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Great Pyramid of Giza

January 08, 2023

"Great Pyramid" redirects here. For the pyramid in Mexico, see Great Pyramid of Cholula.

The Great Pyramid of Giza[a] is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years,[3] the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact. As part of the Giza pyramid complex, it borders present-day Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt.

The Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza in March 2005
Khufu
Coordinates29°58′45″N 31°08′03″E / 29.97917°N 31.13417°E / 29.97917; 31.13417Coordinates: 29°58′45″N 31°08′03″E / 29.97917°N 31.13417°E / 29.97917; 31.13417
Ancient name
[1]
ꜣḫt Ḫwfw
Akhet Khufu
Khufu's Horizon
Constructedc. 2570 BC (4th dynasty)
TypeTrue pyramid
MaterialMainly limestone, mortar, some granite
Height
  • 146.6 m (481 ft) or 280 cubits (originally)
  • 138.5 m (454 ft) (contemporary)
Base230.33 m (756 ft) or 440 cubits
Volume2.6 million m3 (92 million cu ft)
Slope51°50'40" or Seked of 5+1/2 palms[2]
Building details
Record height
Tallest in the world from c. 2600 BC to 1311 AD[I]
Preceded byRed Pyramid
Surpassed byLincoln Cathedral[dubious – discuss]
Part ofMemphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur
CriteriaCultural: i, iii, vi
Reference86-002
Inscription1979 (3rd Session)

Initially standing at 146.6 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft). What is seen today is the underlying core structure. The base was measured to be about 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) square, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet), which includes an internal hillock.[4]

The dimensions of the pyramid were 280 royal cubits (146.7 m; 481.4 ft) high, a base length of 440 cubits (230.6 m; 756.4 ft), with a seked of 5+1/2 palms (a slope of 51°50'40").

The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes in total. The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape and are only roughly dressed.[5] The outside layers were bound together by mortar. Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used. Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile: White limestone from Tura for the casing, and granite blocks from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the King's Chamber structure.[6]

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, upon which the pyramid was built, but remained unfinished. The so-called[7] Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber, that contains a granite sarcophagus, are higher up, within the pyramid structure. Khufu's vizier, Hemiunu (also called Hemon), is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid.[8] Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques.

The funerary complex around the pyramid consisted of two mortuary temples connected by a causeway (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), tombs for the immediate family and court of Khufu, including three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite pyramid" and five buried solar barges.

Attribution to Khufu

 
Clay seal bearing the name of Khufu from the Great Pyramid on display at the Louvre museum
 
Khufu's cartouche found inscribed on a backing stone of the pyramid.

Historically the Great Pyramid had been attributed to Khufu based on the words of authors of classical antiquity, first and foremost Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. However, during the Middle Ages a number of other people were credited with the construction of the pyramid as well, for example Joseph, Nimrod or king Saurid.[9]

In 1837 four additional Relieving Chambers were found above the King's Chamber after tunneling to them. The chambers, previously inaccessible, were covered in hieroglyphs of red paint. The workers who were building the pyramid had marked the blocks with the names of their gangs, which included the pharaoh's name (e.g.: “The gang, The white crown of Khnum-Khufu is powerful”). The names of Khufu were spelled out on the walls over a dozen times. Another of these graffiti was found by Goyon on an exterior block of the 4th layer of the pyramid.[10] The inscriptions are comparable to those found at other sites of Khufu, such as the alabaster quarry at Hatnub[11] or the harbor at Wadi al-Jarf, and are present in pyramids of other pharaohs as well.[12][13]

Throughout the 20th century the cemeteries next to the pyramid were excavated. Family members and high officials of Khufu were buried in the East Field south of the causeway, and the West Field. Most notably the wives, children and grandchildren of Khufu, Hemiunu, Ankhaf and (the funerary cache of) Hetepheres I, mother of Khufu. As Hassan puts it: "From the early dynastic times, it was always the custom for the relatives, friends and courtiers to be buried in the vicinity of the king they had served during life. This was quite in accordance with the Egyptian idea of the Hereafter."

The cemeteries were actively expanded until the 6th dynasty and used less frequently afterwards. The earliest pharaonic name of seal impressions is that of Khufu, the latest of Pepi II. Worker graffiti was written on some of the stones of the tombs as well; for instance, "Mddw" (Horus name of Khufu) on the mastaba of Chufunacht, probably a grandson of Khufu.[14]

Some inscriptions in the chapels of the mastabas (like the pyramid, their burial chambers were usually bare of inscriptions) mention Khufu or his pyramid. For instance, an inscription of Mersyankh III states that "Her mother [is the] daughter of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Khufu." Most often these references are part of a title, for example, Snnw-ka, "Chief of the Settlement and Overseer of the Pyramid City of Akhet-Khufu" or Merib, "Priest of Khufu".[15] Several tomb owners have a king's name as part of their own name (e.g. Chufudjedef, Chufuseneb, Merichufu). The earliest pharaoh alluded to in that manner at Giza is Snefru (Khufu's father).[16][17][18]

In 1936 Hassan uncovered a stela of Amenhotep II near the Great Sphinx of Giza which implies the two larger pyramids were still attributed to Khufu and Khafre in the New Kingdom. It reads: "He yoked the horses in Memphis, when he was still young, and stopped at the Sanctuary of Hor-em-akhet (the Sphinx). He spent a time there in going round it, looking at the beauty of the Sanctuary of Khufu and Khafra the revered."[19]

In 1954 two boat pits, one containing the Khufu ship, were discovered buried at the south foot of the pyramid. The cartouche of Djedefre was found on many of the blocks that covered the boat pits. As the successor and eldest son he would have presumably been responsible for the burial of Khufu.[20] The second boat pit was examined in 1987; excavation work started in 2010. Graffiti on the stones included 4 instances of the name "Khufu", 11 instances of "Djedefre", a year (in reign, season, month and day), measurements of the stone, various signs and marks, and a reference line used in construction, all done in red or black ink.[21]

During excavations in 2013 the Diary of Merer was found at Wadi al-Jarf. It documents the transportation of white limestone blocks from Tura to the Great Pyramid, which is mentioned by its original name Akhet Khufu (with a pyramid determinative) dozens of times. It details that the stones were accepted at She Akhet-Khufu ("the pool of the pyramid Horizon of Khufu") and Ro-She Khufu (“the entrance to the pool of Khufu”) which were under supervision of Ankhhaf, half brother and vizier of Khufu, as well as owner of the largest mastaba of the Giza East Field.[3]

Age

Modern estimates of dating the Great Pyramid and Khufu's first regnal year
Author (year) Estimated date
Greaves (1646)[22] 1266 BC
Gardiner (1835)[23] 2123 BC
Lepsius (1849)[24] 3124 BC
Bunsen (1860)[25] 3209 BC
Mariette (1867)[26] 4235 BC
Breasted (1906)[27] 2900 BC
Hassan (1960)[28] 2700 BC
O'Mara (1997)[29] 2700 BC
Beckarath (1997)[30] 2554 BC
Arnold (1999)[31] 2551 BC
Spence (2000)[32] 2480 BC
Shaw (2000)[33] 2589 BC
Hornung (2006)[34] 2509 BC
Ramsey et al. (2010)[35] 2613–2577 BC

The Great Pyramid has been determined to be about 4600 years old by two principal approaches: indirectly, through its attribution to Khufu and his chronological age, based on archaeological and textual evidence; and directly, via radiocarbon dating of organic material found in the pyramid and included in its mortar.

Historical chronology

Main article: Egyptian chronology

In the past the Great Pyramid was dated by its attribution to Khufu alone, putting the construction of the Great Pyramid within his reign. Hence dating the pyramid was a matter of dating Khufu and the 4th dynasty. The relative sequence and synchronicity of events stands at the focal point of this method.

Absolute calendar dates are derived from an interlocked network of evidence, the backbone of which are the lines of succession known from ancient king lists and other texts. The reign lengths from Khufu to known points in the earlier past are summated, bolstered with genealogical data, astronomical observations, and other sources. As such, the historical chronology of Egypt is primarily a political chronology, thus independent from other types of archaeological evidence like stratigraphies, material culture, or radiocarbon dating.

The majority of recent chronological estimates date Khufu and his pyramid roughly between 2700 and 2500 BC.[36]

Radiocarbon dating

Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid's construction. In the mixing process ashes from fires were added to the mortar, organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated. A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995, making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date. The results were calibrated to 2871–2604 BC. The old wood problem is thought to be mainly responsible for the 100–300 year offset, since the age of the organic material was determined, not when it was last used. A reanalysis of the data gave a completion date for the pyramid between 2620 and 2484 BC, based on the younger samples.[37][38][39]

In 1872 Waynman Dixon opened the lower pair of "Air-Shafts", previously closed at both ends, by chiseling holes into the walls of the Queen's Chamber. One of the objects found within was a cedar plank, which came into possession of James Grant, a friend of Dixon. After inheritance it was donated to the Museum of Aberdeen in 1946, however it had broken into pieces and was filed incorrectly. Lost in the vast museum collection, it was only rediscovered in 2020, when it was radiocarbon dated to 3341–3094 BC. Being over 500 years older than Khufu's chronological age, Abeer Eladany suggests that the wood originated from the center of a long-lived tree or had been recycled for many years prior to being deposited in the pyramid.[40]

History of dating Khufu and the Great Pyramid

Circa 450 BC Herodotus attributed the Great Pyramid to Cheops (Hellenization of Khufu), yet erroneously placed his reign following the Ramesside period. Manetho, around 200 years later, composed an extensive list of Egyptian kings which he divided into dynasties, assigning Khufu to the 4th. However, after phonetic changes in the Egyptian language and consequently the Greek translation, "Cheops" had transformed into "Souphis" (and similar versions).[41]

Greaves, in 1646, reported the great difficulty of ascertaining a date for the pyramid's construction based on the lacking and conflicting historic sources. Because of the aforementioned differences in spelling, he didn't recognize Khufu on Manetho's king list (as transcribed by Africanus and Eusebius),[42] hence he relied on Herodotus' incorrect account. Summating the duration of lines of succession, Greaves concluded the year 1266 BC to be the beginning of Khufu's reign.[22]

Two centuries later, some of the gaps and uncertainties in Manetho's chronology had been cleared by discoveries such as the King Lists of Turin, Abydos, and Karnak. The names of Khufu found within the Great Pyramid's Relieving Chambers in 1837 helped to make clear that Cheops and Souphis are, in fact, one and the same. Thus the Great Pyramid was recognized to have been built in the 4th dynasty.[24] The dating among Egyptologists still varied by multiple centuries (around 4000–2000 BC), depending on methodology, preconceived religious notions (such as the biblical deluge) and which source they thought was more credible.

Estimates significantly narrowed in the 20th century, most being within 250 years of each other, around the middle of the third millennium BC. The newly developed radiocarbon dating method confirmed that the historic chronology was approximately correct. It is, however, still not a fully appreciated method due to larger margins or error, calibration uncertainties and the problem of inbuilt age (time between growth and final usage) in plant material, including wood.[36] Furthermore, astronomical alignments have been suggested to coincide with the time of construction.[29][32]

Egyptian chronology continues to be refined and data from multiple disciplines have started to be factored in, such as luminescence dating, radiocarbon dating, and dendrochronology. For instance, Ramsey et al. included over 200 radiocarbon samples in their model.[35]

Historiographical record

Classical antiquity

Herodotus

 
The Greek historian Herodotus was one of the first major authors to discuss the Great Pyramid.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, is one of the first major authors to mention the pyramid. In the second book of his work The Histories, he discusses the history of Egypt and the Great Pyramid. This report was created more than 2000 years after the structure was built, meaning that Herodotus obtained his knowledge mainly from a variety of indirect sources, including officials and priests of low rank, local Egyptians, Greek immigrants, and Herodotus's own interpreters. Accordingly, his explanations present themselves as a mixture of comprehensible descriptions, personal descriptions, erroneous reports, and fantastical legends; as such, many of the speculative errors and confusions about the monument can be traced back to Herodotus and his work.[43][44]

Herodotus writes that the Great Pyramid was built by Khufu (Hellenized as Cheops) who, he erroneously relays, ruled after the Ramesside Period (the 19th dynasty and the 20th dynasty).[45] Khufu was a tyrannical king, Herodotus claims, which may explain the Greek's view that such buildings can only come about through cruel exploitation of the people.[43] Herodotus further states that gangs of 100,000 labourers worked on the building in three-month shifts, taking 20 years to build. In the first ten years a wide causeway was erected, which, according to Herodotus, was almost as impressive as the construction of the pyramids themselves. It measured nearly 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long and 20 yards (18.3 m) wide, and elevated to a height of 16 yards (14.6 m), consisting of stone polished and carved with figures.[46] In addition, underground chambers were made on the hill whereon the pyramids stand. These were intended to be burial places for Khufu himself and were encompassed with water by a channel brought in from the Nile.[46] Herodotus later states that at the Pyramid of Khafre (located beside the Great Pyramid) the Nile flows through a built passage to an island in which Khufu is buried.[47] (Hawass interprets this to be a reference to the "Osiris Shaft" which is located at the causeway of Khafre, south of the Great Pyramid.)[48][49]

Herodotus also described an inscription on the outside of the pyramid which, according to his translators, indicated the amount of radishes, garlic and onions that the workers would have eaten while working on the pyramid.[50] This could be a note of restoration work that Khaemweset, son of Rameses II, had carried out. Apparently, Herodotus’ companions and interpreters could not read the hieroglyphs or deliberately gave him false information.[51]

Diodorus Siculus

Between 60 and 56 BC, the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus visited Egypt and later dedicated the first book of his Bibliotheca historica to the land, its history, and its monuments, including the Great Pyramid. Diodorus's work was inspired by historians of the past, but he also distanced himself from Herodotus, who Diodorus claims tells marvelous tales and myths.[52] Diodorus presumably drew his knowledge from the lost work of Hecataeus of Abdera,[53] and like Herodotus, he also places the builder of the pyramid, "Chemmis,"[54] after Ramses III.[45] According to his report, neither Chemmis (Khufu) nor Cephren (Khafre) were buried in their pyramids, but rather in secret places, for fear that the people ostensibly forced to build the structures would seek out the bodies for revenge;[55] with this assertion, Diodorus strengthened the connection between pyramid building and slavery.[56]

According to Diodorus, the cladding of the pyramid was still in excellent condition at the time, whereas the uppermost part of the pyramid was formed by a platform 6 cubits (3.1 m; 10.3 ft) high. About the construction of the pyramid he notes that it was built with the help of ramps since no lifting tools had yet been invented. Nothing was left of the ramps, as they were removed after the pyramids were completed. He estimated the number of workers necessary to erect the Great Pyramid at 360,000 and the construction time at 20 years.[54] Similar to Herodotus, Diodorus also claims that the side of the pyramid is inscribed with writing that "[set] forth [the price of] vegetables and purgatives for the workmen there were paid out over sixteen hundred talents."[55]

Strabo

The Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian Strabo visited Egypt around 25 BC, shortly after Egypt was annexed by the Romans. In his work Geographica, he argues that the pyramids were the burial place of kings, but he does not mention which king was buried in the structure. Strabo also mentions: "At a moderate height in one of the sides is a stone, which may be taken out; when that is removed, there is an oblique passage to the tomb."[57] This statement has generated much speculation, as it suggests that the pyramid could be entered at this time.[58]

Pliny the Elder

 
During the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder argues that "bridges" were used to transport stones to the top of the Great Pyramid.

