The Great Pyramids in Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20-year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories about the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction hypotheses are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place. There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was unfinished. The so-called Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber are higher up within the pyramid structure. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only pyramid in Egypt known to contain both ascending and descending passages. The main part of the Giza complex is a setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite" pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles

Building of the Great Pyramid of Giza:

It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 14 to 20 year period. Khufu's vizier, Hemon, or Hemiunu, is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid.It is thought that, at construction, the Great Pyramid was originally 280 Egyptian cubits tall, 146.5 metres (480.6 ft) but with erosion and absence of its pyramidion, its present height is 138.8 metres (455.4 ft). Each base side was 440 royal cubits, 230.4 metres (755.9 ft) long. A royal cubit measures 0.524 metres.The mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes. The volume, including an internal hillock, is roughly 2,500,000 cubic meters. Based on these estimates, building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tonnes of stone every day. Alternatively looking at the construction from another angle, since the Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving little more than 12 of the blocks in place each hour, day and night, during the 20 year period. The first precision measurements of the pyramid were done by Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1880–82 and published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. Almost all reports are based on his measurements. Many of the casing stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid were fit together with extremely high precision. Based on measurements taken on the north eastern casing stones, the mean opening of the joints are only 0.5 millimeters wide (1/50th of an inch). The pyramid remained the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, unsurpassed until the 160-meter-tall spire of Lincoln Cathedral was completed c. 1300. The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimeters long. The base is horizontal and flat to within 21 mm. The sides of the square base are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points (within 4 minutes of arc) based on true north, not magnetic north, and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 . The completed design dimensions, as suggested by Petrie's survey and subsequent studies, are estimated to have originally been 280 cubits high by 440 cubits long at each of the four sides of its base. The proportion 440/280 = 11/7 equate to π/2 to an accuracy of better than 0.05% (corresponding to the well-known approximation of π as 22/7). Some Egyptologists consider this to have been the result of deliberate design proportion. Verner wrote, "We can conclude that although the ancient Egyptians could not precisely define the value of π, in practice they used it". Petrie, author of Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, who was the first accurate surveyor of Giza and the excavator and surveyor of the Pyramid of Meidum, concluded: "but these relations of areas and of circular ratio are so systematic that we should grant that they were in the builders design". Earlier in the chapter he wrote more specifically, that: “We conclude therefore that the approximation of 7 to 22 as the ratio of diameter to circumference was recognised”. These proportions equated to the four outer faces sloping by 51.843° or 51° 50′ 34″, which would have been understood and expressed by the Ancient Egyptians as a seked slope of 5½ palms

Materials:

The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million limestone blocks with most believed to have been transported from nearby quarries. The Tura limestone used for the casing was quarried across the river. The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tonnes and were transported more than 500 miles away from Aswan. Traditionally, ancient Egyptians cut stone blocks by hammering wooden wedges into the stone which were then soaked with water. As the water was absorbed, the wedges expanded, causing the rock to crack. Once they were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.

Casing stones:

At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced by white 'casing stones' – slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone. These were carefully cut to what is approximately a face slope with a seked of 5½ palms to give the required dimensions. Visibly, all that remains is the underlying stepped core structure seen today. In AD 1300, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were then carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 to build mosques and fortresses in nearby Cairo. The stones can still be seen as parts of these structures to this day. Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the

pyramids left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones, which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site. Nevertheless, a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen to this day in situ around the base of the Great Pyramid, and display the same workmanship and precision as has been reported for centuries. Petrie also found a different orientation in the core and in the casing measuring 193 centimeters ± 25 centimeters. He suggested a redetermination of north was made after the construction of the core, but a mistake was made, and the casing was built with a different orientation.Petrie related the precision of the casing stones as to being "equal to opticians' work of the present day, but on a scale of acres." and "to place such stones in exact contact would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the joints seems almost impossible."

