designs: his Bent pyramid, and the Red Pyramid, both at Dahshur. The Bent pyramid was an attempt to build a true, smooth-sided pyramid. But during construction, it almost collapsed. So the builders had to reduce its almost 54-degree angle of incline to 43 degrees halfway up, resulting in a curiously asymmetrical profile. The Red Pyramid is a smooth-sided (not stepped) structure, making it the first true pyramid. Unlike the Great Pyramid and others in the Giza Plateau, the Red Pyramid at Dahshur rises at a 43-degree angle of incline.

Sneferu’s son, Khufu, was the biggest builder of all. He spent his entire 25-year reign getting ready for his afterlife. It still holds many mysteries. The Great Pyramid of Khufu, second king of the Fourth Dynasty, is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing. Khufu took the art and science of pyramid building to heights it had never achieved before, and never would again.

Khufu built his pyramid and necropolis at the edge of the desert on the northwestern corner of the Giza Plateau, southwest of modern Cairo. No one had built there before. When fully developed, the complex stretched over four miles long. It included the Great Pyramid (surrounded by an eight-foot high wall) and a huge mortuary temple for the king’s funeral. A 2,700-foot-long paved causeway led to the Valley Temple by the Nile. At least five pits held boats in which Khufu’s spirit could sail the heavens.

The vast necropolis included hundreds of mastabas for royals, nobles, priests, and officials. Villages housed construction workers and priests to tend to the king’s cult after his death. There were three small pyramids for Khufu’s queens, and a small cult pyramid—a very small pyramid used in religious/magical rituals and ceremonies during the king’s funeral, and afterward as a site of rituals for his mortuary cult. It may have been meant for the king to use in some (unknown) way during his afterlife. It was excavated only recently, and its precise meaning and use within the necropolis is still a hot topic of debate among Egyptologists.

Khuit Khufu—Khufu’s Horizon, as the Egyptians called the Great Pyramid—was the largest, most complex, and best built of all the pyramids. When first built, it rose 481 feet into the desert sky. (The top 31 feet, including the capstone, are long gone.) The pyramid’s base covers about 13 acres. Each of the four sides is 755 feet long at the base. Until 1889, when the 1,045-foot Eiffel Tower was built in Paris, it was the tallest artificial structure on earth. It held this record for more than 4,000 years.

More than 2 million limestone blocks, weighing an average of two and-one-half tons each (some weigh up to 15 tons), were stacked, with amazing accuracy, in 210 ascending rows. The blocks in the lowest row are five feet tall; the blocks at the summit are 21 inches tall. The outer walls are slightly concave (bowed inward) to increase stability. The Pyramid was topped with a gold-covered pyramidion (pyramid-shaped capstone).

No one is sure exactly how the Great Pyramid was built or how long it took. Egyptian priests told Herodotus it had taken 20 years. He calculated that the project would have required more than 100,000 workers. Modern Egyptologists believe it was more like 15,000. The pyramid builders had mostly stone-age tools. But they also had unlimited manpower, religious motivation, excellent organization, strong leadership, and plenty of time.

For measuring, the builders used ropes and sticks, a plumb bob (a weight at the end of a string), leveling staffs, and a set-square to mark angles. For cutting limestone, they used flint knives, copper chisels, long copper saws, and wooden wedges. A stonecutter, recognizing natural seams in the rock, pounded in wooden wedges, soaked the wedges, and waited for the heat of the sun to expand the wood. The wood split the rock at the seams. Harder stone was pounded free with diorite slabs, using pumice or quartz sand as an abrasive.

Most of the blocks were quarried from limestone outcrops near the site. The outer casing was fine white limestone from Tura, east of the Nile. (Most of the casing blocks are long gone, used to build medieval Cairo.) The pink granite for the burial chamber and sarcophagus (the outer stone coffin) was floated on barges from quarries near Elephantine.

At the time the Great Pyramid was built, the Egyptians had donkeys and oxen, but no horses. They did not use pulleys or wheels. The massive blocks were probably raised using earth and mud-brick ramps. The design of the ramps is a subject of much controversy. On flat ground and slight inclines, the blocks were dragged with heavy flax ropes over oiled rollers made of wood or stone.

The Great Pyramid was not built by slaves. Manual laborers, drafted from all over Egypt, worked under a core of architects, engineers, master builders, stonemasons, artisans, and scribes. Draftees were mostly farmers who had nothing to do while their fields were underwater as a result of the inundation. They worked for a season, then returned home.

The Pyramid’s interior is a complex maze of chambers, tunnels, shafts, and corridors. There is much controversy about the purpose and nature of some of these features, and whether there might be still-undiscovered features inside, or beneath, the Great Pyramid.

Khufu’s son, Khafre, built his slightly smaller pyramid complex near his father’s. He added a unique touch: the Great Sphinx. A reclining lion with a human head and Khafre’s face, this guardian of the necropolis, carved from a natural outcrop of limestone, is 60 feet tall and 240 feet long.

King Menkaure’s pyramid, the third at Giza, is only half the height of the Great Pyramid. In fact, the huge pyramids of Sneferu, Khufu, and Khafre were a departure from the normal scale of the vast majority of pyramids. Many scholars think that after Khafre the emphasis turned to temples and their decoration.

As they observed the sun and the other objects in the sky, the astronomer- priests of the popular sun god Re at Heliopolis made many discoveries. They documented the movements of celestial bodies, and learned to calculate the passage of time based on the rising and setting of stars and constellations. They understood the geometry of angles and were skilled at surveying land. They guarded their scientific knowledge closely. Because its priests possessed so much useful knowledge, the solar cult became wealthy and powerful. The first kings of the Fifth Dynasty finally realized that building lavish tombs for themselves while ignoring the rest of the country was not wise. They quickly saw the advantages of being associated with Re’s powerful cult. Fifth Dynasty king Userkaf built the first temple to the sun god. His successors built many more.

Fifth Dynasty pyramids were not as well built at their Fourth Dynasty predecessors: They were constructed with rubble or mud-brick cores covered with stone casings. When the outer stone was stolen for other buildings (as always happened, sooner or later), the pyramids crumbled. Since the pyramids could not be relied on to stand forever, kings started looking to magic to ensure a comfortable afterlife. The tomb of the last king of the Fifth Dynasty, Unas, contains the first known example of the Pyramid Texts, which are hundreds of magic spells to help the dead king navigate the dangers of the underworld on his way to paradise.