The Roman writer Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, argued that the Great Pyramid had been raised, either "to prevent the lower classes from remaining unoccupied", or as a measure to prevent the pharaoh's riches from falling into the hands of his rivals or successors.[59] Pliny does not speculate as to the pharaoh in question, explicitly noting that "accident [has] consigned to oblivion the names of those who erected such stupendous memorials of their vanity".[60] In pondering how the stones could be transported to such a vast height he gives two explanations: That either vast mounds of nitre and salt were heaped up against the pyramid which were then melted away with water redirected from the river. Or, that "bridges" were constructed, their bricks afterwards distributed for erecting houses of private individuals, arguing that the level of the river is too low for canals to ever bring water up to the pyramid. Pliny also recounts how "in the interior of the largest Pyramid there is a well, eighty-six cubits [45.1 m; 147.8 ft] deep, which communicates with the river, it is thought". Further, he describes a method discovered by Thales of Miletus for ascertaining the pyramid's height by measuring its shadow.[60]

Late antiquity and the Middle Ages

Further information: Joseph's Granaries

During late antiquity, a misinterpretation of the pyramids as "Joseph's granary" began to gain in popularity. The first textual evidence of this connection is found in the travel narratives of the female Christian pilgrim Egeria, who records that on her visit between 381 and 384 AD, "in the twelve-mile stretch between Memphis and Babylonia [= Old Cairo] are many pyramids, which Joseph made in order to store corn."[61] Ten years later the usage is confirmed in the anonymous travelogue of seven monks that set out from Jerusalem to visit the famous ascetics in Egypt, wherein they report that they "saw Joseph's granaries, where he stored grain in biblical times."[62] This late 4th century usage is further confirmed in the geographical treatise Cosmographia, written by Julius Honorius around 376 AD,[63] which explains that the Pyramids were called the "granaries of Joseph" (horrea Ioseph).[64] This reference from Julius is important, as it indicates that the identification was starting to spread out from pilgrim's travelogues. In 530 AD, Stephanos of Byzantium added more to this idea when he wrote in his Ethnica that the word "pyramid" was connected to the Greek word πυρός (puros), meaning wheat.[65]

 
The Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun (786–833 CE) is said to have tunneled into the side of the Great Pyramid.

In the seventh century AD, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered Egypt, ending several centuries of Romano-Byzantine rule. A few centuries later, in 820 AD, the Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun (786–833) is said to have tunneled into the side of the structure and discovered the ascending passage and its connecting chambers.[66] Around this time a Coptic legend gained popularity that claimed the antediluvian king Surid Ibn Salhouk had built the Pyramid. One legend in particular relates how, three hundred years prior to the Great Flood, Surid had a terrifying dream of the world's end, and so he ordered the construction of the pyramids so that they might house all the knowledge of Egypt and survive into the present.[67] The most notable account of this legend was given by Al-Masudi (896–956) in his Akbar al-zaman, alongside imaginative tales about the pyramid, such as the story of a man who fell three hours down the pyramid's well and the tale of an expedition that discovered bizarre finds in the structure's inner chambers. Al-zaman also contains a report of Al-Ma'mun's entering the pyramid and discovering a vessel containing a thousand coins, which just so happened to account for the cost of opening the pyramid.[68] (Some speculate that this story is true, but that the coins were planted by Al-Ma'mun to appease his workers, who were likely frustrated that they had found no treasure.)[69]

In 987 AD, the Arab bibliographer Ibn al-Nadim relates a fantastical tale in his Al-Fihrist about a man who journeyed into the main chamber of a pyramid, which Bayard Dodge argues is the Great Pyramid.[70] According to al-Nadim, the person in question saw a statue of a man holding a tablet and a woman holding a mirror. Supposedly, between the statues was a "stone vessel [with] a gold cover." Inside the vessel was "something like pitch," and when the explorer reached into the vessel "a gold receptacle happened to be inside." The receptacle, when taken from the vessel, was filled with "fresh blood," which quickly dried up. Ibn al-Nadim's work also claims that the bodies of a man and woman were discovered inside the Pyramid in the "best possible state of preservation."[71] The author al-Kaisi, in his work the Tohfat Alalbab, retells the story of Al-Ma'mun's entry but with the additional discovery of "an image of a man in green stone", which when opened revealed a body dressed in jewel-encrusted gold armor. Al-Kaisi claims to have seen the case from which the body was taken, and asserts that it was located at the king's palace in Cairo. He also writes that he himself entered into the pyramid and discovered myriad preserved bodies.[72]

The Arab polymath Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1163–1231) studied the pyramid with great care, and in his Account of Egypt, he praises them as works of engineering genius. In addition to measuring the structure (alongside the other pyramids at Giza), al-Baghdadi also writes that the structures were surely tombs, although he thought the Great Pyramid was used for the burial of Agathodaimon or Hermes. Al-Baghdadi ponders whether the pyramid pre-dated the Great flood as described in Genesis, and even briefly entertained the idea that it was a pre-Adamic construction.[73][74] A few centuries later, the Islamic historian Al-Maqrizi (1364–1442) compiled lore about the Great Pyramid in his Al-Khitat. In addition to reasserting that Al-Ma'mun breached the structure in 820 AD, Al-Maqrizi's work also discusses the sarcophagus in the coffin chambers, explicitly noting that the pyramid was a grave.[75]

By the Late Middle Ages, the Great Pyramid had gained a reputation as a haunted structure. Others feared entering, because it was home to animals like bats.[76]

Construction

Preparation of the site

A hillock forms the base on which the pyramids stands. It was cut back into steps and only a strip around the perimeter was leveled,[77] which has been measured to be horizontal and flat to within 21 millimetres (0.8 in).[78] The bedrock reaches a height of almost 6 metres (20 ft) above the pyramid base at the location of the Grotto.[79]

Along the sides of the base platform a series of holes are cut in the bedrock. Lehner hypothesizes that they held wooden posts used for alignment.[80] Edwards, among others, suggested the usage of water for evening the base, although it is unclear how practical and workable such a system would be.[77]

Materials

The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks. Approximately 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite, and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction.[81]

Most of the blocks were quarried at Giza just south of the pyramid, an area now known as the Central Field.[82]

The white limestone used for the casing originated from Tura (10 km (6.2 mi) south of Giza) and was transported by boat down the Nile. In 2013, rolls of papyrus called the Diary of Merer were discovered, written by a supervisor of the deliveries of limestone and other construction materials from Tura to Giza in the last known year of Khufu's reign.[83]

The granite stones in the pyramid were transported from Aswan, more than 900 km (560 mi) away.[6] The largest, weighing 25 to 80 tonnes, form the roofs of the "King's chamber" and the "relieving chambers" above it. Ancient Egyptians cut stone into rough blocks by hammering grooves into natural stone faces, inserting wooden wedges, then soaking these with water. As the water was absorbed, the wedges expanded, breaking off workable chunks. Once the blocks were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.[84]

Workforce

The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers' camps associated with construction at Giza suggest that it was built instead by thousands of conscript laborers.[85]

Worker graffiti found at Giza suggest haulers were divided into zau (singular za), groups of 40 men, consisting of four sub-units that each had an "Overseer of Ten".[86][3]

As to the question of how over two million blocks could have been cut within Khufu's lifetime, stonemason Franck Burgos conducted an archaeological experiment based on an abandoned quarry of Khufu discovered in 2017. Within it, an almost completed block and the tools used for cutting it had been uncovered: hardened arsenic copper chisels, wooden mallets, ropes and stone tools. In the experiment replicas of these were used to cut a block weighing about 2.5 tonnes (the average block size used for the Great Pyramid). It took four workers 4 days (with each working 6 hours a day) to excavate it. The initially slow progress sped up six times when the stone was wetted with water. Based on the data, Burgos extrapolates that about 3,500 quarry-men could have produced the 250 blocks/day needed to complete the Great Pyramid in 27 years.[87]

A construction management study conducted in 1999, in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists, had estimated that the total project required an average workforce of about 13,200 people and a peak workforce of roughly 40,000.[88]

Surveys and design

 
Comparison of approximate profiles of the Great Pyramid of Giza with some notable pyramidal or near-pyramidal buildings. Dotted lines indicate original heights, where data is available. In its SVG file, hover over a pyramid to highlight and click for its article.

The first precise measurements of the pyramid were made by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1880–1882, published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.[89] Many of the casing-stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid fit together with high precision, with joints, on average, only 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) wide.[90] On the contrary, core blocks were only roughly shaped, with rubble inserted between larger gaps. Mortar was used to bind the outer layers together and fill gaps and joints.[5]

The block height and weight tends to get progressively smaller towards the top. Petrie measured the lowest layer to be 148 centimetres (4.86 ft) high, whereas the layers towards the summit barely exceed 50 centimetres (1.6 ft).[89]

The accuracy of the pyramid's perimeter is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres (2.3 inches) in length[b] and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc.[92]

The completed design dimensions are measured to have originally been 280 royal cubits (146.7 m; 481.4 ft) high by 440 cubits (230.6 m; 756.4 ft) long at each of the four sides of its base. Ancient Egyptians used seked – how much run for one cubit of rise – to describe slopes. For the Great Pyramid a seked of 5+1/2 palms was chosen, a ratio of 14 up to 11 in.[93]

Some Egyptologists suggest this slope was chosen because the ratio of perimeter to height (1760/280 cubits) equals 2π to an accuracy of better than 0.05 percent (corresponding to the well-known approximation of π as 22/7). Verner wrote, "We can conclude that although the ancient Egyptians could not precisely define the value of π, in practice they used it".[94] Petrie concluded: "but these relations of areas and of circular ratio are so systematic that we should grant that they were in the builder's design".[95] Others have argued that the ancient Egyptians had no concept of pi and would not have thought to encode it in their monuments and that the observed pyramid slope may be based on the seked choice alone.[96]

Alignment to the cardinal directions

The sides of the Great Pyramid's base are closely aligned to the four geographic (not magnetic) cardinal directions, deviating on average 3 minutes and 38 seconds of arc, or about a tenth of a degree.[97] Several methods have been proposed for how the ancient Egyptians achieved this level of accuracy:

  • The Solar Gnomon Method: The shadow of a vertical rod is tracked throughout a day. The shadow line is intersected by a circle drawn around the base of the rod. Connecting the intersecting points produces an east–west line. An experiment using this method resulted in lines being, on average, 2 minutes, 9 seconds off due east–west. Employing a pinhole produced much more accurate results (19 arc seconds off), whereas using an angled block as a shadow definer was less accurate (3′ 47″ off).[98]
  • The Pole Star Method: The polar star is tracked using a movable sight and fixed plumb line. Halfway between the maximum eastern and western elongations is true north. Thuban, the polar star during the Old Kingdom, was about two degrees removed from the celestial pole at the time.[99]
  • The Simultaneous Transit Method: The stars Mizar and Kochab appear on a vertical line on the horizon, close to true north around 2500 BC. They slowly and simultaneously shift east over time, which is used to explain the relative misalignment of the pyramids.[100][101]

The latitude 29.9792458 north of the Equator, passes through the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is the most northern Pyramid of the 3 Pyramids in a line, this is an interesting coincidence as the speed of light is 299792458 Metres per Second.

Construction theories

Main article: Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

Many alternative, often contradictory, theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid's construction techniques.[102] 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".[103]

The basalt blocks of the pyramid temple show "clear evidence" of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade of 15 feet (4.6 m) in length. Romer suggests that this "super saw" may have had copper teeth and weighed up to 140 kilograms (310 lb). He theorizes that such a saw could have been attached to a wooden trestle support and possibly used in conjunction with vegetable oil, cutting sand, emery or pounded quartz to cut the blocks, which would have required the labour of at least a dozen men to operate it.[104]

Exterior

Casing

 
Remaining casing stones on the north side of the Great Pyramid
 
Casing stone in the British Museum[105]

At completion, the Great Pyramid was cased entirely in white limestone. Precisely worked blocks were placed in horizontal layers and carefully fitted together with mortar, their outward faces cut at a slope and smoothed to a high degree. Together they created four uniform surfaces, angled at 51°50'40" (a Seked of 5+1/2 palms).[106][107] Unfinished casing blocks of the pyramids of Menkaure and Henutsen at Giza suggest that the front faces were smoothed only after the stones were laid, with chiseled seams marking correct positioning and where the superfluous rock would have to be trimmed off.[108]

The height of the horizontal layers is not uniform but varies considerably. The highest of the 203 remaining courses are towards the bottom, the first layer being the tallest at 1.49 metres (4.9 ft). Towards the top, layers tend to be only slightly over 1 royal cubit (0.5 m; 1.7 ft) in height. An irregular pattern is noticeable when looking at the sizes in sequence, where layer height declines steadily only to rise sharply again.[109][110][111]

So-called "backing stones" supported the casing which were (unlike core blocks) precisely dressed as well and bound to the casing with mortar. Nowadays, these stones give the structure its visible appearance, following the dismantling of the pyramid in the Middle Ages. In 1303 AD, a massive earthquake had loosened many of the outer casing stones,[citation needed] which were said to have been carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 for use in nearby Cairo.[92] Many more casing stones were removed from the site by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the early 19th century to build the upper portion of his Alabaster Mosque in Cairo, not far from Giza.[citation needed] 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. Today a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen in situ on each side, with the best preserved on the north below the entrances, excavated by Vyse in 1837.

The mortar was chemically analyzed[112] and contains organic inclusions (mostly charcoal), samples of which were radiocarbon dated to 2871–2604 BC.[113] It has been theorized that the mortar enabled the masons to set the stones exactly by providing a level bed.[114][115]

It has been suggested that some or all of the casing stones were cast in place, rather than quarried and moved, yet archaeological evidence and petrographic analysis indicate this was not the case.[116]

Petrie noted in 1880 that the sides of the pyramid, as we see them today, are "very distinctly hollowed" and that "each side has a sort of groove specially down the middle of the face", which he reasoned was a result of increased casing thickness in these areas.[117] A laser scanning survey in 2005 confirmed the existence of the anomalies, which can be, to some degree, attributed to damaged and removed stones.[118] Under certain lighting conditions and with image enhancement the faces can appear to be split, leading to speculation that the pyramid had been intentionally constructed eight-sided.[119][120]

Pyramidion and missing tip

The pyramid was once topped by a capstone known as a pyramidion. The material it was made from is subject to much speculation; limestone, granite or basalt are commonly proposed, while in popular culture it is often solid gold or gilded. All known 4th dynasty pyramidia (of the Red Pyramid, Satellite Pyramid of Khufu (G1-d) and Queen's Pyramid of Menkaure (G3-a)) are of white limestone and were not gilded.[121] Only from the 5th dynasty onward is there evidence of gilded capstones; for instance, a scene on the causeway of the Sahure speaks of the "white gold pyramidion of the pyramid Sahure’s Soul Shines".[122]

The Great Pyramid's pyramidion was already lost in antiquity, as Pliny the Elder and later authors report of a platform on its summit.[59] Nowadays the pyramid is about 8 metres (26 ft) shorter than it was when intact, with about 1,000 tonnes of material missing from the top.

In 1874 a mast was installed on the top by the Scottish astronomer Sir David Gill who, whilst returning from work involving observing a rare Venus transit, was invited to survey Egypt and began by surveying the Great Pyramid. His results measuring the pyramid were accurate to within 1 mm and the survey mast is still in place to this day.[123][124]

Interior

 
Elevation diagram of the interior structures of the Great Pyramid. The inner and outer lines indicate the pyramid's present and original profiles.
1. Original entrance
2. Robbers' Tunnel (tourist entrance)
3, 4. Descending Passage
5. Subterranean Chamber
6. Ascending Passage
7. Queen's Chamber & its "air-shafts"
8. Horizontal Passage
9. Grand Gallery
10. King's Chamber & its "air-shafts"
11. Grotto & Well Shaft

The internal structure consists of three main chambers (the King's-, Queen's- and Subterranean Chamber), the Grand Gallery and various corridors and shafts.