Construction theories:

Many alternative, often contradictory, theories have been proposed regarding the Pyramid's construction techniques. Not all even agree that the blocks were quarried; Davidovits claims that they were cast in situ using a "limestone concrete", a theory which is rejected by other Egyptologists. The rest accept that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry, being only unable to agree whether they were dragged, lifted or even rolled into place. The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern Egyptologists accept that it was built by many tens of thousands of skilled workers. They camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of paying taxes until the construction was completed. Their cemeteries were discovered in 1990 by archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner. Verner posited that the labor was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 100,000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 20,000 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers. One mystery of the pyramid's construction is its planning. John Romer suggests that they used the same method that had been used for earlier and later constructions, laying out parts of the plan on the ground at a 1 to 1 scale. He writes that "such a working diagram would also serve to generate the architecture of the pyramid with precision unmatched by any other means." He devotes a chapter of his book to the physical evidence that there was such a plan. The 1925 Cole survey discovered as part of some planning an actual Original Builder's Mark, engraved into the pavement perpendicular to the N face.

Interior:

Diagram of the interior structures of the Great Pyramid. The inner line indicates the pyramid's present profile, the outer line indicates the original profile.

The original entrance to the Great Pyramid is 17m (55’7”) vertically above ground level and 7.29m (23'11”) east of the center line of the pyramid. From this original entrance there is a Descending Passage 0.96m (3'2") high and 1.04m (3'5") wide which goes down at an angle of 26° 31'23" through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it. After 105.23m (345’3”) the passage becomes level and continues for an additional 8.84m (29’) to the lower Chamber, which appears not to have been finished. There is a continuation of the horizontal passage in the south wall of the lower chamber; there is also a pit dug in the floor of the chamber. Some Egyptologists suggest this Lower Chamber was intended to be the original burial chamber, but that King Khufu later changed his mind and wanted it to be higher up in the pyramid. 28.2m (98’7”) from the entrance is a square hole in the roof of the Descending Passage. Originally concealed with a slab of stone, this is the beginning of the Ascending Passage. The Ascending Passage is 39.3m (129') long, as wide and high as the Descending Passage and slopes up at almost precisely the same angle. The lower end the Ascending Passage is closed by three huge blocks of granite, each about 1.5m (5') long. At the start of the Grand Gallery on the right-hand side there is a hole cut in the wall (and now blocked by chicken wire). This is the start of a vertical shaft which follows an irregular path through the masonry of the pyramid to join the Descending Passage. Also at the start of the Grand Gallery there is a Horizontal Passage leading to the "Queen's Chamber". The passage is 1.1m (3'8") high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage is 1.73m (5'8") high. The Queen's Chamber is exactly half-way between the north and south faces of the pyramid and measures 5.75m (18'10") north to south, 5.23m (17'2") east to west and has a pointed roof with an apex 6.23m (20'5") above the floor. At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 4.67m (15'4") high. The original depth of the niche was 1.04m (3'5"), but has since been deepened by treasure hunters. In the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber there are shafts, which unlike those in the King's Chamber that immediately slope upwards, are horizontal for around 2m (6') before sloping upwards. The horizontal distance was cut in 1872 by a British engineer, Waynman Dixon, who believed on the analogy of the King's Chamber that such shafts must exist. He was proved right, but because the shafts are not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid or the Queen's Chamber, their purpose is unknown. At the end of one of his shafts, Dixon discovered a ball of black diorite and a bronze implement of unknown purpose. Both objects are currently in the British Museum. The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1992 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot of his own design which he called "Upuaut 2". He discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by limestone "doors" with two eroded copper "handles". Some years later the National Geographic Society created a similar robot which drilled a small hole in the southern door, only to find another larger door behind it. The northern passage, which was difficult to navigate because of twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a door. The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage, but is 8.6m (28') high and 46.68m (153') long. At the base it is 2.06m (6'9") wide, but after 2.29m (7'6") the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 