The Ancient Egyptian Pyramids: Everything you need to know

When we think about pyramids, the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Pyramid of Giza comes into our mind. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the most ancient construction among the seven wonders of the ancient world and is the primary tourist attraction of Egypt.

The pyramids are not only found in Egypt but are present all over the world. Apart from Egypt, there are hundreds of pyramids discovered around the globe out of which in Sudan 255 pyramids have been discovered along with China, America, Nigeria, Greece, Spain and many other places across the globe.

The most famous pyramids of Egypt are in Giza and are present near river Nile in the outskirts of modern-day Cairo.

The Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza

Why Pyramids were built?

As per Egyptian belief, the pyramids were built to act as a tomb for the rulers so-called Pharaohs. Ancient people of Egypt believed that after death also, some part of the spirit remains with the body. So, they used to mummify the body and bury gold, food, furniture, vessels etc. so that the king would need these in his afterlife. Near few of the Pharaoh pyramids, other pyramids were built for the relatives of the Pharaohs to accompany him in the afterlife.

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

As per the historians, few of the oldest Egyptian pyramids were built by the Pharaohs during 2200 – 2500 BC. The first Egyptian pyramid was built by Pharaoh Djoser and his principal architect Imhotep. The first Egyptian pyramid was a step pyramid consisting of six step structures called Mastabas which means “house of eternity”.

Certainly, this became a trend and many powerful rulers wanted to build pyramids for themselves.

The first pyramid in Egypt:

The first pyramid in Egypt is the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. The step pyramid consists of six steps with a height of 204 feet (62 meters). The base of the step pyramid was 358×411 feet (109×125 meters). The outer layer of the pyramid was covered with limestones which are no longer present these days. This oldest pyramid is present in the middle of temples, houses of priests and other administrative buildings of the Egypt empire covering around 40 acres and is surrounded by a 30 feet wall.

Out of all the pyramids, The Great Pyramid of Giza is among the seven wonders of the ancient world and was built on 1560 BC. Being the oldest structure in the seven wonders, The Great Pyramid of Giza was granted the Honorary status.

How the pyramids were built/How was the great pyramid built?

To answer this question, many architects, archeologist have spent a considerable number of years of their life and provided many theories.

Almost all the Egyptian pyramids were built differently. So, let’s consider the construction of the great pyramid of Giza. The great pyramid of Giza height was around 481 feet (146.5 meters) when it was built. The base of the great pyramid is square shaped and is almost 756 feet (230 meters) each side. The base corners of the pyramid were built perfectly to be 90 degrees.

Over 2 million stones are used to build the great pyramid with each block of stone weighing 12 to 20 tons. The largest blocks are placed at the bottom of the pyramid and with the pyramid height increases, the block size becomes smaller.

For building such a megastructure the Egyptians took around 20 years and the granite blocks used in the pyramid construction were transported from around 500 miles from the pyramid. Even with the current technology, building such a huge structure with the level of precision is not an easy task.

The outer surface of the pyramid was covered with a layer of fine quality white limestones. The remaining of the pyramid these days does not have limestone covering as all those costly limestones are stolen.

Archeologists believe that the stones were pulled to the top using some sort of ramp structure, but the actual process is still unknown.

Even though the inner blocks are not fit perfectly, the outer blocks were fit so perfect that even a credit card cannot be inserted between two stone blocks.

It was always mentioned that the Pharaohs used the slaves for building the pyramid which is not true and few historians believe that the people of Egypt voluntarily contributed for building the pyramid as they believed that the Pharaohs are the representatives of the sun god “Ra”.

Myths about the great pyramid of Egypt:

Inside the great pyramid, there are multiple discoveries like Limestone, Dolomite, Granite which few archeologist and researchers claim that the pyramid was built to act as a power generator house.

In the ancient Serapeum of Saqqara, present in the northwest of the great pyramid, there are 24 large granite boxes discovered each weighing roughly around 100 tons each. Few researchers believe that the hollow granite boxes were to bury bulls that Pharaoh’s used to pray; some suspect the generation of electrical power using these granite boxes.