There are two entrances into the pyramid: the original and a forced passage, which meet at a junction. From there, one passage descends into the Subterranean Chamber, while the other ascends to the Grand Gallery. From the beginning of the gallery three paths can be taken:

  • a vertical shaft that leads down, past a grotto, to meet the descending passage,
  • a horizontal corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber,
  • and the path up the gallery itself to the King's Chamber that contains the sarcophagus.

Both the King's and Queen's Chamber have a pair of small "air-shafts". Above the King's Chamber are a series of five Relieving Chambers.

Entrances

 
Original Entrance (Top-Left), Robbers' Tunnel (Middle-Right)

Original entrance

The original entrance is located on the north side, 15 royal cubits (7.9 m; 25.8 ft) east of the centerline of the pyramid. Before the removal of the casing in the middle ages, the pyramid was entered through a hole in the 19th layer of masonry, approximately 17 metres (56 ft) above the pyramid's base level. The height of that layer – 96 centimetres (3.15 ft) – corresponds to the size of the entrance tunnel which is commonly called the Descending Passage.[79][125] According to Strabo (64–24 BC) a movable stone could be raised to enter this sloping corridor, however it is not known if it was a later addition or original.

A row of double chevrons diverts weight away from the entrance. Several of these chevron blocks are now missing, as the slanted faces they used to rest on indicate.

Numerous, mostly modern, graffiti is cut into the stones around the entrance. Most notable is a large, square text of hieroglyphs carved in honor of Frederick William IV, by Karl Richard Lepsius's Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842.[126]

North Face Corridor

In 2016 the ScanPyramids team detected a cavity behind the entrance chevrons using muography, which was confirmed in 2019 to be a corridor at least 5 metres (16 ft) long, running horizontal or sloping upwards (thus not parallel to the Descending Passage).[127][128] Whether or not it connects to the Big Void above the Grand Gallery remains to be seen.

Robbers' Tunnel

Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel, which was long ago cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid. The entrance was forced into the 6th and 7th layer of the casing, about 7 metres (23 ft) above the base. After running more-or-less straight and horizontal for 27 metres (89 ft) it turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point but access is usually forbidden.[129]

The origin of this Robbers' Tunnel is the subject of much scholarly discussion. According to tradition the chasm was made around 820 AD by Caliph al-Ma'mun's workmen with a battering ram. The digging dislodged the stone in the ceiling of the Descending Passage which hid the entrance to the Ascending Passage, and the noise of that stone falling then sliding down the Descending Passage alerted them to the need to turn left. Unable to remove these stones, however, the workmen tunneled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage.[130][131]

Due to a number of historical and archaeological discrepancies, many scholars (with Antoine de Sacy perhaps being the first) contend that this story is apocryphal. They argue that it is much more likely that the tunnel had been carved shortly after the pyramid was initially sealed. This tunnel, the scholars continue, was then resealed (likely during the Ramesside Restoration), and it was this plug that al-Ma'mun's ninth-century expedition cleared away. This theory is furthered by the report of patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, who claimed that before al-Ma'mun's expedition, there already existed a breach in the pyramid's north face that extended into the structure 33 metres (108 ft) before hitting a dead end. This suggests that some sort of robber's tunnel predated al-Ma'mun, and that the caliph simply enlarged it and cleared it of debris.[132]

Descending Passage

From the original entrance, a passage descends through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it, ultimately leading to the Subterranean Chamber.

It has a slanted height of 4 Egyptian feet (1.20 m; 3.9 ft) and a width of 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft). Its angle of 26°26'46" corresponds to a ratio of 1 to 2 (rise over run).[133]

After 28 metres (92 ft), the lower end of the Ascending Passage is reached; a square hole in the ceiling, which is blocked by granite stones and might have originally been concealed. To circumvent these hard stones, a short tunnel was excavated that meets the end of the Robbers' Tunnel. This was expanded over time and fitted with stairs.

The passage continues to descend for another 72 metres (236 ft), now through bedrock instead of the pyramid superstructure. Lazy guides used to block off this part with rubble to avoid having to lead people down and back up the long shaft, until around 1902 when Covington installed a padlocked iron grill-door to stop this practice.[134] Near the end of this section, on the west wall, is the connection to the vertical shaft that leads up to the Grand Gallery.

A horizontal shaft connects the end of the Descending Passage to the Subterranean Chamber, It has a length of 8.84 m (29.0 ft), width of 85 cm (2.79 ft) and height of 91–95 cm (2.99–3.12 ft). A recess is located towards the end of the western wall, slightly larger than the tunnel, the ceiling of which is irregular and undressed.[135]

Subterranean Chamber

 
Subterranean Chamber (looking west) in 1909 with rubble from the Pit Shaft excavation still filling the chamber.
 
Subterranean Chamber (looking south) with Pit Shaft in the floor and blind corridor entrance.

The Subterranean Chamber, or "Pit", is the lowest of the three main chambers and the only one dug into the bedrock beneath the pyramid.

Located about 27 m (89 ft) below base level,[79] it measures roughly 16 cubits (8.4 m; 27.5 ft) north-south by 27 cubits (14.1 m; 46.4 ft) east-west, with an approximate height of 4 m (13 ft).

The western half of the room, apart from the ceiling, is unfinished, with trenches left behind by the quarry-men running east to west. A niche was cut into the northern half of the west wall. The only access, through the Descending Passage, lies on the eastern end of the north wall.

Although seemingly known in antiquity, according to Herodotus and later authors, its existence had been forgotten in the Middle Ages until rediscovery in 1817, when Giovanni Caviglia cleared the rubble blocking the Descending Passage.[136]

Opposing the entrance, a blind corridor runs straight south for 11 m (36 ft) and continues slight bent another 5.4 m (18 ft), measuring about 0.75 m (2.5 ft) squared. A Greek or Roman character was found on its ceiling with the light of a candle, suggesting that the chamber had indeed been accessible during Classical antiquity.[137]

In the middle of the eastern half, a large hole is opened up, called Pit Shaft or Perring's Shaft. The upmost part may have ancient origins, about 2 m (6.6 ft) squared in width and 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in depth, diagonally aligned with the chamber. Caviglia and Salt enlarged it to the depth of about 3 m (9.8 ft).[138] In 1837 Vyse directed the shaft to be sunk to a depth of 50 ft (15 m), in hopes of discovering the chamber encompassed by water that Herodotus alludes to. It is slightly narrower in width at about 1.5 m (4.9 ft). No chamber was discovered after Perring and his workers had spent one and a half years penetrating the bedrock to the then water level of the Nile, some 12 m (39 ft) further down.[139] The rubble produced during this operation was deposited throughout the chamber. Petrie, visiting in 1880, found the shaft to be partially filled with rainwater that had rushed down the Descending Passage.[140] In 1909, when the Edgar brothers' surveying activities were encumbered by the material, they moved the sand and smaller stones back into the shaft, leaving the upper part clear.[141] The deep, modern shaft is sometimes mistaken to be part of the original design.

Ludwig Borchardt suggested that the Subterranean Chamber was originally planned to be the burial place for pharaoh Khufu, but that it was abandoned during construction in favour of a chamber higher up in the pyramid.[142]

Ascending Passage

 
The upper two granite plugs in the Ascending Passage, seen from the end of the Robbers' Tunnel

The Ascending Passage connects the Descending Passage to the Grand Gallery. It is 75 cubits (39.3 m; 128.9 ft) long and of the same width and height as the shaft it originates from, although its angle is slightly lower at 26°6'.[143]

The lower end of the shaft is plugged by three granite stones, which were slid down from the Grand Gallery to seal the tunnel. They are 1.57 m (5.2 ft), 1.67 m (5.5 ft) and 1 m (3.3 ft) long respectively.[143] The uppermost is heavily damaged, hence it is shorter. The end of the Robbers' Tunnel concludes slightly below the stones, so a short tunnel was dug around them to gain access to the Descending Passage, since the surrounding limestone is considerably softer and easier to work.

Most of the joints between the blocks of the walls run perpendicular to the floor, with two exceptions. Firstly, those in the lower third of the corridor are vertical. Secondly, the three girdle stones that are inserted near the middle (about 10 cubits apart), presumably to stabilize the tunnel.[144]

Well Shaft and Grotto

 
Grotto (left) accessed through the broken wall of the Well Shaft (right)

The Well Shaft (also known as the Service Shaft or Vertical Shaft) links the lower end of the Grand Gallery to the bottom of Descending Passage, about 50 metres (160 ft) further down.

It takes a winding and indirect course. The upper half goes through the nucleus masonry of the pyramid. It runs vertical at first for 8 metres (26 ft), then slightly angled southwards for about the same distance, until it hits bedrock approximately 5.7 metres (19 ft) above the pyramid's base level. Another vertical section descends further, which is partially lined with masonry that has been broken through to a cavity known as the Grotto. The lower half of the Well Shaft goes through the bedrock at an angle of about 45° for 26.5 metres (87 ft) before a steeper section, 9.5 metres (31 ft) long, leads to its lowest point. The final section of 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) connects it to the Descending Passage, running almost horizontal. The builders evidently had trouble aligning the lower exit.[145][79]

The purpose of the shaft is commonly explained as a ventilation shaft for the Subterranean Chamber and as an escape shaft for the workers who slid the blocking stones of the Ascending Passage into place.

The Grotto is a natural limestone cave that was likely filled with sand and gravel before construction, before being hollowed out by looters. A granite block rests in it that likely originated from the portcullis that once sealed the King's Chamber.

Queen's Chamber

 
Axonometric view of the Queen's Chamber

The Horizontal Passage links the Grand Gallery to the Queen's Chamber. Five pairs of holes at the start suggest the tunnel was once concealed with slabs that laid flush with the gallery floor. The passage is 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide and 1.17 m (3.8 ft) high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage increases to 1.68 m (5.5 ft) high.[79] Half of the west-wall consists of two layers that have atypically continuous vertical joints. Dormion suggests the entrances to magazines laid here and have been filled in.[146]

The Queen's Chamber is exactly halfway between the north and south faces of the pyramid. It measures 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south, 11 cubits (5.8 m; 18.9 ft) east-west,[147] and has a pointed roof that apexes at 12 cubits (6.3 m; 20.6 ft) tall.[148] At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 9 cubits (4.7 m; 15.5 ft) high. The original depth of the niche was 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft), but it has since been deepened by treasure hunters.

Shafts were discovered in the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber in 1872 by British engineer Waynman Dixon, who believed shafts similar to those in the King's Chamber must also exist. The shafts were not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid or the Queen's Chamber; their purpose is unknown. In one shaft Dixon discovered a ball of diorite, a bronze hook of unknown purpose and a piece of cedar wood. The first two objects are currently in the British Museum.[149] The latter was lost until recently when it was found at the University of Aberdeen. It has since been radiocarbon dated to 3341–3094 BC.[150] The northern shaft's angle of ascent fluctuates and at one point turns 45 degrees to avoid the Great Gallery. The southern shaft is perpendicular to the pyramid's slope.[149]

The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1993 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot he designed, Upuaut 2. After a climb of 65 m (213 ft),[151] he discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by a limestone "door" with two eroded copper "handles". The National Geographic Society created a similar robot which, in September 2002, drilled a small hole in the southern door only to find another stone slab behind it.[152] The northern passage, which was difficult to navigate because of its twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a slab.[153]

Research continued in 2011 with the Djedi Project which used a fibre-optic "micro snake camera" that could see around corners. With this, they were able to penetrate the first door of the southern shaft through the hole drilled in 2002, and view all the sides of the small chamber behind it. They discovered hieroglyphics written in red paint. Egyptian mathematics researcher Luca Miatello stated that the markings read "121" – the length of the shaft in cubits.[154] The Djedi team were also able to scrutinize the inside of the two copper "handles" embedded in the door, which they now believe to be for decorative purposes. They additionally found the reverse side of the "door" to be finished and polished, which suggests that it was not put there just to block the shaft from debris, but rather for a more specific reason.[155]

Grand Gallery

 
Grand Gallery (with modern walkway up the middle)

The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage towards the King's Chamber, extending from the 23rd to the 48th course, a rise of 21 metres (69 ft). It has been praised as a "truly spectacular example of stonemasonry".[156] It is 8.6 metres (28 ft) high and 46.68 metres (153.1 ft) long. The base is 4 cubits (2.1 m; 6.9 ft) wide, but after two courses – at a height of 2.29 metres (7.5 ft) – the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 6–10 centimetres (2.4–3.9 in) on each side.[79] There are seven of these steps, so, at the top, the Grand Gallery is only 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide. It is roofed by slabs of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor so that each stone fits into a slot cut into 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, in order to prevent cumulative pressure.[157]

At the upper end of the Gallery, on the eastern wall, there is a hole near the roof that opens into a short tunnel by which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers.

The floor of the Grand Gallery has a shelf or step on either side, 1 cubit (52.4 cm; 20.6 in) wide, leaving a lower ramp 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide between them. There are 56 slots on the shelves, with 28 on each side. On each wall, 25 niches have been cut above the slots.[158] 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.[159] Jean-Pierre Houdin theorized that they held a timber frame that was used in combination with a trolley to pull the heavy granite blocks up the pyramid.

At the top of the gallery, there is a step onto a small horizontal platform where a tunnel leads through the Antechamber, once blocked by portcullis stones, into the King's Chamber.

The Big Void

In 2017, scientists from the ScanPyramids project discovered a large cavity above the Grand Gallery using muon radiography, which they called the "ScanPyramids Big Void". Key was a research team under Morishima Kunihiro, a professor at Nagoya University, that used special nuclear emulsion detectors.[160][161] Its length is at least 30 metres (98 ft) and its cross-section is similar to that of the Grand Gallery. Its existence was confirmed by independent detection with three different technologies: nuclear emulsion films, scintillator hodoscopes, and gas detectors.[162][163] The purpose of the cavity is unknown and it is not accessible. Zahi Hawass speculates it may have been a gap used in the construction of the Grand Gallery,[164] but the Japanese research team state that the void is completely different from previously identified construction spaces.[165]

To verify and pinpoint the void, a team from Kyushu University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo and the Chiba Institute of Technology planned to rescan the structure with a newly developed muon detector in 2020.[166] Their work was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.[167]

Antechamber

 
Diagram of the Antechamber

The last line of defense against intrusion was a small chamber specially designed to house portcullis blocking stones, called the Antechamber. It is cased almost entirely in granite and is situated between the upper end of the Grand Gallery and the King's Chamber. Three slots for portcullis stones line the east and west wall of the chamber. Each of them is topped with a semi-circular groove for a log, around which ropes could be spanned.

The granite portcullis stones were approximately 1 cubit (52.4 cm; 20.6 in) thick and were lowered into position by the aforementioned ropes which were tied through a series of four holes at the top of the blocks. A corresponding set of four vertical grooves are on the south wall of the chamber, recesses that make space for the ropes.