7.6 cm (3") on each side. There are seven of these steps, so at the top the Grand Gallery is only 1.04m (3'5") wide. It is roofed by slabs of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor of the gallery, so that each stone fits into a slot cut in the top of the gallery like the teeth of a ratchet. The purpose was to have each block supported by the wall of the Gallery rather than resting on the block beneath it, which would have resulted in an unacceptable cumulative pressure at the lower end of the Gallery. At the upper end of the Gallery on the right-hand side there is a hole near the roof which opens into a short tunnel by which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers. The other Reliving Chambers were discovered in 1837/8 by Colonel Howard Vyse and J. S. Perring, who dug tunnels upwards using blasting powder. The floor of the Grand Gallery consists of a shelf or step on either side, 51 cm (1'8") wide, leaving a lower ramp 1.04m (3'5") wide between them. In the shelves there are 54 slots, 27 on each side matched by vertical and horizontal slots in the walls of the Gallery. These form a cross shape that rises out of the slot in the shelf. The purpose of these slots is not known, but the central gutter in the floor of the Gallery, which is the same width as the Ascending Passage, has led to speculation that the blocking stones were stored in the Grand Gallery and the slots held wooden beams to restrain them from sliding down the passage. This, in turn, has led to the proposal that originally many more than 3 blocking stones were intended, to completely fill the Ascending Passage. At the top of the Grand Gallery there is a step giving onto a horizontal passage approximately 1.02m (3'4") long, in which can be detected four slots, three of which were probably intended to hold granite portcullises. Fragments of granite found by Petrie in the Descending Passage may have come from these now vanished doors. The King's Chamber is 10.47m (34'4") from east to west and 5.234m (17'2") north to south. It has a flat roof 5.974m (19'1") above the floor. 0.91m (3') above the floor there are two narrow shafts in the north and south walls (one is now filled by an extractor fan to try to circulate air in the pyramid). The purpose of these shafts is not clear: they appear to be aligned on stars or areas of the northern and southern skies, but on the other hand one of them follows a dog-leg course through the masonry so there was not intention to directly sight stars through them. They did not appear to contribute to air circulation, so the most likely explanation is a ritual one associated with the ascension of the king’s spirit. The King's Chamber is entirely faced with granite, the blocks of stone being fitted with such precision that it is impossible to insert a piece of paper between them. Above the roof, which is formed of nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons, are five compartments known as Relieving Chambers. The first four, like the King's Chamber, have flat roofs formed by the floor of the chamber above, but the final chamber has a pointed roof. Vyse suspected the presence of upper chambers when he found that he could push a long reed through a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. From lower to upper, the chambers are known as "Davidson Chamber", "Wellington Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber" and "Campbell's Chamber". It is believed that the compartments were intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of a roof collapsing under the weight of stone above the Chamber. As the chambers were not intended to be seen, they were not finished in any way and a few of the stones still retain mason's marks painted on them. One of the stones in Campbell's Chamber bears a mark, apparently the name of a work gang, which incorporates the only reference in the pyramid to Pharaoh Khufu. The only object in the King's Chamber is a rectangular granite "sarcophagus", one corner of which is broken. The sarcophagus is slightly larger than the Ascending Passage, which indicates that it must have been placed in the Chamber before the roof was put in place. Unlike the fine masonry of the walls of the Chamber, the sarcophagus is roughly finished, with saw marks visible in several places. This is in contrast with the finely finished and decorated sarcophagi found in other pyramids of the same period. Petrie suggested that such a sarcophagus was intended but was lost in the river on the way north from Aswan and a hurriedly made replacement was used instead. This ingenious theory does not explain why the sarcophagus could not have been finished in situ.

Entrance:

Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel dug by workmen employed by Caliph al-Ma'mun around AD 820. The tunnel is cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid for approximately 27m (90'), then turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. Unable to remove these stones, the workmen tunnelled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point, but access is usually forbidden. In recent years entrance to the pyramid has been restricted to groups of 100 morning and afternoon. As tickets are highly prized, those wishing to enter must queue outside the right ticket office for an hour or more before it opens. Under

Zahi Hawass, photography inside the pyramid is now strictly forbidden.

