Giza pyramid complex

Posted by admin on Mart 24th, 2008 at 06:05pm

The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. This complex of ancient monuments is located some eight kilometres (5 mi) inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 25 kilometres (12.5 mi) southwest of Cairo city centre. The Great pyramid is the only remaining monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Description

This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred metres to the south-west, and the relatively modest-size Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus) a few hundred meters further south-west, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as “queens” pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids. The Great Sphinx lies on the east side of the complex, facing east. Current consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx is that of Khafre. Associated with these royal monuments are the tombs of high officials and much later burials and monuments (from the New Kingdom onwards), signifying the reverence to those buried in the necropolis.

Of the three, only Menkaure’s Pyramid is seen today without any of its original polished limestone casing, with Khafre’s Pyramid retaining a prominent display of casing stones at its apex, while Khufu’s Pyramid maintains a more limited collection at its base. It is interesting to note that Khafre’s Pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu Pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction – it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume. The most active phase of construction here was in the 25th century BC. The ancient remains of the Giza necropolis have attracted visitors and tourists since classical antiquity, when these Old Kingdom monuments were already over 2,000 years old. It was popularised in Hellenistic times when the Great Pyramid was listed by Antipater of Sidon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Today it is the only one of the ancient Wonders still in existence.

Due largely to 19th-century images, the pyramids of Giza are generally thought of by foreigners as lying in a remote, desert location, even though they are located in what is now part of the most populous city in Africa [1]. Consequently, urban development reaches right up to the perimeter of the antiquities site, to the extent that in the 1990s, Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants opened across the road [2]. The ancient sites in the Memphis area, including those at Giza, together with those at Saqqara, Dahshur, Abu Ruwaysh, and Abusir, were collectively declared a World Heritage Site in 1979 [3].

 Construction of the Great Pyramid

Further information: Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

 Astronomy

The sides of all three of the Giza pyramids were astronomically oriented to be north-south and east-west within a small fraction of a degree. Among recent attempts ^[1] to explain such a clearly deliberate pattern are those of S. Haack, O. Neugebauer, K. Spence, D. Rawlins, K. Pickering, and J. Belmonte.

 Alternative theories

Group photo of Australian soldiers on the Great Pyramid of Giza (1915)

Although hypotheses put forward by Robert Bauval are by nature universally regarded by mainstream archaeologists ^[2] and Egyptologists as a form of pseudoscience, Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994) proposed that the three main pyramids at Giza form a pattern on the ground that is virtually identical to that of the three belt stars of the Orion constellation. Using computer software, they wound back the Earth’s skies to ancient times, and witnessed a ‘locking-in’ of the mirror image between the pyramids and the stars at the same time as Orion reached a turning point at the bottom of its precessional shift up and down the meridian. This conjunction, they claimed, was exact, and it occurred precisely at the date 10,450 BC. And they claim that Orion is “West” of the Milky Way, in proportion to Giza and the Nile.^[3]

Further reading

• Lehner, Dr. Mark, “The Complete Pyramids“, Thames & Hudson, 1997. ISBN 0-500-05084-8.
• Manley, Bill (Ed.), “The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt“, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05123-2.
• “Mysteries of Egypt” National Geographic Society, 1999. ISBN 0-7922-9752-0.
• Rhys-Davies, John, “Riddles of the monument builders: Who built the Sphinx“, Time-Life Video, 1995.
• Wirsching, Armin, “Die Pyramiden von Giza - Mathematik in Stein gebaut: Stationen der Sonne auf ihrem Lauf durch das Jahr“, Books on Demand, 2006. ISBN 978-8334-5492-9.
• Stadelmann, Rainer, “Die aegyptischen Pyramiden. Vom Ziegelbau zum Weltwunder“, Von Zabern, Mainz, 1997. ISBN 3-8053-1142-7.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tags: complex, Giza, pyramid

Under Travel