The Antechamber has a design flaw: the space above them can be accessed, thus all but the last block can be circumvented. This was exploited by looters who punched a hole through the ceiling of the tunnel behind, gaining access to the King's Chamber. Later on, all three portcullis stones were broken and removed. Fragments of these blocks can be found in various locations in the pyramid (the Pit Shaft, the Original Entrance, the Grotto and the recess before the Subterranean Chamber).[145]

King's Chamber

 
Axonometric view of the King's Chamber

The King's Chamber is the upmost of the three main chambers of the pyramid. It is faced entirely with granite and measures 20 cubits (10.5 m; 34.4 ft) east-west by 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south. Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits (5.8 m;19.0 ft) above the floor, formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons. All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in).[168]

The walls consist of five courses of blocks that are uninscribed, as was the norm for burial chambers of the 4th dynasty.[169] The stones are precisely fitted together. The facing surfaces are dressed to varying degrees, with some displaying remains of bosses not entirely cut away.[168] The back sides of the blocks were only roughly hewn to shape, as was usual with Egyptian hard-stone facade blocks, presumably to save work.[170][79]

Sarcophagus

 
Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber

The only object in the King's Chamber is a sarcophagus made out of a single, hollowed-out granite block. When it was rediscovered in the Early Middle Ages, it was found broken open and any contents had already been removed. It is of the form common for early Egyptian sarcophagi, rectangular in shape with grooves to slide the now missing lid into place with three small holes for pegs to fixate it.[171][172] The coffer was not perfectly smoothed, displaying various tool marks matching those of copper saws and tubular hand-drills.[173]

The internal dimensions are roughly 198 cm (6.50 ft) by 68 cm (2.23 feet), the external 228 cm (7.48 ft) by 98 cm (3.22 ft), with a height of 105 cm (3.44 ft). The walls have a thickness of about 15 cm (0.49 ft). The sarcophagus is too large to fit around the corner between the Ascending and Descending Passages, which indicates that it must have been placed in the chamber before the roof was put in place.[174]

Air shafts

In the north and south walls of the King's Chamber are two narrow shafts, commonly known as "air shafts". They face each other and are located approximately 0.91 m (3.0 ft) above the floor, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) from the eastern wall, with a width of 18 and 21 cm (7.1 and 8.3 in) and a height of 14 cm (5.5 in). Both start out horizontally for the length of the granite blocks they go through before changing to an upwards direction.[175] The southern shaft ascends at an angle of 45° with a slight curve westwards. One ceiling stone was found to be distinctly unfinished which Gantenbrink called a "Monday morning block". The northern shaft changes angle several times, shifting the path to the west, perhaps to avoid the Big Void. The builders had trouble calculating the right angles, resulting in parts of the shaft being narrower. Nowadays they both commute to the exterior. If they originally penetrated the outer casing is unknown.

The purpose of these shafts is not clear: They were long believed by Egyptologists to be shafts for ventilation, but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king's spirit to the heavens.[176]

The idea that the shafts point towards stars or areas of the northern and southern skies has been largely dismissed as the northern shaft follows a dog-leg course through the masonry and the southern shaft has a bend of approximately 20 centimetres (7.9 in), indicating no intention to have them point to any celestial objects.[177]

In 1992, as part of the Upuaut project, a ventilation system was installed in both air shafts of the King's Chamber.[177]

Relieving chambers

 
Relieving Chambers above the King's Chamber, Smyth 1877

Above the roof of the King's Chamber are five compartments, named (from lowest upwards) "Davison's Chamber", "Wellington's Chamber", "Nelson's Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber", and "Campbell's Chamber".

They were presumably intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of the roof collapsing under the weight of stone above; hence they are referred to as "Relieving Chambers".

The granite blocks that divide the chambers have flat bottom sides but roughly shaped top sides, giving all five chambers an irregular floor, but a flat ceiling, with the exception of the uppermost chamber which has a pointed limestone roof.[178]

Nathaniel Davison is credited with the discovery of the lowest of these chambers in 1763, although a French merchant named Maynard informed him of its existence.[179] It can be reached through an ancient passage that originates from the top of the south wall of the Grand Gallery.[178] The upper four chambers were discovered in 1837 by Howard Vyse after discovering a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. This allowed the insertion of a long reed, which, with the employment of gunpowder and boring rods, forced a tunnel upwards through the masonry.[180] As no access shafts existed for the upper four chambers – unlike Davison's Chamber – they were completely inaccessible until this point.

Numerous graffiti of red ochre paint were found to cover the limestone walls of all four newly discovered chambers. Apart from leveling lines and indication marks for masons, multiple hieroglyphic inscriptions spell out the names of work-gangs. Those names, which were also found in other Egyptian pyramids like that of Menkaure and Sahure, usually included the name of the pharaoh they were working for.[181][12] The blocks must have received the inscriptions before the chambers became inaccessible during construction. Their orientation, often side-ways or upside down, and their sometimes being partially covered by blocks, seems to indicate that the stones were inscribed before being laid.[182]

The inscriptions, correctly deciphered only decades after discovery, read as follows:[12]

  • "The gang, The Horus Mededuw-is-the-purifier-of-the-two-lands." Found once in relieving chamber 3. (Mededuw being Khufu's Horus name.)
  • "The gang, The Horus Mededuw-is-pure" Found seven times in chamber 4.
  • "The gang, Khufu-excites-love" Found once in chamber 5 (top chamber).
  • “The gang, The-white-crown-of Khnumkhuwfuw-is-powerful” Found once in chambers 2 and 3, ten times in chamber 4 and twice in chamber 5. (Khnum-Khufu being Khufu's full birth name.)

Pyramid complex

See also: Giza pyramid complex

The Great Pyramid is surrounded by a complex of several buildings, including small pyramids.

Temples and causeway

 
Remains of the basalt floor of the temple at the east foot of the pyramid

The Pyramid Temple, which stood on the east side of the pyramid and measured 52.2 metres (171 ft) north to south and 40 metres (130 ft) east to west, has almost entirely disappeared. Only some of the black basalt paving has remained. There are only a few remnants of the causeway which linked the pyramid with the valley and the Valley Temple. The Valley Temple is buried beneath the village of Nazlet el-Samman; basalt paving and limestone walls have been found but the site has not been excavated.[183][184]

East cemetery

The tomb of Queen Hetepheres I, sister-wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu, is located approximately 110 metres (360 ft) east of the Great Pyramid.[185] Discovered by accident by the Reisner expedition, the burial was intact, although the carefully sealed coffin proved to be empty.

Subsidiary pyramids

On the southern end of the east side are four subsidiary pyramids The three that remain standing to almost full height are popularly known as the Queens' Pyramids (G1-a, G1-b and G1-c). The fourth, smaller satellite pyramid (G1-d), was so ruined that its existence was not suspected until the first course of stones and, later, the remains of the capstone were discovered during excavations in 1991–93.[186]

Boats

 
Restored Khufu ship displayed at the Giza Solar boat museum, now relocated to the Grand Egyptian Museum
Main articles: Khufu ship and Solar barque

Three boat-shaped pits are located east of the pyramid. They are large enough in size and shape to have held complete boats, though so shallow that any superstructure, if there ever was one, must have been removed or disassembled.

Two additional boat pits, long and rectangular in shape, were found south of the pyramid, still covered with slabs of stone weighing up to 15 tons.

The first of these was discovered in May 1954 by the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh. Inside were 1,224 pieces of wood, the longest 23 metres (75 ft) in length, the shortest 10 centimetres (0.33 ft). These were entrusted to a boat builder, Haj Ahmed Yusuf, who 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 cedar-wood boat 43.6 metres (143 ft) long, its timbers held together by ropes, which was originally housed in the Giza Solar boat museum, a special boat-shaped, air-conditioned museum beside the pyramid. It is now in the Grand Egyptian Museum.[187][188]

During construction of this museum in the 1980s, the second sealed boat pit was discovered. It was left unopened until 2011 when excavation began on the boat.[189]

Pyramid town

A notable construction flanking the Giza pyramid complex is a cyclopean stone wall, the Wall of the Crow.[190] Mark Lehner discovered a worker's town outside of the wall, otherwise known as "The Lost City", dated by pottery styles, seal impressions and stratigraphy to have been constructed and occupied sometime during the reigns of Khafre (2520–2494 BC) and Menkaure (2490–2472 BC).[191][192] In the early 21st century, Lehner and his team made several discoveries, including what appears to have been a thriving port, suggesting the town and associated living quarters, which consisted of barracks called "galleries", may not have been for the pyramid workers after all, but rather for the soldiers and sailors who used the port. In light of this new discovery, as to where then the pyramid workers may have lived, Lehner suggested the alternative possibility they may have camped on the ramps he believes were used to construct the pyramids, or possibly at nearby quarries.[193]

In the early 1970s, the Australian archaeologist Karl Kromer excavated a mound in the South Field of the plateau. It was found to contain artefacts including mudbrick seals of Khufu, which he identified with an artisans' settlement.[194] Mudbrick buildings just south of Khufu's Valley Temple contained mud sealings of Khufu and have been suggested to be a settlement serving the cult of Khufu after his death.[195] A worker's cemetery used at least between Khufu's reign and the end of the Fifth Dynasty was discovered south of the Wall of the Crow by Hawass in 1990.[196]

Looting

Authors Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs claim that "all the pyramids were robbed" by the New Kingdom, when the construction of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings began.[197][198] Joyce Tyldesley states that the Great Pyramid itself "is known to have been opened and emptied by the Middle Kingdom", before the Arab caliph Al-Ma'mun entered the pyramid around 820 AD.[130]

I. E. S. Edwards discusses Strabo's mention that the pyramid "a little way up one side has a stone that may be taken out, which being raised up there is a sloping passage to the foundations". Edwards suggested that the pyramid was entered by robbers after the end of the Old Kingdom and sealed and then reopened more than once until Strabo's door was added. He adds: "If this highly speculative surmise be correct, it is also necessary to assume either that the existence of the door was forgotten or that the entrance was again blocked with facing stones", in order to explain why al-Ma'mun could not find the entrance.[199] Scholars such as Gaston Maspero and Flinders Petrie have noted that evidence for a similar door has been found at the Bent Pyramid of Dashur.[200][201]

Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC and recounts a story that he was told concerning vaults under the pyramid built on an island where the body of Khufu lies. Edwards notes that the pyramid had "almost certainly been opened and its contents plundered long before the time of Herodotus" and that it might have been closed again during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt when other monuments were restored. He suggests that the story told to Herodotus could have been the result of almost two centuries of telling and retelling by pyramid guides.[44]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops; Arabic: الهرم الأكبر
  2. ^ Based on side lengths 230.252 m, 230.454 m, 230.391 m, 230.357 m.[91]

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  • Burton, Anne (1972). Diodorus Siculus: Book I, A Commentary. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 9004035141.
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  • Clarke, Somers; Engelbach, Reginal (1991). Ancient Egyptian construction and architecture. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-26485-1.
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  • Colavito, Jason (2015). Foundations of Atlantis, Ancient Astronauts and Other Alternative Pasts: 148 Documents Cited by Writers of Fringe History, Translated with Annotations. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-9645-7.
  • Cremin, Aedeen (2007). Archaeologica: The World's Most Significant Sites and Cultural Treasures. Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-7112-2822-1.
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  • Edwards, I.E.S. (1986) [1962]. The Pyramids of Egypt. Max Parrish.
  • El Daly, Okasha (2005). Egyptology: The Missing Millennium : Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-84472-063-7. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
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  • Haase, Michael (2004b). "Der Serviceschacht der Cheops-Pyramide. Bemerkungen zur Konstruktion des Verbindungsschachtes zwischen Großer Galerie und absteigendem Korridor". Sokar. 9: 12–17. ISSN 1438-7956.
  • Hassan, Selim (1960). The Great Pyramid of Khufu and its Mortuary Chapel With Names and Titles of Vols. I–X of the Excavations at Giza. Ministry of Culture and National Orientation, Antiquities Department of Egypt.
  • Hawass, Zahi; Senussi, Ashraf (2008). Old Kingdom Pottery from Giza. Supreme Council of Antiquities. ISBN 978-977-305-986-6.
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Further reading

  • Clayton, Peter A. (1994). Chronicle of the Pharaohs. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05074-0.
  • Cooper, Roscoe; Cooper, Vicki Teague; Croll, Carolyn; Patch, Diana Craig; Tehon, Atha (1997). The Great Pyramid: An Interactive Book. London: British Museum Press.
  • Der Manuelian, Peter (2017). Digital Giza: Visualizing the Pyramids. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Hawass, Zahi A. (2006). Mountains of the Pharaohs: The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
  • Hawass, Zahi (2015). Magic of the Pyramids: My adventures in Archeology. Harmakis Edizioni. ISBN 978-88-98301-33-1. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  • Levy, Janey (2005). The Great Pyramid of Giza: Measuring Length, Area, Volume, and Angles. Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 1-4042-6059-5.
  • Lepre, J.P. (1990). The Egyptian Pyramids: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Reference. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-89950-461-2.
  • Lightbody, David I (2008). Egyptian Tomb Architecture: The Archaeological Facts of Pharaonic Circular Symbolism. British Archaeological Reports International Series S1852. ISBN 978-1-4073-0339-0.
  • Nell, Erin; Ruggles, Clive (2014). "The Orientations of the Giza Pyramids and Associated Structures". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 45 (3): 304–360. arXiv:1302.5622. Bibcode:2014JHA....45..304N. doi:10.1177/0021828614533065. S2CID 119224474.
  • Oakes, Lorana; Lucia Gahlin (2002). Ancient Egypt: An Illustrated Reference to the Myths, Religions, Pyramids and Temples of the Land of the Pharaohs. Hermes House. ISBN 1-84309-429-0.
  • Rossi, Corinna; Accomazzo, Laura (2005). The Pyramids and the Sphinx (English ed.). Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
  • Scarre, Chris (1999). The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World. Thames & Hudson, London. ISBN 978-0-500-05096-5.
  • Siliotti, Alberto (1997). Guide to the pyramids of Egypt; preface by Zahi Hawass. Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 0-7607-0763-4.

External links

 
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Records
Preceded by World's tallest structure
c. 2600 BC − 1300 AD
146.6 m 		Succeeded by
  1. ^ Note: The spire of Lincoln Cathedral, versus other medieval cathedral spires, is an item of debate amongst experts. See List of tallest buildings and structures#History and Lincoln Cathedral for more information.