King's Chamber and the Golden Mean:

At the end of the lengthy series of entrance ways leading into the interior is the structure's main chamber, the King's Chamber. This granite room was originally 10 × 20 × 11.4 cubits, or about 5.235 m × 10.47 m × 5.974 m, comprising a double 10 × 10 cubit square floor, and a height equal to half the double square's diagonal. Some believed that the height was consistent with the geometric methods for determining the Golden Ratio φ (phi) as the height is approximately phi times the width minus ½, while phi can be derived from other dimensions of the pyramid, but evidence from Petrie’s surveys and later conclusions drawn by others shows that the circular proportions were deliberately incorporated into the internal and external designs of the Great Pyramid by its architects and builders for symbolic reasons. The so called golden ratio phi simply exists in the proportions of the architecture as an inadvertent by-product of the inclusion of the circular proportions. The reason for the inadvertent inclusion is that phi, the golden ratio, has a naturally occurring mathematical relation to the circular ratio pi that is unrelated to the architecture or geometry, and which was unknown to the pyramid's builders. Petrie confirmed that the King’s Chamber was a triumph of Egyptian geometry, the ratio of its length to the circuit of the side wall being the same as the ratio of 1 to pi, and that the exterior of the pyramid had been built to the same proportions

Pyramid complex:

The Great Pyramid is surrounded by the usual complex of buildings. The Pyramid Temple, which stood on the east side of the pyramid and measured 52.2m (171') north to south and 40m (132') east to west, has almost entirely disappeared apart from the black basalt paving. There are only a few remnants of the causeway which linked the pyramid with the valley and the presumed Valley Temple which, if it exists, is buried beneath the village of Kafr es-Samman. On the south side are the subsidiary pyramids, popularly known as Queens' Pyramids. Three remain standing to nearly full height but the fourth was so ruined that its existence was not suspected until the recent discovery of the first course of stones and the remains of the capstone. Herodotus claims that Khufu was a tyrant who prostituted his daughter to raise money to build the Great Pyramid. She, however, requested a stone from each customer and used them to build her smaller pyramid. There is no evidence to support this tale (though it may reflect an arranged marriage advantageous for Khufu) and the Queens' Pyramids may not have housed members of the court. Some have suggested that they corresponded to the later canopic jars for burial of the royal viscera - heart, lungs, liver and entrails. Hidden beneath the paving around the pyramid was the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, sister-wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu. Discovered by accident by the Reisner expedition, the burial was intact, though the carefully sealed coffin proved to be empty. Reisner suggests that Hetepheres was originally buried near her husband's pyramid but the tomb was robbed and the mummy destroyed. Khufu transferred the burial to his own pyramid complex, but the priests responsible for the burial did not dare tell him that his mother's body was missing. There are three boat-shaped pits around the pyramid, of a size and shape to have held complete boats, though so shallow that any superstructure must have been removed or disassembled. It is not clear how these pits were sealed, as the span is too large for stone slabs, which may be why they were found empty apart from ropes and a few fragments of gilded wood found in one pit by Reisner. However in May, 1954, the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh discovered a fourth pit, a long, narrow rectangle, still covered with slabs of stone weighing up to 15 tons. Inside were 1224 pieces of wood, the longest 23m (75') long, the shortest 10 cm (4"). These were entrusted to a native boat builder, Haj Ahmed Yusuf, who slowly and methodically worked out how the pieces fit together. The entire process, including conservation and straightening of the warped wood, took fourteen years. The result is a spectacular cedar-wood boat 43.6m (143') long, its timbers held together by ropes. It is not clear how the boat was made water-tight. Early theories that soaking in water caused the wood to swell and thus become water-tight did not prove effective with the modern reconstruction "Horizon of Min" based on boats found in the Wadi Gawasis excavation and the reconstructers had recourse to traditional fibre caulking reinforced by beeswax. There is no sign of such measures on the Khufu boat, which may simply mean that the boat was never floated. The name "Djedefre", Khufu's son and successor, is found on some of the slabs of stone that sealed the pit, indicating that the boat was put there by Khufu's son. The reconstructed boat is housed in a special boat-shaped, air-conditioned museum beside the pyramid. During construction of this museum, which stands above the boat pit, a second sealed boat pit was discovered. It was deliberately left unopened in the hope that future excavation techniques will allow more information to be recovered, however a hole was drilled in the sealing stones and air extracted from the pit in the hope of obtaining information about the ancient atmosphere. However as the air was found to be identical to modern air it was concluded that the pit is not hermetically sealed. The Gizeh pyramid complex, which includes the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, is surrounded by a cyclopaean stone wall, outside which Mark Lehner has discovered the town where the workers on the pyramids were housed. Among the discoveries are communal sleeping quarters, bakeries, breweries and kitchens (with evidence showing that bread and fish were staples of the diet), a hospital and a cemetery (where some of the skeletons were found with signs of trauma associated with accidents on a building site).

