[ back ]
The Pyramids of Giza & The Father of Terror Egypt, Part 10
(by Patti Day-Miller - August 02, 2010)
It was nearly 5,000 years ago when Giza, a suburb of Cairo, became the royal burial ground for Memphis, then the capital of Egypt (about 25 miles south of Cairo). In less than 100 years three pyramid complexes were constructed to serve as tombs for the kings. They stand at the edge of the Western Desert, where ancient belief thought the Kingdom of the Dead began. Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the pyramids alone have survived.
The kings body was brought by boat from Memphis to a valley temple, prepared for burial, then transported to a pyramid. The pyramids at Giza were originally topped with gold-covered capstones, which shone under the first rays of the sun, and their polished outer limestone casing would have made them gleam like giant crystals. The mortuary temples (attached to the pyramids) were maintained for years after entombment with priests making daily offerings to the deceased god-king. A long causeway connected the mortuary temple to the valley temple. The kings close family members were buried in smaller, satellite pyramids (now called the Queens Pyramids) and low, box-like stone tombs called mastabas.
The Great Pyramid of Cheops was built during the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC) using limestone from the nearby quarries and granite (for the interior burial chambers) from the quarries around Aswan, nearly 500 miles away. The estimated 2.3 million blocks of stone weigh on average 2.5 tons, with some being larger. It covers 13.5 acres at the base, and is 449 feet tall. Until the 19th century, it was the tallest building in the world. Yet for such a huge structure, the precision is amazing—only 2 inches in length is the largest difference between the four sides! (We did not enter the pyramid, since the entryway to the burial chambers is very long and very steep and the temperatures that day very hot, but some on our tour did.)
To the southwest of the Great Pyramid sits the Pyramid of Chephren. Although it looks larger than the Great Pyramid, it is actually smaller, and only appears bigger because it is built on slightly higher ground and still has part of its limestone casing near the top. It is 50 feet shorter at the base and is 10 feet shorter in height than the Great Pyramid. It is simpler inside, having only one tomb chamber in which the kings granite sarcophagus remains.
The last pyramid built on the Giza Plateau, the Pyramid of Myceirnus is much smaller than the other two, having a base area less than a quarter of them. Historians are not certain why that is, but are now leaning to the theory that priorities changed—the pyramid was smaller, but the valley and mortuary temples were larger. Perhaps this was the beginning of the process that eventually saw pyramids abandoned, in favor of the secret, rock-cut tombs with separate large, elaborate mortuary temples that we visited in the Valley of the Kings.
On the south side of the Great Pyramid is the pod-shaped Solar Boat Museum. It holds a full-size ancient Egyptian boat discovered in pieces in 1954, lying in a pit beside the pyramid. It took 14 years to put its 1200 pieces of cedar wood together again using only ancient Egyptian materials of grass rope and wooden pegs. It is called a solar boat because it resembles the vessels in the tomb paintings, which depict the sun god making his daily trip across the sky.
Marks on the wood suggest that the boat had been sailed. It is thought that it might have served as the funerary barque (boat) carrying Cheops body from Memphis to his tomb at Giza. A similar unexcavated boat is in a pit nearby, which can be viewed for an additional fee. In total, five boats were found buried around the pyramid, and it is believed that these were buried to provide transportation for the pharaoh in the next world.
We then bussed to the other side of the pyramids to view The Father of Terror, as the Egyptians call The Sphinx. This is the earliest known Egyptian sculpture and is believed to have been constructed around 2500 BC. It stands 66 feet high with an elongated body of a lion with outstretched paws and a royal headdress around the face of a man, believed to be Chephren. It is carved from an outcropping of natural rock at the end of the causeway going to Chephrens pyramid, with blocks added to the base, which were added from the 18th dynasty onward. It is missing a nose and the false beard, which came off sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries. Part of the beard is now in the British Museum in London.
Some of our tour-mates, the night before, attended the Light and Sound Show, which is narrated by The Sphinx, and said that it was every bit as good as the Light and Sound Show at the Temple of Karnak. If we had it to do over again, we would attend both.
One thing that I will always remember at The Sphinx is buying postcards from a young boy. I asked him his age, and he replied, Ten. He added that he would be in school the next day, and that there was no school that weekend day. He also helped Dave adjust his Egyptian headgear that had just been purchased. The boy looked healthy and happy enough, but still I wished that, at age 10, he could have been riding a bike or engaging in some form of play, rather than having to work on his day off from school.
From The Sphinx we were bussed a short distance to Andreas, an authentic Egyptian restaurant, where we had one of my two most favorite meals of our entire trip! Plus, we even saw our bread being baked in the outside ovens and our chicken being roasted on a spit outside in the courtyard. One doesnt order off a menu there—food just arrives at the table. First soup, then a large variety of mezze (appetisers) including beets, olives, meatballs (Dave says the best he has ever eaten), plus hummus (a dip made from fava beans and herbs) and wonderful fresh baked breads, and very delicious roasted chicken. I cant remember our dessert, but Im pretty sure that I was too full to have eaten much of mine.
Sometime that morning we also went to a perfume/oils shop where, after hearing an interesting presentation, which included being anointed with various scents, many purchased fragrant remembrances of that stop.
It was then back onto our bus for our ride to Cairos Midan Tahrir (Liberation Square) where we would tour the terracotta-red, neoclassical Egyptian Museum.
[ back ]