January 08, 2023
great, pyramid, giza, great, pyramid, redirects, here, pyramid, mexico, great, pyramid, cholula, biggest, egyptian, pyramid, tomb, fourth, dynasty, pharaoh, khufu, built, early, 26th, century, during, period, around, years, pyramid, oldest, seven, wonders, anc. Great Pyramid redirects here For the pyramid in Mexico see Great Pyramid of Cholula The Great Pyramid of Giza a is the biggest Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years 3 the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one to remain largely intact As part of the Giza pyramid complex it borders present day Giza in Greater Cairo Egypt The Great Pyramid of GizaThe Great Pyramid of Giza in March 2005KhufuCoordinates29 58 45 N 31 08 03 E 29 97917 N 31 13417 E 29 97917 31 13417 Coordinates 29 58 45 N 31 08 03 E 29 97917 N 31 13417 E 29 97917 31 13417Ancient name 1 ꜣḫt ḪwfwAkhet KhufuKhufu s HorizonConstructedc 2570 BC 4th dynasty TypeTrue pyramidMaterialMainly limestone mortar some graniteHeight146 6 m 481 ft or 280 cubits originally 138 5 m 454 ft contemporary Base230 33 m 756 ft or 440 cubitsVolume2 6 million m3 92 million cu ft Slope51 50 40 or Seked of 5 1 2 palms 2 Building detailsRecord heightTallest in the world from c 2600 BC to 1311 AD I Preceded byRed PyramidSurpassed byLincoln Cathedral dubious discuss UNESCO World Heritage SitePart ofMemphis and its Necropolis the Pyramid Fields from Giza to DahshurCriteriaCultural i iii viReference86 002Inscription1979 3rd Session Initially standing at 146 6 metres 481 feet the Great Pyramid was the tallest man made structure in the world for more than 3 800 years Over time most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed which lowered the pyramid s height to the present 138 5 metres 454 4 ft What is seen today is the underlying core structure The base was measured to be about 230 3 metres 755 6 ft square giving a volume of roughly 2 6 million cubic metres 92 million cubic feet which includes an internal hillock 4 The dimensions of the pyramid were 280 royal cubits 146 7 m 481 4 ft high a base length of 440 cubits 230 6 m 756 4 ft with a seked of 5 1 2 palms a slope of 51 50 40 The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2 3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes in total The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape and are only roughly dressed 5 The outside layers were bound together by mortar Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile White limestone from Tura for the casing and granite blocks from Aswan weighing up to 80 tonnes for the King s Chamber structure 6 There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid The lowest was cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built but remained unfinished The so called 7 Queen s Chamber and King s Chamber that contains a granite sarcophagus are higher up within the pyramid structure Khufu s vizier Hemiunu also called Hemon is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid 8 Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques The funerary complex around the pyramid consisted of two mortuary temples connected by a causeway one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile tombs for the immediate family and court of Khufu including three smaller pyramids for Khufu s wives an even smaller satellite pyramid and five buried solar barges Contents 1 Attribution to Khufu 2 Age 2 1 Historical chronology 2 2 Radiocarbon dating 2 3 History of dating Khufu and the Great Pyramid 3 Historiographical record 3 1 Classical antiquity 3 1 1 Herodotus 3 1 2 Diodorus Siculus 3 1 3 Strabo 3 1 4 Pliny the Elder 3 2 Late antiquity and the Middle Ages 4 Construction 4 1 Preparation of the site 4 2 Materials 4 3 Workforce 4 4 Surveys and design 4 4 1 Alignment to the cardinal directions 4 5 Construction theories 5 Exterior 5 1 Casing 5 2 Pyramidion and missing tip 6 Interior 6 1 Entrances 6 1 1 Original entrance 6 1 1 1 North Face Corridor 6 1 2 Robbers Tunnel 6 2 Descending Passage 6 3 Subterranean Chamber 6 4 Ascending Passage 6 5 Well Shaft and Grotto 6 6 Queen s Chamber 6 7 Grand Gallery 6 8 The Big Void 6 9 Antechamber 6 10 King s Chamber 6 10 1 Sarcophagus 6 10 2 Air shafts 6 11 Relieving chambers 7 Pyramid complex 7 1 Temples and causeway 7 2 East cemetery 7 2 1 Subsidiary pyramids 7 3 Boats 7 4 Pyramid town 8 Looting 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11 1 Bibliography 12 Further reading 13 External linksAttribution to Khufu Clay seal bearing the name of Khufu from the Great Pyramid on display at the Louvre museum Khufu s cartouche found inscribed on a backing stone of the pyramid Historically the Great Pyramid had been attributed to Khufu based on the words of authors of classical antiquity first and foremost Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus However during the Middle Ages a number of other people were credited with the construction of the pyramid as well for example Joseph Nimrod or king Saurid 9 In 1837 four additional Relieving Chambers were found above the King s Chamber after tunneling to them The chambers previously inaccessible were covered in hieroglyphs of red paint The workers who were building the pyramid had marked the blocks with the names of their gangs which included the pharaoh s name e g The gang The white crown of Khnum Khufu is powerful The names of Khufu were spelled out on the walls over a dozen times Another of these graffiti was found by Goyon on an exterior block of the 4th layer of the pyramid 10 The inscriptions are comparable to those found at other sites of Khufu such as the alabaster quarry at Hatnub 11 or the harbor at Wadi al Jarf and are present in pyramids of other pharaohs as well 12 13 Throughout the 20th century the cemeteries next to the pyramid were excavated Family members and high officials of Khufu were buried in the East Field south of the causeway and the West Field Most notably the wives children and grandchildren of Khufu Hemiunu Ankhaf and the funerary cache of Hetepheres I mother of Khufu As Hassan puts it From the early dynastic times it was always the custom for the relatives friends and courtiers to be buried in the vicinity of the king they had served during life This was quite in accordance with the Egyptian idea of the Hereafter The cemeteries were actively expanded until the 6th dynasty and used less frequently afterwards The earliest pharaonic name of seal impressions is that of Khufu the latest of Pepi II Worker graffiti was written on some of the stones of the tombs as well for instance Mddw Horus name of Khufu on the mastaba of Chufunacht probably a grandson of Khufu 14 Some inscriptions in the chapels of the mastabas like the pyramid their burial chambers were usually bare of inscriptions mention Khufu or his pyramid For instance an inscription of Mersyankh III states that Her mother is the daughter of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Khufu Most often these references are part of a title for example Snnw ka Chief of the Settlement and Overseer of the Pyramid City of Akhet Khufu or Merib Priest of Khufu 15 Several tomb owners have a king s name as part of their own name e g Chufudjedef Chufuseneb Merichufu The earliest pharaoh alluded to in that manner at Giza is Snefru Khufu s father 16 17 18 In 1936 Hassan uncovered a stela of Amenhotep II near the Great Sphinx of Giza which implies the two larger pyramids were still attributed to Khufu and Khafre in the New Kingdom It reads He yoked the horses in Memphis when he was still young and stopped at the Sanctuary of Hor em akhet the Sphinx He spent a time there in going round it looking at the beauty of the Sanctuary of Khufu and Khafra the revered 19 In 1954 two boat pits one containing the Khufu ship were discovered buried at the south foot of the pyramid The cartouche of Djedefre was found on many of the blocks that covered the boat pits As the successor and eldest son he would have presumably been responsible for the burial of Khufu 20 The second boat pit was examined in 1987 excavation work started in 2010 Graffiti on the stones included 4 instances of the name Khufu 11 instances of Djedefre a year in reign season month and day measurements of the stone various signs and marks and a reference line used in construction all done in red or black ink 21 During excavations in 2013 the Diary of Merer was found at Wadi al Jarf It documents the transportation of white limestone blocks from Tura to the Great Pyramid which is mentioned by its original name Akhet Khufu with a pyramid determinative dozens of times It details that the stones were accepted at She Akhet Khufu the pool of the pyramid Horizon of Khufu and Ro She Khufu the entrance to the pool of Khufu which were under supervision of Ankhhaf half brother and vizier of Khufu as well as owner of the largest mastaba of the Giza East Field 3 AgeModern estimates of dating the Great Pyramid and Khufu s first regnal year Author year Estimated dateGreaves 1646 22 1266 BCGardiner 1835 23 2123 BCLepsius 1849 24 3124 BCBunsen 1860 25 3209 BCMariette 1867 26 4235 BCBreasted 1906 27 2900 BCHassan 1960 28 2700 BCO Mara 1997 29 2700 BCBeckarath 1997 30 2554 BCArnold 1999 31 2551 BCSpence 2000 32 2480 BCShaw 2000 33 2589 BCHornung 2006 34 2509 BCRamsey et al 2010 35 2613 2577 BCThe Great Pyramid has been determined to be about 4600 years old by two principal approaches indirectly through its attribution to Khufu and his chronological age based on archaeological and textual evidence and directly via radiocarbon dating of organic material found in the pyramid and included in its mortar Historical chronology Main article Egyptian chronology In the past the Great Pyramid was dated by its attribution to Khufu alone putting the construction of the Great Pyramid within his reign Hence dating the pyramid was a matter of dating Khufu and the 4th dynasty The relative sequence and synchronicity of events stands at the focal point of this method Absolute calendar dates are derived from an interlocked network of evidence the backbone of which are the lines of succession known from ancient king lists and other texts The reign lengths from Khufu to known points in the earlier past are summated bolstered with genealogical data astronomical observations and other sources As such the historical chronology of Egypt is primarily a political chronology thus independent from other types of archaeological evidence like stratigraphies material culture or radiocarbon dating The majority of recent chronological estimates date Khufu and his pyramid roughly between 2700 and 2500 BC 36 Radiocarbon dating Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid s construction In the mixing process ashes from fires were added to the mortar organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995 making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date The results were calibrated to 2871 2604 BC The old wood problem is thought to be mainly responsible for the 100 300 year offset since the age of the organic material was determined not when it was last used A reanalysis of the data gave a completion date for the pyramid between 2620 and 2484 BC based on the younger samples 37 38 39 In 1872 Waynman Dixon opened the lower pair of Air Shafts previously closed at both ends by chiseling holes into the walls of the Queen s Chamber One of the objects found within was a cedar plank which came into possession of James Grant a friend of Dixon After inheritance it was donated to the Museum of Aberdeen in 1946 however it had broken into pieces and was filed incorrectly Lost in the vast museum collection it was only rediscovered in 2020 when it was radiocarbon dated to 3341 3094 BC Being over 500 years older than Khufu s chronological age Abeer Eladany suggests that the wood originated from the center of a long lived tree or had been recycled for many years prior to being deposited in the pyramid 40 History of dating Khufu and the Great Pyramid Circa 450 BC Herodotus attributed the Great Pyramid to Cheops Hellenization of Khufu yet erroneously placed his reign following the Ramesside period Manetho around 200 years later composed an extensive list of Egyptian kings which he divided into dynasties assigning Khufu to the 4th However after phonetic changes in the Egyptian language and consequently the Greek translation Cheops had transformed into Souphis and similar versions 41 Greaves in 1646 reported the great difficulty of ascertaining a date for the pyramid s construction based on the lacking and conflicting historic sources Because of the aforementioned differences in spelling he didn t recognize Khufu on Manetho s king list as transcribed by Africanus and Eusebius 42 hence he relied on Herodotus incorrect account Summating the duration of lines of succession Greaves concluded the year 1266 BC to be the beginning of Khufu s reign 22 Two centuries later some of the gaps and uncertainties in Manetho s chronology had been cleared by discoveries such as the King Lists of Turin Abydos and Karnak The names of Khufu found within the Great Pyramid s Relieving Chambers in 1837 helped to make clear that Cheops and Souphis are in fact one and the same Thus the Great Pyramid was recognized to have been built in the 4th dynasty 24 The dating among Egyptologists still varied by multiple centuries around 4000 2000 BC depending on methodology preconceived religious notions such as the biblical deluge and which source they thought was more credible Estimates significantly narrowed in the 20th century most being within 250 years of each other around the middle of the third millennium BC The newly developed radiocarbon dating method confirmed that the historic chronology was approximately correct It is however still not a fully appreciated method due to larger margins or error calibration uncertainties and the problem of inbuilt age time between growth and final usage in plant material including wood 36 Furthermore astronomical alignments have been suggested to coincide with the time of construction 29 32 Egyptian chronology continues to be refined and data from multiple disciplines have started to be factored in such as luminescence dating radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology For instance Ramsey et al included over 200 radiocarbon samples in their model 35 Historiographical recordClassical antiquity Herodotus The Greek historian Herodotus was one of the first major authors to discuss the Great Pyramid The ancient Greek historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC is one of the first major authors to mention the pyramid In the second book of his work The Histories he discusses the history of Egypt and the Great Pyramid This report was created more than 2000 years after the structure was built meaning that Herodotus obtained his knowledge mainly from a variety of indirect sources including officials and priests of low rank local Egyptians Greek immigrants and Herodotus s own interpreters Accordingly his explanations present themselves as a mixture of comprehensible descriptions personal descriptions erroneous reports and fantastical legends as such many of the speculative errors and confusions about the monument can be traced back to Herodotus and his work 43 44 Herodotus writes that the Great Pyramid was built by Khufu Hellenized as Cheops who he erroneously relays ruled after the Ramesside Period the 19th dynasty and the 20th dynasty 45 Khufu was a tyrannical king Herodotus claims which may explain the Greek s view that such buildings can only come about through cruel exploitation of the people 43 Herodotus further states that gangs of 100 000 labourers worked on the building in three month shifts taking 20 years to build In the first ten years a wide causeway was erected which according to Herodotus was almost as impressive as the construction of the pyramids themselves It measured nearly 1 kilometre 0 62 mi long and 20 yards 18 3 m wide and elevated to a height of 16 yards 14 6 m consisting of stone polished and carved with figures 46 In addition underground chambers were made on the hill whereon the pyramids stand These were intended to be burial places for Khufu himself and were encompassed with water by a channel brought in from the Nile 46 Herodotus later states that at the Pyramid of Khafre located beside the Great Pyramid the Nile flows through a built passage to an island in which Khufu is buried 47 Hawass interprets this to be a reference to the Osiris Shaft which is located at the causeway of Khafre south of the Great Pyramid 48 49 Herodotus also described an inscription on the outside of the pyramid which according to his translators indicated the amount of radishes garlic and onions that the workers would have eaten while working on the pyramid 50 This could be a note of restoration work that Khaemweset son of Rameses II had carried out Apparently Herodotus companions and interpreters could not read the hieroglyphs or deliberately gave him false information 51 Diodorus Siculus Between 60 and 56 BC the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus visited Egypt and later dedicated the first book of his Bibliotheca historica to the land its history and its monuments including the Great Pyramid Diodorus s work was inspired by historians of the past but he also distanced himself from Herodotus who Diodorus claims tells marvelous tales and myths 52 Diodorus presumably drew his knowledge from the lost work of Hecataeus of Abdera 53 and like Herodotus he also places the builder of the pyramid Chemmis 54 after Ramses III 45 According to his report neither Chemmis Khufu nor Cephren Khafre were buried in their pyramids but rather in secret places for fear that the people ostensibly forced to build the structures would seek out the bodies for revenge 55 with this assertion Diodorus strengthened the connection between pyramid building and slavery 56 According to Diodorus the cladding of the pyramid was still in excellent condition at the time whereas the uppermost part of the pyramid was formed by a platform 6 cubits 3 1 m 10 3 ft high About the construction of the pyramid he notes that it was built with the help of ramps since no lifting tools had yet been invented Nothing was left of the ramps as they were removed after the pyramids were completed He estimated the number of workers necessary to erect the Great Pyramid at 360 000 and the construction time at 20 years 54 Similar to Herodotus Diodorus also claims that the side of the pyramid is inscribed with writing that set forth the price of vegetables and purgatives for the workmen there were paid out over sixteen hundred talents 55 Strabo The Greek geographer philosopher and historian Strabo visited Egypt around 25 BC shortly after Egypt was annexed by the Romans In his work Geographica he argues that the pyramids were the burial place of kings but he does not mention which king was buried in the structure Strabo also mentions At a moderate height in one of the sides is a stone which may be taken out when that is removed there is an oblique passage to the tomb 57 This statement has generated