Looting:

Although succeeding pyramids were smaller, pyramid building continued until the end of the Middle Kingdom. However, as authors Briar and Hobbs claim, "all the pyramids were robbed" by the New Kingdom, when the construction of royal tombs in a desert valley, now known as the Valley of the Kings, began. Joyce Tyldesley states that the Great Pyramid itself "is known to have been opened and emptied by the Middle Kingdom", before the Arab caliph Abdullah al-Mamun entered the pyramid around AD 820.

Read About:
Sphinx Move Close ! Sphinx In a depression to the south of Chephren's pyramid sits a creature with a human head and a lion's body. The name 'sphinx' which means 'strangler' was first given by the Greeks to a fabulous creature which had the head of a woman and the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. The sphinx appears to have started in Egypt in the form of a sun god. The Egyptian sphinx is usually a head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion . There are, however, sphinxes with ram heads that are associated with the god Amun. The Great Sphinx is to the northeast of Chephren's Valley Temple. Where it sits was once a quarry. Chephren's workers shaped the stone into the lion and gave it their king's face over 4,500 years ago. The sphinx faces the rising sun with a temple to the front which resembles the sun temples which were built later by the kings of the 5th Dynasty. The figure was buried for most of its life in the sand. King Thutmose IV (1425 - 1417 BC) placed a stela between the front paws of the figure. It describes when Thutmose, while still a prince, 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 because it was choking the sphinx. The sphinx told him that if he did this, he would be rewarded with a kingship. Thutmose carried out this request and the sphinx held up his end of the deal. The sphinx is built of soft sandstone and would have disappeared long ago had it not been buried for so long. The body is 200 feet (60m) in length and 65 feet (20m) tall. The face of the sphinx is 13 feet (4m) wide and its eyes are 6 feet (2m) high. Part of the uraeus (sacred cobra), the nose and the ritual beard are now missing. . The beard from the sphinx is displayed in the British Museum. The statue is crumbling today because of the wind, humidity and the smog from Cairo. Attempts to restore it have often caused more harm than good. No one can be certain who the figure is to personify. It is possible that it is Chephren. If that is so, it would then be the oldest known royal portrait in such large scale. Some say that it was built after the pyramid of Chephren was complete. It may have been set as a sort of scarecrow to guard his tomb. Still others say it is the face of his guardian deity, rather than Chephren himself. The image of the sphinx is a depiction of royal power. Only a pharaoh or an animal could be shown this way, with the animal representing a protective deity. .. READ MORE !	Solar Boat Move Close ! Solar Boat In 1950, Kamal el-Mallakh an architect and archaeologist, was working as an Antiquities Inspector at Giza, when he first noticed a thin line of mortar which delineated the edge of a pair of long narrow pits, end to end, on the south side of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. At the time the area was being cleared for a tourist road and when the men dug further they uncovered 41 huge slabs of limestone in the eastern pit (the western one contained 40 slabs) and a mason's mark with a cartouche of Djedefre, Khufu's successor. The stonework was at first thought to be of little interest and it took Kamal el-Mallakh four years to persuade his superiors that the slabs should be further investigated. On May 26 1954, the team began to dig and eventually Mr el-Mallakh was lowered into a hole in one of the blocks. His first sensation was the sweet smell of cedarwood and a great sense of fulfilment - then with the use of a torch and a mirror he caught sight of the large oar of a full-sized dismantled boat. The pit had been airtight and the boat seemed to be in a remarkable state of preservation, arranged in thirteen neatly piled layers, complete with ropes for rigging and pieces of matting. The boat was laboriously removed from its pit, piece by piece, following preliminary consolidation of the cloth