In 1993, a mysterious chamber inside the great pyramid was discovered called Queen’s Chamber. In 2011, the Queen’s chamber was explored with a remote-controlled camera which provided astonishing videos. There were copper wires and inscriptions on the inner wall which engineers suspect that the ancient Egyptians used to know the generation of electric power. Somehow, the discoveries have vanished and there is no trace left today.

With the presence of multiple pyramids across the globe, few assume that the pyramids were built by the aliens and these huge structures act as a gateway to interact with the earth.

What is inside the pyramids?

The Egyptian pyramids which were supposed to be tombs do not contain any graves or at least no graves have been found till now inside the great pyramid.

As of now, there are three chambers discovered inside the great pyramid.

The upper room called the “King’s chamber”, the middle room called the “Queen’s chamber” and the “Unfinished chamber” under the pyramid. It is believed that there any many other rooms present inside the pyramid which is yet to be discovered.

Historian’s belief on Egyptian pyramids:

Historian Herodotus wrote in his book that there is a lake down below the “Unfinished chamber” inside the great pyramid which archeologists discarded for centuries saying, “how come it is possible to have a lake in the middle of the Sahara Desert?”. However, in recent discovery, the researchers found a manmade lake with clear water in it and having a sarcophagus inside the water. But as expected, there was nothing inside the sarcophagi.

Prophet Enoch had written around 300 books for the future mankind as mentioned in one of his book. According to him the engineering and the design came from the extra-terrestrials believed as god and the humans contributed the effort in building the pyramid. As per the historian Herodotus, Enoch knew the great flood will be coming and the pyramid only can survive. So, Enoch has kept all his books down below the pyramid. But, till now nobody knows for sure.

Many historians believe that the three pyramids at Giza are linked to the belt of Orion. As per Egyptian belief, the god Osiris represents Orion and his wife Isis is the star, Sirius.

On March 21st, from the two shafts of the great pyramid, the Orion belt, and the star Sirius can be seen. The precision with which the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids is still the biggest mystery and I believe in the stories of the Enoch who was taught by the god himself.

Pyramids and Orion belt
The Great Pyramid at Giza and the Orion belt (Illustrationary)

It is believed that the river of Nile used to pass through the pyramid complex of Giza thousands of years ago.

The great pyramid at the pyramid complex of Giza:

The pyramid complex of Giza consists of three pyramids.

The oldest one, the great pyramid was built by Pharaoh Khufu. The second pyramid is little smaller and was built by Khufu’s son Khafre. And the third pyramid is the smallest among the three and was built for Khafre’s son Menkaure.

There is a unique statue built near Khafre’s pyramid is the Great Sphinx. The Sphinx has a head of a man and the body of a lion. The height of the Sphinx is 66 feet and the 240 feet in length. It is believed that the Great Sphinx represents god Horus and was being worshiped in the 18th dynasty.

The Great Sphinx
The Great Sphinx | Photo credit: Flickr

Facts about the Egyptian pyramids:

  1. The size of the great pyramid is nearly equivalent to 10 football field.
  2. The great pyramid of Giza weighs approximately 6.5 million tons.
  3. The sides of the great pyramid are perfectly aligned with the geographical directions.
  4. In fact, from the sky, it can be observed that the great pyramid has 8 sides instead of 4. The 4 sides that we see consists of 2 planes inclined to each other at the center of each side.
  5. The largest pyramid of the world by volume is the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Puebla, a Mexican state.

The pyramids today:

Despite the stolen fine quality limestones from the exterior of the Egyptian pyramids, it is one of the popular tourist attraction of Egypt and attracts millions of people each year. The Khufu’s pyramid, so called the great pyramid measures around 451 feet today due to the continuous deterioration and storms in the Sahara Desert. I believe the tomb robbers have stolen everything from the pyramids that we had read in books when we were children.

If the historian Herodotus’s books are found to be true, then there will be many discoveries in the future. In current days, most of the findings are either vanished or kept away from the public.

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