much speculation as it suggests that the pyramid could be entered at this time 58 Pliny the Elder During the Roman Empire Pliny the Elder argues that bridges were used to transport stones to the top of the Great Pyramid The Roman writer Pliny the Elder writing in the first century AD argued that the Great Pyramid had been raised either to prevent the lower classes from remaining unoccupied or as a measure to prevent the pharaoh s riches from falling into the hands of his rivals or successors 59 Pliny does not speculate as to the pharaoh in question explicitly noting that accident has consigned to oblivion the names of those who erected such stupendous memorials of their vanity 60 In pondering how the stones could be transported to such a vast height he gives two explanations That either vast mounds of nitre and salt were heaped up against the pyramid which were then melted away with water redirected from the river Or that bridges were constructed their bricks afterwards distributed for erecting houses of private individuals arguing that the level of the river is too low for canals to ever bring water up to the pyramid Pliny also recounts how in the interior of the largest Pyramid there is a well eighty six cubits 45 1 m 147 8 ft deep which communicates with the river it is thought Further he describes a method discovered by Thales of Miletus for ascertaining the pyramid s height by measuring its shadow 60 Late antiquity and the Middle Ages Further information Joseph s Granaries During late antiquity a misinterpretation of the pyramids as Joseph s granary began to gain in popularity The first textual evidence of this connection is found in the travel narratives of the female Christian pilgrim Egeria who records that on her visit between 381 and 384 AD in the twelve mile stretch between Memphis and Babylonia Old Cairo are many pyramids which Joseph made in order to store corn 61 Ten years later the usage is confirmed in the anonymous travelogue of seven monks that set out from Jerusalem to visit the famous ascetics in Egypt wherein they report that they saw Joseph s granaries where he stored grain in biblical times 62 This late 4th century usage is further confirmed in the geographical treatise Cosmographia written by Julius Honorius around 376 AD 63 which explains that the Pyramids were called the granaries of Joseph horrea Ioseph 64 This reference from Julius is important as it indicates that the identification was starting to spread out from pilgrim s travelogues In 530 AD Stephanos of Byzantium added more to this idea when he wrote in his Ethnica that the word pyramid was connected to the Greek word pyros puros meaning wheat 65 The Abbasid Caliph Al Ma mun 786 833 CE is said to have tunneled into the side of the Great Pyramid In the seventh century AD the Rashidun Caliphate conquered Egypt ending several centuries of Romano Byzantine rule A few centuries later in 820 AD the Abbasid Caliph Al Ma mun 786 833 is said to have tunneled into the side of the structure and discovered the ascending passage and its connecting chambers 66 Around this time a Coptic legend gained popularity that claimed the antediluvian king Surid Ibn Salhouk had built the Pyramid One legend in particular relates how three hundred years prior to the Great Flood Surid had a terrifying dream of the world s end and so he ordered the construction of the pyramids so that they might house all the knowledge of Egypt and survive into the present 67 The most notable account of this legend was given by Al Masudi 896 956 in his Akbar al zaman alongside imaginative tales about the pyramid such as the story of a man who fell three hours down the pyramid s well and the tale of an expedition that discovered bizarre finds in the structure s inner chambers Al zaman also contains a report of Al Ma mun s entering the pyramid and discovering a vessel containing a thousand coins which just so happened to account for the cost of opening the pyramid 68 Some speculate that this story is true but that the coins were planted by Al Ma mun to appease his workers who were likely frustrated that they had found no treasure 69 In 987 AD the Arab bibliographer Ibn al Nadim relates a fantastical tale in his Al Fihrist about a man who journeyed into the main chamber of a pyramid which Bayard Dodge argues is the Great Pyramid 70 According to al Nadim the person in question saw a statue of a man holding a tablet and a woman holding a mirror Supposedly between the statues was a stone vessel with a gold cover Inside the vessel was something like pitch and when the explorer reached into the vessel a gold receptacle happened to be inside The receptacle when taken from the vessel was filled with fresh blood which quickly dried up Ibn al Nadim s work also claims that the bodies of a man and woman were discovered inside the Pyramid in the best possible state of preservation 71 The author al Kaisi in his work the Tohfat Alalbab retells the story of Al Ma mun s entry but with the additional discovery of an image of a man in green stone which when opened revealed a body dressed in jewel encrusted gold armor Al Kaisi claims to have seen the case from which the body was taken and asserts that it was located at the king s palace in Cairo He also writes that he himself entered into the pyramid and discovered myriad preserved bodies 72 The Arab polymath Abd al Latif al Baghdadi 1163 1231 studied the pyramid with great care and in his Account of Egypt he praises them as works of engineering genius In addition to measuring the structure alongside the other pyramids at Giza al Baghdadi also writes that the structures were surely tombs although he thought the Great Pyramid was used for the burial of Agathodaimon or Hermes Al Baghdadi ponders whether the pyramid pre dated the Great flood as described in Genesis and even briefly entertained the idea that it was a pre Adamic construction 73 74 A few centuries later the Islamic historian Al Maqrizi 1364 1442 compiled lore about the Great Pyramid in his Al Khitat In addition to reasserting that Al Ma mun breached the structure in 820 AD Al Maqrizi s work also discusses the sarcophagus in the coffin chambers explicitly noting that the pyramid was a grave 75 By the Late Middle Ages the Great Pyramid had gained a reputation as a haunted structure Others feared entering because it was home to animals like bats 76 ConstructionPreparation of the site A hillock forms the base on which the pyramids stands It was cut back into steps and only a strip around the perimeter was leveled 77 which has been measured to be horizontal and flat to within 21 millimetres 0 8 in 78 The bedrock reaches a height of almost 6 metres 20 ft above the pyramid base at the location of the Grotto 79 Along the sides of the base platform a series of holes are cut in the bedrock Lehner hypothesizes that they held wooden posts used for alignment 80 Edwards among others suggested the usage of water for evening the base although it is unclear how practical and workable such a system would be 77 Materials The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2 3 million blocks Approximately 5 5 million tonnes of limestone 8 000 tonnes of granite and 500 000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction 81 Most of the blocks were quarried at Giza just south of the pyramid an area now known as the Central Field 82 The white limestone used for the casing originated from Tura 10 km 6 2 mi south of Giza and was transported by boat down the Nile In 2013 rolls of papyrus called the Diary of Merer were discovered written by a supervisor of the deliveries of limestone and other construction materials from Tura to Giza in the last known year of Khufu s reign 83 The granite stones in the pyramid were transported from Aswan more than 900 km 560 mi away 6 The largest weighing 25 to 80 tonnes form the roofs of the King s chamber and the relieving chambers above it Ancient Egyptians cut stone into rough blocks by hammering grooves into natural stone faces inserting wooden wedges then soaking these with water As the water was absorbed the wedges expanded breaking off workable chunks Once the blocks were cut they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid 84 Workforce The Greeks believed that slave labour was used but modern discoveries made at nearby workers camps associated with construction at Giza suggest that it was built instead by thousands of conscript laborers 85 Worker graffiti found at Giza suggest haulers were divided into zau singular za groups of 40 men consisting of four sub units that each had an Overseer of Ten 86 3 As to the question of how over two million blocks could have been cut within Khufu s lifetime stonemason Franck Burgos conducted an archaeological experiment based on an abandoned quarry of Khufu discovered in 2017 Within it an almost completed block and the tools used for cutting it had been uncovered hardened arsenic copper chisels wooden mallets ropes and stone tools In the experiment replicas of these were used to cut a block weighing about 2 5 tonnes the average block size used for the Great Pyramid It took four workers 4 days with each working 6 hours a day to excavate it The initially slow progress sped up six times when the stone was wetted with water Based on the data Burgos extrapolates that about 3 500 quarry men could have produced the 250 blocks day needed to complete the Great Pyramid in 27 years 87 A construction management study conducted in 1999 in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists had estimated that the total project required an average workforce of about 13 200 people and a peak workforce of roughly 40 000 88 Surveys and design Comparison of approximate profiles of the Great Pyramid of Giza with some notable pyramidal or near pyramidal buildings Dotted lines indicate original heights where data is available In its SVG file hover over a pyramid to highlight and click for its article The first precise measurements of the pyramid were made by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1880 1882 published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh 89 Many of the casing stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid fit together with high precision with joints on average only 0 5 millimetres 0 020 in wide 90 On the contrary core blocks were only roughly shaped with rubble inserted between larger gaps Mortar was used to bind the outer layers together and fill gaps and joints 5 The block height and weight tends to get progressively smaller towards the top Petrie measured the lowest layer to be 148 centimetres 4 86 ft high whereas the layers towards the summit barely exceed 50 centimetres 1 6 ft 89 The accuracy of the pyramid s perimeter is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres 2 3 inches in length b and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc 92 The completed design dimensions are measured to have originally been 280 royal cubits 146 7 m 481 4 ft high by 440 cubits 230 6 m 756 4 ft long at each of the four sides of its base Ancient Egyptians used seked how much run for one cubit of rise to describe slopes For the Great Pyramid a seked of 5 1 2 palms was chosen a ratio of 14 up to 11 in 93 Some Egyptologists suggest this slope was chosen because the ratio of perimeter to height 1760 280 cubits equals 2p to an accuracy of better than 0 05 percent corresponding to the well known approximation of p as 22 7 Verner wrote We can conclude that although the ancient Egyptians could not precisely define the value of p in practice they used it 94 Petrie concluded but these relations of areas and of circular ratio are so systematic that we should grant that they were in the builder s design 95 Others have argued that the ancient Egyptians had no concept of pi and would not have thought to encode it in their monuments and that the observed pyramid slope may be based on the seked choice alone 96 Alignment to the cardinal directions The sides of the Great Pyramid s base are closely aligned to the four geographic not magnetic cardinal directions deviating on average 3 minutes and 38 seconds of arc or about a tenth of a degree 97 Several methods have been proposed for how the ancient Egyptians achieved this level of accuracy The Solar Gnomon Method The shadow of a vertical rod is tracked throughout a day The shadow line is intersected by a circle drawn around the base of the rod Connecting the intersecting points produces an east west line An experiment using this method resulted in lines being on average 2 minutes 9 seconds off due east west Employing a pinhole produced much more accurate results 19 arc seconds off whereas using an angled block as a shadow definer was less accurate 3 47 off 98 The Pole Star Method The polar star is tracked using a movable sight and fixed plumb line Halfway between the maximum eastern and western elongations is true north Thuban the polar star during the Old Kingdom was about two degrees removed from the celestial pole at the time 99 The Simultaneous Transit Method The stars Mizar and Kochab appear on a vertical line on the horizon close to true north around 2500 BC They slowly and simultaneously shift east over time which is used to explain the relative misalignment of the pyramids 100 101 The latitude 29 9792458 north of the Equator passes through the Great Pyramid of Giza which is the most northern Pyramid of the 3 Pyramids in a line this is an interesting coincidence as the speed of light is 299792458 Metres per Second Construction theories Main article Egyptian pyramid construction techniques Many alternative often contradictory theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid s construction techniques 102 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 103 The basalt blocks of the pyramid temple show clear evidence of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade of 15 feet 4 6 m in length Romer suggests that this super saw may have had copper teeth and weighed up to 140 kilograms 310 lb He theorizes that such a saw could have been attached to a wooden trestle support and possibly used in conjunction with vegetable oil cutting sand emery or pounded quartz to cut the blocks which would have required the labour of at least a dozen men to operate it 104 ExteriorCasing Remaining casing stones on the north side of the Great Pyramid Casing stone in the British Museum 105 At completion the Great Pyramid was cased entirely in white limestone Precisely worked blocks were placed in horizontal layers and carefully fitted together with mortar their outward faces cut at a slope and smoothed to a high degree Together they created four uniform surfaces angled at 51 50 40 a Seked of 5 1 2 palms 106 107 Unfinished casing blocks of the pyramids of Menkaure and Henutsen at Giza suggest that the front faces were smoothed only after the stones were laid with chiseled seams marking correct positioning and where the superfluous rock would have to be trimmed off 108 The height of the horizontal layers is not uniform but varies considerably The highest of the 203 remaining courses are towards the bottom the first layer being the tallest at 1 49 metres 4 9 ft Towards the top layers tend to be only slightly over 1 royal cubit 0 5 m 1 7 ft in height An irregular pattern is noticeable when looking at the sizes in sequence where layer height declines steadily only to rise sharply again 109 110 111 So called backing stones supported the casing which were unlike core blocks precisely dressed as well and bound to the casing with mortar Nowadays these stones give the structure its visible appearance following the dismantling of the pyramid in the Middle Ages In 1303 AD a massive earthquake had loosened many of the outer casing stones citation needed which were said to have been carted away by Bahri Sultan An Nasir Nasir ad Din al Hasan in 1356 for use in nearby Cairo 92 Many more casing stones were removed from the site by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the early 19th century to build the upper portion of his Alabaster Mosque in Cairo not far from Giza citation needed 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 Today a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen in situ on each side with the best preserved on the north below the entrances excavated by Vyse in 1837 The mortar was chemically analyzed 112 and contains organic inclusions mostly charcoal samples of which were radiocarbon dated to 2871 2604 BC 113 It has been theorized that the mortar enabled the masons to set the stones exactly by providing a level bed 114 115 It has been suggested that some or all of the casing stones were cast in place rather than quarried and moved yet archaeological evidence and petrographic analysis indicate this was not the case 116 Petrie noted in 1880 that the sides of the pyramid as we see them today are very distinctly hollowed and that each side has a sort of groove specially down the middle of the face which he reasoned was a result of increased casing thickness in these areas 117 A laser scanning survey in 2005 confirmed the existence of the anomalies which can be to some degree attributed to damaged and removed stones 118 Under certain lighting conditions and with image enhancement the faces can appear to be split leading to speculation that the pyramid had been intentionally constructed eight sided 119 120 Pyramidion and missing tip The pyramid was once topped by a capstone known as a pyramidion The material it was made from is subject to much speculation limestone granite or basalt are commonly proposed while in popular culture it is often solid gold or gilded All known 4th dynasty pyramidia of the Red Pyramid Satellite Pyramid of Khufu G1 d and Queen s Pyramid of Menkaure G3 a are of white limestone and were not gilded 121 Only from the 5th dynasty onward is there evidence of gilded capstones for instance a scene on the causeway of the Sahure speaks of the white gold pyramidion of the pyramid Sahure s Soul Shines 122 The Great Pyramid s pyramidion was already lost in antiquity as Pliny the Elder and later authors report of a platform on its summit 59 Nowadays the pyramid is about 8 metres 26 ft shorter than it was when intact with about 1 000 tonnes of material missing from the top In 1874 a mast was installed on the top by the Scottish astronomer Sir David Gill who whilst returning from work involving observing a rare Venus transit was invited to survey Egypt and began by surveying the Great Pyramid His results measuring the pyramid were accurate to within 1 mm and the survey mast is still in place to this day 123 124 Interior Elevation diagram of the interior structures of the Great Pyramid The inner and outer lines indicate the pyramid s present and original profiles 1 Original entrance 2 Robbers Tunnel tourist entrance 3 4 Descending Passage 5 Subterranean Chamber 6 Ascending Passage 7 Queen s Chamber amp its air shafts 8 Horizontal Passage 9 Grand Gallery 10 King s Chamber amp its air shafts 11 Grotto amp Well ShaftThe internal structure consists of three main chambers the King s Queen s and Subterranean Chamber