and matting which covered it and in 1958 reconstruction of the boat, by Hag Ahmed Youssef Moustafa the Antiquities Service's principal restorer, was able to begin. This consisted of re-assembling the 1224 individual pieces of cedar, acacia and other elements in a painstaking operation rather like putting together a jig-saw puzzle without a picture. The ancient builders had helpfully indicated on some of the pieces which parts of the craft they had come from, but the work still took over ten years to complete and was finally fully re-assembled in 1968. No nails were used in the construction and the planking was assembled through an ingenious system of stitching through holes with ropes of vegetable fibres. When the wood was swollen by water the ropes would tighten and make the boat watertight. The solar boat measures 43.3m long, 5.9m wide, has a draft of 1.48m and an estimated displacement of around 45 tons. It resembles paintings and models of boats which have survived since ancient times, with a large central panelled cabin, 9m long, an open canopy supported by poles and a smaller one at the fore which was probably for the captain's use. It was steered by five pairs of oars plus one pair at the stern to act as a rudder. It's stem and stern were fashioned in the form of papyrus stalks, as though intended to represent the type of papyrus boat used throughout ancient Egyptian history. . .. READ MORE !	Memphis Move Close ! Memphis Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo. According to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BCE. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an important city throughout ancient Mediterranean history. It occupied a strategic position at the mouth of the Nile delta, and was home to feverish activity. Its principal port, Peru-nefer, harboured a high density of workshops, factories, and warehouses that distributed food and merchandise throughout the ancient kingdom. During its golden age, Memphis thrived as a regional centre for commerce, trade, and religion. Memphis was believed to be under the protection of the god Ptah, the patron of craftsmen. Its great temple, Hout-ka-Ptah (meaning "Castle of the ka of Ptah"), was one of the most prominent structures in the city. The name of this temple, rendered in Greek as Aί γυ πτoς (Ai-gy-ptos) by the historian Manetho, is believed to be the etymological origin of the modern English name Egypt. The history of Memphis is closely linked to that of the country itself. Its eventual downfall is believed to be due to the loss of its economical significance in late antiquity, following the rise of coastal Alexandria. Its religious significance also diminished after the abandonment of the ancient religion following the Edict of Thessalonica. The ruins of the former capital today offer fragmented evidence of its magnificent past. They have been preserved, along with the pyramid complex at Giza, as a World Heritage Site since 1979. The site is open to the public as an open-air museum. Memphis has had several names during its history of almost four millennia. Its Ancient Egyptian name was Inebou-Hedjou, and later, Ineb-Hedj (translated as "the white walls"), because of its majestic fortifications and crenulations. Because of its size, the city also came to be known by various other names that were actually the names of neighbourhoods or districts that enjoyed considerable prominence at one time or another. For example, according to a text of the First Intermediate Period, it was known Djed-Sut ("everlasting place"), which is the name of the pyramid of Teti. The city was also at one point referred to as Ankh-Tawy (meaning "That which binds the Two Lands"), stressing the strategic position of the city between Upper and Lower Egypt. This name appears to date from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1640 BCE), and is frequently found in ancient Egyptian texts. Some scholars maintain that this name was actually that of the western district of the city that lay between the great Temple of Ptah and the necropolis at Saqqara, an area that contained a sacred tree. At the beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BCE)... READ MORE !	