the Grand Gallery and various corridors and shafts There are two entrances into the pyramid the original and a forced passage which meet at a junction From there one passage descends into the Subterranean Chamber while the other ascends to the Grand Gallery From the beginning of the gallery three paths can be taken a vertical shaft that leads down past a grotto to meet the descending passage a horizontal corridor leading to the Queen s Chamber and the path up the gallery itself to the King s Chamber that contains the sarcophagus Both the King s and Queen s Chamber have a pair of small air shafts Above the King s Chamber are a series of five Relieving Chambers Entrances Original Entrance Top Left Robbers Tunnel Middle Right Original entrance The original entrance is located on the north side 15 royal cubits 7 9 m 25 8 ft east of the centerline of the pyramid Before the removal of the casing in the middle ages the pyramid was entered through a hole in the 19th layer of masonry approximately 17 metres 56 ft above the pyramid s base level The height of that layer 96 centimetres 3 15 ft corresponds to the size of the entrance tunnel which is commonly called the Descending Passage 79 125 According to Strabo 64 24 BC a movable stone could be raised to enter this sloping corridor however it is not known if it was a later addition or original A row of double chevrons diverts weight away from the entrance Several of these chevron blocks are now missing as the slanted faces they used to rest on indicate Numerous mostly modern graffiti is cut into the stones around the entrance Most notable is a large square text of hieroglyphs carved in honor of Frederick William IV by Karl Richard Lepsius s Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842 126 North Face Corridor In 2016 the ScanPyramids team detected a cavity behind the entrance chevrons using muography which was confirmed in 2019 to be a corridor at least 5 metres 16 ft long running horizontal or sloping upwards thus not parallel to the Descending Passage 127 128 Whether or not it connects to the Big Void above the Grand Gallery remains to be seen Robbers Tunnel Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers Tunnel which was long ago cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid The entrance was forced into the 6th and 7th layer of the casing about 7 metres 23 ft above the base After running more or less straight and horizontal for 27 metres 89 ft it turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point but access is usually forbidden 129 The origin of this Robbers Tunnel is the subject of much scholarly discussion According to tradition the chasm was made around 820 AD by Caliph al Ma mun s workmen with a battering ram The digging dislodged the stone in the ceiling of the Descending Passage which hid the entrance to the Ascending Passage and the noise of that stone falling then sliding down the Descending Passage alerted them to the need to turn left Unable to remove these stones however the workmen tunneled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage 130 131 Due to a number of historical and archaeological discrepancies many scholars with Antoine de Sacy perhaps being the first contend that this story is apocryphal They argue that it is much more likely that the tunnel had been carved shortly after the pyramid was initially sealed This tunnel the scholars continue was then resealed likely during the Ramesside Restoration and it was this plug that al Ma mun s ninth century expedition cleared away This theory is furthered by the report of patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo who claimed that before al Ma mun s expedition there already existed a breach in the pyramid s north face that extended into the structure 33 metres 108 ft before hitting a dead end This suggests that some sort of robber s tunnel predated al Ma mun and that the caliph simply enlarged it and cleared it of debris 132 Descending Passage From the original entrance a passage descends through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it ultimately leading to the Subterranean Chamber It has a slanted height of 4 Egyptian feet 1 20 m 3 9 ft and a width of 2 cubits 1 0 m 3 4 ft Its angle of 26 26 46 corresponds to a ratio of 1 to 2 rise over run 133 After 28 metres 92 ft the lower end of the Ascending Passage is reached a square hole in the ceiling which is blocked by granite stones and might have originally been concealed To circumvent these hard stones a short tunnel was excavated that meets the end of the Robbers Tunnel This was expanded over time and fitted with stairs The passage continues to descend for another 72 metres 236 ft now through bedrock instead of the pyramid superstructure Lazy guides used to block off this part with rubble to avoid having to lead people down and back up the long shaft until around 1902 when Covington installed a padlocked iron grill door to stop this practice 134 Near the end of this section on the west wall is the connection to the vertical shaft that leads up to the Grand Gallery A horizontal shaft connects the end of the Descending Passage to the Subterranean Chamber It has a length of 8 84 m 29 0 ft width of 85 cm 2 79 ft and height of 91 95 cm 2 99 3 12 ft A recess is located towards the end of the western wall slightly larger than the tunnel the ceiling of which is irregular and undressed 135 Subterranean Chamber Subterranean Chamber looking west in 1909 with rubble from the Pit Shaft excavation still filling the chamber Subterranean Chamber looking south with Pit Shaft in the floor and blind corridor entrance The Subterranean Chamber or Pit is the lowest of the three main chambers and the only one dug into the bedrock beneath the pyramid Located about 27 m 89 ft below base level 79 it measures roughly 16 cubits 8 4 m 27 5 ft north south by 27 cubits 14 1 m 46 4 ft east west with an approximate height of 4 m 13 ft The western half of the room apart from the ceiling is unfinished with trenches left behind by the quarry men running east to west A niche was cut into the northern half of the west wall The only access through the Descending Passage lies on the eastern end of the north wall Although seemingly known in antiquity according to Herodotus and later authors its existence had been forgotten in the Middle Ages until rediscovery in 1817 when Giovanni Caviglia cleared the rubble blocking the Descending Passage 136 Opposing the entrance a blind corridor runs straight south for 11 m 36 ft and continues slight bent another 5 4 m 18 ft measuring about 0 75 m 2 5 ft squared A Greek or Roman character was found on its ceiling with the light of a candle suggesting that the chamber had indeed been accessible during Classical antiquity 137 In the middle of the eastern half a large hole is opened up called Pit Shaft or Perring s Shaft The upmost part may have ancient origins about 2 m 6 6 ft squared in width and 1 5 m 4 9 ft in depth diagonally aligned with the chamber Caviglia and Salt enlarged it to the depth of about 3 m 9 8 ft 138 In 1837 Vyse directed the shaft to be sunk to a depth of 50 ft 15 m in hopes of discovering the chamber encompassed by water that Herodotus alludes to It is slightly narrower in width at about 1 5 m 4 9 ft No chamber was discovered after Perring and his workers had spent one and a half years penetrating the bedrock to the then water level of the Nile some 12 m 39 ft further down 139 The rubble produced during this operation was deposited throughout the chamber Petrie visiting in 1880 found the shaft to be partially filled with rainwater that had rushed down the Descending Passage 140 In 1909 when the Edgar brothers surveying activities were encumbered by the material they moved the sand and smaller stones back into the shaft leaving the upper part clear 141 The deep modern shaft is sometimes mistaken to be part of the original design Ludwig Borchardt suggested that the Subterranean Chamber was originally planned to be the burial place for pharaoh Khufu but that it was abandoned during construction in favour of a chamber higher up in the pyramid 142 Ascending Passage The upper two granite plugs in the Ascending Passage seen from the end of the Robbers Tunnel The Ascending Passage connects the Descending Passage to the Grand Gallery It is 75 cubits 39 3 m 128 9 ft long and of the same width and height as the shaft it originates from although its angle is slightly lower at 26 6 143 The lower end of the shaft is plugged by three granite stones which were slid down from the Grand Gallery to seal the tunnel They are 1 57 m 5 2 ft 1 67 m 5 5 ft and 1 m 3 3 ft long respectively 143 The uppermost is heavily damaged hence it is shorter The end of the Robbers Tunnel concludes slightly below the stones so a short tunnel was dug around them to gain access to the Descending Passage since the surrounding limestone is considerably softer and easier to work Most of the joints between the blocks of the walls run perpendicular to the floor with two exceptions Firstly those in the lower third of the corridor are vertical Secondly the three girdle stones that are inserted near the middle about 10 cubits apart presumably to stabilize the tunnel 144 Well Shaft and Grotto Grotto left accessed through the broken wall of the Well Shaft right The Well Shaft also known as the Service Shaft or Vertical Shaft links the lower end of the Grand Gallery to the bottom of Descending Passage about 50 metres 160 ft further down It takes a winding and indirect course The upper half goes through the nucleus masonry of the pyramid It runs vertical at first for 8 metres 26 ft then slightly angled southwards for about the same distance until it hits bedrock approximately 5 7 metres 19 ft above the pyramid s base level Another vertical section descends further which is partially lined with masonry that has been broken through to a cavity known as the Grotto The lower half of the Well Shaft goes through the bedrock at an angle of about 45 for 26 5 metres 87 ft before a steeper section 9 5 metres 31 ft long leads to its lowest point The final section of 2 6 metres 8 5 ft connects it to the Descending Passage running almost horizontal The builders evidently had trouble aligning the lower exit 145 79 The purpose of the shaft is commonly explained as a ventilation shaft for the Subterranean Chamber and as an escape shaft for the workers who slid the blocking stones of the Ascending Passage into place The Grotto is a natural limestone cave that was likely filled with sand and gravel before construction before being hollowed out by looters A granite block rests in it that likely originated from the portcullis that once sealed the King s Chamber Queen s Chamber Axonometric view of the Queen s Chamber The Horizontal Passage links the Grand Gallery to the Queen s Chamber Five pairs of holes at the start suggest the tunnel was once concealed with slabs that laid flush with the gallery floor The passage is 2 cubits 1 0 m 3 4 ft wide and 1 17 m 3 8 ft high for most of its length but near the chamber there is a step in the floor after which the passage increases to 1 68 m 5 5 ft high 79 Half of the west wall consists of two layers that have atypically continuous vertical joints Dormion suggests the entrances to magazines laid here and have been filled in 146 The Queen s Chamber is exactly halfway between the north and south faces of the pyramid It measures 10 cubits 5 2 m 17 2 ft north south 11 cubits 5 8 m 18 9 ft east west 147 and has a pointed roof that apexes at 12 cubits 6 3 m 20 6 ft tall 148 At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 9 cubits 4 7 m 15 5 ft high The original depth of the niche was 2 cubits 1 0 m 3 4 ft but it has since been deepened by treasure hunters Shafts were discovered in the north and south walls of the Queen s Chamber in 1872 by British engineer Waynman Dixon who believed shafts similar to those in the King s Chamber must also exist The shafts were not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid or the Queen s Chamber their purpose is unknown In one shaft Dixon discovered a ball of diorite a bronze hook of unknown purpose and a piece of cedar wood The first two objects are currently in the British Museum 149 The latter was lost until recently when it was found at the University of Aberdeen It has since been radiocarbon dated to 3341 3094 BC 150 The northern shaft s angle of ascent fluctuates and at one point turns 45 degrees to avoid the Great Gallery The southern shaft is perpendicular to the pyramid s slope 149 The shafts in the Queen s Chamber were explored in 1993 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot he designed Upuaut 2 After a climb of 65 m 213 ft 151 he discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by a limestone door with two eroded copper handles The National Geographic Society created a similar robot which in September 2002 drilled a small hole in the southern door only to find another stone slab behind it 152 The northern passage which was difficult to navigate because of its twists and turns was also found to be blocked by a slab 153 Research continued in 2011 with the Djedi Project which used a fibre optic micro snake camera that could see around corners With this they were able to penetrate the first door of the southern shaft through the hole drilled in 2002 and view all the sides of the small chamber behind it They discovered hieroglyphics written in red paint Egyptian mathematics researcher Luca Miatello stated that the markings read 121 the length of the shaft in cubits 154 The Djedi team were also able to scrutinize the inside of the two copper handles embedded in the door which they now believe to be for decorative purposes They additionally found the reverse side of the door to be finished and polished which suggests that it was not put there just to block the shaft from debris but rather for a more specific reason 155 Grand Gallery Grand Gallery with modern walkway up the middle The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage towards the King s Chamber extending from the 23rd to the 48th course a rise of 21 metres 69 ft It has been praised as a truly spectacular example of stonemasonry 156 It is 8 6 metres 28 ft high and 46 68 metres 153 1 ft long The base is 4 cubits 2 1 m 6 9 ft wide but after two courses at a height of 2 29 metres 7 5 ft the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 6 10 centimetres 2 4 3 9 in on each side 79 There are seven of these steps so at the top the Grand Gallery is only 2 cubits 1 0 m 3 4 ft wide It is roofed by slabs of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor so that each stone fits into a slot cut into 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 in order to prevent cumulative pressure 157 At the upper end of the Gallery on the eastern wall there is a hole near the roof that opens into a short tunnel by which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers The floor of the Grand Gallery has a shelf or step on either side 1 cubit 52 4 cm 20 6 in wide leaving a lower ramp 2 cubits 1 0 m 3 4 ft wide between them There are 56 slots on the shelves with 28 on each side On each wall 25 niches have been cut above the slots 158 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 159 Jean Pierre Houdin theorized that they held a timber frame that was used in combination with a trolley to pull the heavy granite blocks up the pyramid At the top of the gallery there is a step onto a small horizontal platform where a tunnel leads through the Antechamber once blocked by portcullis stones into the King s Chamber The Big Void In 2017 scientists from the ScanPyramids project discovered a large cavity above the Grand Gallery using muon radiography which they called the ScanPyramids Big Void Key was a research team under Morishima Kunihiro a professor at Nagoya University that used special nuclear emulsion detectors 160 161 Its length is at least 30 metres 98 ft and its cross section is similar to that of the Grand Gallery Its existence was confirmed by independent detection with three different technologies nuclear emulsion films scintillator hodoscopes and gas detectors 162 163 The purpose of the cavity is unknown and it is not accessible Zahi Hawass speculates it may have been a gap used in the construction of the Grand Gallery 164 but the Japanese research team state that the void is completely different from previously identified construction spaces 165 To verify and pinpoint the void a team from Kyushu University Tohoku University the University of Tokyo and the Chiba Institute of Technology planned to rescan the structure with a newly developed muon detector in 2020 166 Their work was delayed by the COVID 19 pandemic 167 Antechamber Diagram of the Antechamber The last line of defense against intrusion was a small chamber specially designed to house portcullis blocking stones called the Antechamber It is cased almost entirely in granite and is situated between the upper end of the Grand Gallery and the King s Chamber Three slots for portcullis stones line the east and west wall of the chamber Each of them is topped with a semi circular groove for a log around which ropes could be spanned The granite portcullis stones were approximately 1 cubit 52 4 cm 20 6 in thick and were lowered into position by the aforementioned ropes which were tied through a series of four holes at the top of the blocks A corresponding set of four vertical grooves are on the south wall of the chamber recesses that make space for the ropes The Antechamber has a design flaw the space above them can be accessed thus all but the last block can be circumvented This was exploited by looters who punched a hole through the ceiling of the tunnel behind gaining access to the King s Chamber Later on all three portcullis stones were broken and removed Fragments of these blocks can be found in various locations in the pyramid the Pit Shaft the Original Entrance the Grotto and the recess before the Subterranean Chamber 145 King s Chamber Axonometric view of the King s Chamber The King s Chamber is the upmost of the three main chambers of the pyramid It is faced entirely with granite and measures 20 cubits 10 5 m 34 4 ft east west by 10 cubits 5 2 m 17 2 ft north south Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits 5 8 m 19 0 ft above the floor formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2 5 5 cm 0 98 1 97 in 168 The walls consist of five courses of blocks that are uninscribed as was the norm for burial chambers of the 4th dynasty 169 The stones are precisely fitted together The facing surfaces are dressed to varying degrees with some displaying remains of bosses not entirely cut away 168 The back sides of the blocks were only roughly hewn to shape as was usual with Egyptian hard stone facade blocks presumably to save work 170 79 Sarcophagus Sarcophagus in the King s Chamber The only object in the King s Chamber is a sarcophagus made out of a single hollowed out granite block When it was rediscovered in the Early Middle Ages it was found broken open and any contents had already