Sakkara Move Close ! Sakkara Sakkara is one section of the great necropolis of Memphis, the Old Kingdom capital and the kings of the 1st Dynasty as well as that of the 2nd Dynasty are mostly buried in this section of the Memphis necropolis. It has been of constant interest to Egyptologists. Three major discoveries have recently been made at Sakkara, including a prime minister’s tomb, a queen’s pyramid, and the tomb of the son of a dynasty-founding king. Each discovery has a fascinating story, with many adventures for the archaeologists as they revealed the secrets of the past. Sakkara is best known for the Step Pyramid, the oldest known of Egypt's 97 pyramids. It was built for King Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty by the architect and genius Imhotep, who designed it and its surrounding complex to be as grand as it was unique and revolutionary. Imhotep was the first to build stone tombs in honor of the king's majesty. His many titles included 'Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt', 'Administrator of the Great Palace', and 'Imhotep the Builder, the Sculptor, the Maker of Stone Vessels'. Imhotep may have also designed the pyramid of Djoser's successor, Sekhemkhet. 5th Dynasty kings such as Userkaf (pyramid) and Djedkare-Izezi built their pyramids at Sakkara. The last king of 5th Dynasty, Unas, decorated his burial chamber with the famous 'Pyramid Texts', spells written to help the king ascend to the heavens and descend again, which reveal the relationship of the king to the gods. 6th Dynasty kings such as Pepi I, Merenre and Pepi II built their pyramids to the south of Sakkara. Sakkara is also famous for its private Old Kingdom tombs (see our feature story on 1st Dynasty Tombs), which contain beautiful and revealing scenes: men force- feeding geese, cattle crossing a canal, men dragging a statue on a sled to the tomb. The best-known tombs are those of Ti, Kagemni, the 'Two Brothers', and Ptahhotep; the most famous is that of Meruruka. During the New Kingdom (c 1570-332 BC) Memphis took second place to Thebes as Egypt's capital. But although the administration was established at Thebes, the government officials who ruled Upper Egypt lived in Memphis and were buried at Sakkara. Here Geoffrey Martin found the famous tomb that Horemheb built for himself before he became pharaoh, while he was still the overseer of Tutankhamun's army. Martin also found the tomb of Mava, Tutankhamun's Treasurer. The first of the recent discoveries at Sakkara dates from the New Kingdom. This site is being developed by the French Archaeological Mission of the Bubasteion at Sakkara under the direction of Alain Zivie, Director of Research at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique at Paris. Zivie started work at a place in Sakkara called Abwab el-Qotat, 'The Doors of the Cats', so called because hundreds of cat mummies were found here. The Ancient Egyptians worshipped the cat goddess Bastet, whose main place of worship was at Tel-Basta near Zagazig in the east of the Delta. At Sakkara her sanctuary or Bubasteion stood above a cliff in which some New Kingdom tombs were cut, some of which were re-used much later for cat burials connected with the Bubasteion.. READ MORE !	Sound & Light Show Move Close ! Sound & Light Show Have you ever wondered how life was thousands of years ago? This question and others similar thoughts inspired creators to accompany you for a short while to the past, by introducing the sound and light show. It is a magnificent show that brings creatively to life the rule of ancient Egyptians. The artists skillfully created a show to present images of all historical eras. For an hour, you enjoy the sound and light show near the pyramids and the Sphinx. The history is re-told by the Sphinx, telling you the most ancient secrets of the world. In the 21st century, you go back in time thousands of years ago to see how they were built and survived! The show manages to convey the great humane spirit and creativity behind their creation. There you will find the pyramid of Khufu, the Immortal and Sky Grabber, close to its some alters, where the wood-made boats of Khufu are placed, which KING Khufu would use to sail on his journey to immortality. Also, you will find the pyramid built by Khufu’s son Khafre, who made his own smaller and shorter than his father's pyramid; we can see Khafre's face, engraved on a sheet of green diorite stone, so lively as if the artist just finished it. Then, last but not least the pyramid of Menkaure, who was like his father modest and decent enough to make his pyramid smaller than the other two. In one hour, the show would narrate the history of those great kings, their secrets, legends and secrets of ancient history. Every visit to the pyramids and the sound and light shows is magnificent experience. We did not know how the great pyramids were built, the Sphinx may remain a mystery, one of the wonders of the ancient world. We visit the pyramids at the twenty-century, thousands of years after their construction and many years to come, and still they vanquish us with their size and the great human spirit behind them. Pyramid of Khufu, known as the great Pyramid, was built on flat land of 230 square meters and 146.5 meters high when construction was completed about 2000 years BC. The Pyramid is unusual when compared with other pyramids and the other; the king's burial chamber is not below the surface or at the surface of the earth. This pyramid is composed of about 2.3 million block of stone with an average weight of 2.5 tons each. The most widely accepted idea for the establishment of that pyramids was it was built by teams of slaves over 30 years and under the gaze of the Pharaohs vigilance... READ MORE !	Downtown Move Close ! Cairo Downtown Downtown Cairo is the commercial heart of the modern city of Cairo, centered on Midan Talaat Harb and located to the east and north-east of Midan Tahrir (Tahrir Square). Formerly known as Midan Ismaili until it was renamed on the 2nd of September 1954 by president Nasser as Midan Tahrir "Liberation Square". Midan Tahrir was the location of Africa's first Hilton hotel, which today houses the Arab league building. The other imposing building on Midan Tahrir opposite the Egyptian museum, is the bay-fronted government Moga'maa building opened in 1952 which houses the bureaucratic offices, and where visitors can renew or extened their Egyptian visas. Although lacking in obvious tourist "attractions", Downtown is nonetheless the convenient location of many smaller hotels, retail outlets, travel agencies and restaurants that would be of interest to the traveller. The district's central location makes it, together with Midan Tahrir, a natural "jumping off point" for exploration of the city. The east end of Downtown is marked by Midan Ataba, the starting point of Islamic Cairo. Downtown Cairo's wide boulevards and streets were laid out in the late 19th century on the orders of Ismail the Magnificent, the Paris of Baron Hausmann being the obvious model for a ruler wishing to Europeanise his capital and his country. The architecture of many buildings is clearly redolent of Paris in the 1870s, if now somewhat run down from neglect and dusty from the Cairene climate. Downtown Cairo's main thoroughfare's are Sharia(St) Talaat Harb and Sharia(St) Qasr El-Nil, intersecting at the central junction of Midan Talaat Harb. Previously known as Soliman Pasha St, before being renamed on the 12th Feb 1964 to Talaat Harb St.The statue of the French General Jean Anthelme Seve also known as Soliman Pasha Al Faransawi, stood where the statue of Talaat Harb, founder of the Banque Misr now stands.Cairienes know this street by both names. Be warned, all hotels/hostels as well as individuals who work the street in downtown will try to sell you vastly overpriced tours around Egypt. They can be very forceful at times as the competition for tourists is strong and they want to take money from you before the next one gets to you. Do not let yourself be bullied into taking one of these until you have spoken to fellow travelers who can give you a more neutral opinion. In fact there are very few places in Egypt where it would be necessary to organize tours from the capital, and fewer where it would be financially advantageous. If you are a confident traveler and used to navigating your way around cities, then Cairo should be no different for you. Downtown has many small tourist oriented tour kiosks. The problem that visitors face is these tours often are inflated in price and always include at least 2 stops to 'uncles' perfume, papyrus, or handicraft shops. This takes away many hours from the tour itself and time at monuments in the hope that at least a few from the coach will buy something. .. READ MORE !