been removed It is of the form common for early Egyptian sarcophagi rectangular in shape with grooves to slide the now missing lid into place with three small holes for pegs to fixate it 171 172 The coffer was not perfectly smoothed displaying various tool marks matching those of copper saws and tubular hand drills 173 The internal dimensions are roughly 198 cm 6 50 ft by 68 cm 2 23 feet the external 228 cm 7 48 ft by 98 cm 3 22 ft with a height of 105 cm 3 44 ft The walls have a thickness of about 15 cm 0 49 ft The sarcophagus is too large to fit around the corner between the Ascending and Descending Passages which indicates that it must have been placed in the chamber before the roof was put in place 174 Air shafts In the north and south walls of the King s Chamber are two narrow shafts commonly known as air shafts They face each other and are located approximately 0 91 m 3 0 ft above the floor 2 5 m 8 2 ft from the eastern wall with a width of 18 and 21 cm 7 1 and 8 3 in and a height of 14 cm 5 5 in Both start out horizontally for the length of the granite blocks they go through before changing to an upwards direction 175 The southern shaft ascends at an angle of 45 with a slight curve westwards One ceiling stone was found to be distinctly unfinished which Gantenbrink called a Monday morning block The northern shaft changes angle several times shifting the path to the west perhaps to avoid the Big Void The builders had trouble calculating the right angles resulting in parts of the shaft being narrower Nowadays they both commute to the exterior If they originally penetrated the outer casing is unknown The purpose of these shafts is not clear They were long believed by Egyptologists to be shafts for ventilation but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king s spirit to the heavens 176 The idea that the shafts point towards stars or areas of the northern and southern skies has been largely dismissed as the northern shaft follows a dog leg course through the masonry and the southern shaft has a bend of approximately 20 centimetres 7 9 in indicating no intention to have them point to any celestial objects 177 In 1992 as part of the Upuaut project a ventilation system was installed in both air shafts of the King s Chamber 177 Relieving chambers Relieving Chambers above the King s Chamber Smyth 1877 Above the roof of the King s Chamber are five compartments named from lowest upwards Davison s Chamber Wellington s Chamber Nelson s Chamber Lady Arbuthnot s Chamber and Campbell s Chamber They were presumably intended to safeguard the King s Chamber from the possibility of the roof collapsing under the weight of stone above hence they are referred to as Relieving Chambers The granite blocks that divide the chambers have flat bottom sides but roughly shaped top sides giving all five chambers an irregular floor but a flat ceiling with the exception of the uppermost chamber which has a pointed limestone roof 178 Nathaniel Davison is credited with the discovery of the lowest of these chambers in 1763 although a French merchant named Maynard informed him of its existence 179 It can be reached through an ancient passage that originates from the top of the south wall of the Grand Gallery 178 The upper four chambers were discovered in 1837 by Howard Vyse after discovering a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber This allowed the insertion of a long reed which with the employment of gunpowder and boring rods forced a tunnel upwards through the masonry 180 As no access shafts existed for the upper four chambers unlike Davison s Chamber they were completely inaccessible until this point Numerous graffiti of red ochre paint were found to cover the limestone walls of all four newly discovered chambers Apart from leveling lines and indication marks for masons multiple hieroglyphic inscriptions spell out the names of work gangs Those names which were also found in other Egyptian pyramids like that of Menkaure and Sahure usually included the name of the pharaoh they were working for 181 12 The blocks must have received the inscriptions before the chambers became inaccessible during construction Their orientation often side ways or upside down and their sometimes being partially covered by blocks seems to indicate that the stones were inscribed before being laid 182 The inscriptions correctly deciphered only decades after discovery read as follows 12 The gang The Horus Mededuw is the purifier of the two lands Found once in relieving chamber 3 Mededuw being Khufu s Horus name The gang The Horus Mededuw is pure Found seven times in chamber 4 The gang Khufu excites love Found once in chamber 5 top chamber The gang The white crown of Khnumkhuwfuw is powerful Found once in chambers 2 and 3 ten times in chamber 4 and twice in chamber 5 Khnum Khufu being Khufu s full birth name Pyramid complexSee also Giza pyramid complex The Great Pyramid is surrounded by a complex of several buildings including small pyramids Temples and causeway Remains of the basalt floor of the temple at the east foot of the pyramidThe Pyramid Temple which stood on the east side of the pyramid and measured 52 2 metres 171 ft north to south and 40 metres 130 ft east to west has almost entirely disappeared Only some of the black basalt paving has remained There are only a few remnants of the causeway which linked the pyramid with the valley and the Valley Temple The Valley Temple is buried beneath the village of Nazlet el Samman basalt paving and limestone walls have been found but the site has not been excavated 183 184 East cemetery The tomb of Queen Hetepheres I sister wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu is located approximately 110 metres 360 ft east of the Great Pyramid 185 Discovered by accident by the Reisner expedition the burial was intact although the carefully sealed coffin proved to be empty Subsidiary pyramids On the southern end of the east side are four subsidiary pyramids The three that remain standing to almost full height are popularly known as the Queens Pyramids G1 a G1 b and G1 c The fourth smaller satellite pyramid G1 d was so ruined that its existence was not suspected until the first course of stones and later the remains of the capstone were discovered during excavations in 1991 93 186 Boats Restored Khufu ship displayed at the Giza Solar boat museum now relocated to the Grand Egyptian Museum Main articles Khufu ship and Solar barque Three boat shaped pits are located east of the pyramid They are large enough in size and shape to have held complete boats though so shallow that any superstructure if there ever was one must have been removed or disassembled Two additional boat pits long and rectangular in shape were found south of the pyramid still covered with slabs of stone weighing up to 15 tons The first of these was discovered in May 1954 by the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el Mallakh Inside were 1 224 pieces of wood the longest 23 metres 75 ft in length the shortest 10 centimetres 0 33 ft These were entrusted to a boat builder Haj Ahmed Yusuf who 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 cedar wood boat 43 6 metres 143 ft long its timbers held together by ropes which was originally housed in the Giza Solar boat museum a special boat shaped air conditioned museum beside the pyramid It is now in the Grand Egyptian Museum 187 188 During construction of this museum in the 1980s the second sealed boat pit was discovered It was left unopened until 2011 when excavation began on the boat 189 Pyramid town A notable construction flanking the Giza pyramid complex is a cyclopean stone wall the Wall of the Crow 190 Mark Lehner discovered a worker s town outside of the wall otherwise known as The Lost City dated by pottery styles seal impressions and stratigraphy to have been constructed and occupied sometime during the reigns of Khafre 2520 2494 BC and Menkaure 2490 2472 BC 191 192 In the early 21st century Lehner and his team made several discoveries including what appears to have been a thriving port suggesting the town and associated living quarters which consisted of barracks called galleries may not have been for the pyramid workers after all but rather for the soldiers and sailors who used the port In light of this new discovery as to where then the pyramid workers may have lived Lehner suggested the alternative possibility they may have camped on the ramps he believes were used to construct the pyramids or possibly at nearby quarries 193 In the early 1970s the Australian archaeologist Karl Kromer excavated a mound in the South Field of the plateau It was found to contain artefacts including mudbrick seals of Khufu which he identified with an artisans settlement 194 Mudbrick buildings just south of Khufu s Valley Temple contained mud sealings of Khufu and have been suggested to be a settlement serving the cult of Khufu after his death 195 A worker s cemetery used at least between Khufu s reign and the end of the Fifth Dynasty was discovered south of the Wall of the Crow by Hawass in 1990 196 LootingAuthors Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs claim that all the pyramids were robbed by the New Kingdom when the construction of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings began 197 198 Joyce Tyldesley states that the Great Pyramid itself is known to have been opened and emptied by the Middle Kingdom before the Arab caliph Al Ma mun entered the pyramid around 820 AD 130 I E S Edwards discusses Strabo s mention that the pyramid a little way up one side has a stone that may be taken out which being raised up there is a sloping passage to the foundations Edwards suggested that the pyramid was entered by robbers after the end of the Old Kingdom and sealed and then reopened more than once until Strabo s door was added He adds If this highly speculative surmise be correct it is also necessary to assume either that the existence of the door was forgotten or that the entrance was again blocked with facing stones in order to explain why al Ma mun could not find the entrance 199 Scholars such as Gaston Maspero and Flinders Petrie have noted that evidence for a similar door has been found at the Bent Pyramid of Dashur 200 201 Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC and recounts a story that he was told concerning vaults under the pyramid built on an island where the body of Khufu lies Edwards notes that the pyramid had almost certainly been opened and its contents plundered long before the time of Herodotus and that it might have been closed again during the Twenty sixth Dynasty of Egypt when other monuments were restored He suggests that the story told to Herodotus could have been the result of almost two centuries of telling and retelling by pyramid guides 44 See also Egypt portal Ancient Egypt portal History portal Architecture portalAncient Egypt in mathematics and architecture Index of Egypt related articles List of Egyptian pyramids List of largest monoliths including a section on calculating the weight of megaliths List of tallest freestanding structures PyramidologyNotes Also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops Arabic الهرم الأكبر Based on side lengths 230 252 m 230 454 m 230 391 m 230 357 m 91 References Verner 2001 p 189 Lehner 1997 p 108 a b c Tallet 2017 Lehner amp Hawass 2017 pp 143 530 531 a b Lehner Mark 2002 The Fabric of a Pyramid Ground Truth PDF Aeragram 5 2 4 5 Archived PDF from the original on 2 April 2016 a b Lehner 1997 p 207 Romer 2007 p 8 By themselves of course none of these modern labels define the ancient purposes of the architecture they describe Shaw 2003 p 89 Greaves 1752 p 612 Georges Goyon 1944 Les inscriptions et graffiti des voyageurs sur la grande pyramide This 4 500 Year Old Ramp Contraption May Have Been Used to Build Egypt s Great Pyramid Live Science 31 October 2018 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link a b c Reisner 1931 Mycerinus The Temples of the Third Pyramid at Giza pp 275 Plan XI XII Quack Joachim 2004 Von xwfw zu Cheops Transformationen eines Konigsnamens SOKAR 9 3 5 Janosi Peter 2005 Giza in der 4 Dynastie Die Baugeschichte und Belegung einer Nekropole des Alten Reiches Band I Die Mastabas der Kernfriedhofe und die Felsgraber Der Manuelian Peter Mastabas of Nucleus Cemetery G 2100 Giza Mastabas Vol 8 Janosi Peter 2002 Bemerkungen zur Entstehung Lage und Datierung der Nekropolenfelder von Giza unter Cheops SOKAR 4 4 9 Hassan 1960 Reisner 1942 sfn error no target CITEREFReisner1942 help Hassan 1960 p 3 Jenkins Nancy 1980 The Boat Beneath the Pyramid PDF p 50 ISBN 978 0030570612 Archived PDF from the original on 3 April 2014 Yoshimura Sakuji Kurokochi Hiromasa 2013 Research Report Brief Report of the Project of the Second Boat of King Khufu Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 5 1 85 89 a b Greaves 1752 pp 615 623 Gardner Wilkinson John 1835 Topographie of Thebes and general view of Egypt being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh with the Fyoom Oases and eastern desert from Sooez to Bertenice p 508 a b Lepsius Richard 1849 Die Chronologie der Agypter Berlin pp 220 301 Bunsen 1860 Egypt s Place in Universal History Vol 4 p 502 Mariette August 1892 Outlines of Ancient Egyptian History p 78 Ancient records of Egypt historical documents from the earliest times to the Persian conquest Chicago The University of Chicago Press etc etc 1906 p 40 Hassan 1960 p 49 a b O Mara Patrick 1997 Can the Giza Pyramids be Dated Astronomically IV Some Lunar Dates from the 4th and 5th Dynasties Discussions in Egyptology 38 63 82 Jurgen Beckarath 1997 Chronologie des pharaonischen Agypten Die Zeitbestimmung der agyptischen Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v Chr Arnold Dorothea When the Pyramids Were Built Egyptian Art of the Old Kingdom p 10 a b Spence Kate 2000 Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids Nature 408 6810 320 324 Bibcode 2000Natur 408 320S doi 10 1038 35042510 PMID 11099032 S2CID 4327498 Shaw Ian 2000 The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt Oxford University Press pp 479 483 ISBN 978 0192804587 Hornung Erik January 2006 Ancient Egyptian Chronology Handbook of Oriental Studies 83 a b Ramsey Christopher Bronk Dee Michael W Rowland Joanne M Higham Thomas F G Harris Stephen A Brock Fiona Quiles Anita Wild Eva M Marcus Ezra S Shortland Andrew J 2010 Radiocarbon Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt Science 328 5985 1554 1557 Bibcode 2010Sci 328 1554R doi 10 1126 science 1189395 PMID 20558717 S2CID 206526496 a b Hoflmayer Felix 2016 Radiocarbon Dating and Egyptian Chronology From the Curve of Knowns to Bayesian Modeling Radiocarbon Dating and Egyptian Chronology From the Curve of Knowns to Bayesian Modeling doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780199935413 013 64 ISBN 978 0 19 993541 3 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint url status link Bonani Georges Haas Herbert Hawass Zahi Lehner Mark Nakhla Shawki Nolan John Wenke Robert Wolfli Willy 1995 Radiocarbon Dates of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt Radiocarbon published 2016 43 3 1297 1320 doi 10 1017 S0033822200038558 S2CID 58893491 Reanalysis of the Chronological Discrepancies Obtained by the Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments Project Radiocarbon 51 2009 How old are the pyramids 10 September 2009 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Missing 5 000 year old piece of Great Pyramid puzzle discovered in cigar box in Aberdeen a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Quack Joachim 2004 Von xwfw zu Cheops Transformationen eines Konigsnamens SOKAR 9 3 5 Comparing the king lists of Manetho a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link a b Haase 2004a p 125 a b Edwards 1986 pp 990 991 a b Diodorus Siculus 1933 p 216 a b Herodotus The Histories 2 124 Herodotus The Histories 2 127 Hawass Zahi 2007 The Discovery of the Osiris Shaft at Giza The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt 1 390 kmtsesh 18 February 2012 The Osiris Shaft a Giza cenotaph Ancient Near East Just the Facts Retrieved 24 October 2019 Herodotus The Histories 2 125 Haase 2004a p 127 Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica 1 69 Shaw amp Bloxam 2021 p 1157 a b Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica 1 63 a b Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica 1 64 Burton 1972 p 189 Strabo Geographica 17 1 34 Petrie 1883 p 217 a b Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia 36 16 17 a b Pliny the Elder Naturalis Historia 36 17 Itinerarium Egeriae Y2 Peter the Deacon s citation ed R Weber CCSL 175 100 PL 173 1129D trans Wilkinson 1999 94 This passage is not found in the sole surviving manuscript which is only partially preserved but appears in a later work by Peter the Deacon that uses Egeria as a source see Wilkinson 1999 4 86 Wilkinson is confident this is the first text to mention what became the regular Christian explanation of the pyramids 94 n 4 cf Osborne 1986 115 Historia monachorum in Aegypto 18 3 ed Preuschen 1897 79 ed Festugiere 1971 115 trans Russell 1980 102 There is also a Latin version by Rufinus which includes additions and alterations appropriate to a man who had seen the places and people for himself and regarded the experience as the most treasured of his life Russell 1981 6 Rufinus seems a little less clear There is a tradition that these sites which they call the storehouses thesauros of Joseph are where Joseph is said to have stored up the grain Others say it is the Pyramids themselves in which it is thought that the grain was collected PL 21 440 ed Schulz Flugel 1990 350 Beazley 1897 73 says writing in 376 Nicolet 1991 96 has perhaps prior to A D 376 and Brill s New Pauly Leiden 2005 s v Iulius 6 1082 has 4th 5th cents Cosmographia 45 ed Riese 1878 51 2 4 B cf Osborne 1986 115 The quote appears only in version B of Riese s ed a revision from late antiquity and therefore may not derive from Julius Schironi 2009 pp 119 120 Cooperson 2010 p 165 Colavito 2015 pp 51 55 Vyse 1840b pp 321 330 Tompkins 1971 p 17 Ibn al Nadim 1970 p 846 Ibn al Nadim 1970 pp 846 847 Vyse 1840b pp 333 334 Riggs 2017 pp 37 38 El Daly 2005 pp 48 49 Al Maqrizi Al Khitat Chapter 40 The Pyramids Tompkins 1971 pp 21 27 a b Lehner 2017 p 214 sfn error no target CITEREFLehner2017 help Lehner 1997 p 109 a b c d e f g Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965b Lehner Mark 2016 In Search of the Human Hand that Built the Great Pyramid PDF Aeragram 17 20 23 Archived PDF from the original on 1 August 2019 Romer 2007 p 157 The Great Pyramid Quarry Ancient Egypt Research Associates 14 October 2009 Retrieved 21 March 2021 Stille Alexander The World s Oldest Papyrus and What It Can Tell Us About the Great Pyramids Archived from the original on 28 September 2015 Retrieved 27 September 2015 Lehner 1997 p 202 Lehner 1997 pp 39 224 Lehner Mark 2004 Of Gangs and Graffiti How Ancient Egyptians Organized their Labor Force PDF Aeragram 7 1 11 13 Burgos Franck Laroze Emmanuel 2020 L extraction des blocs en calcaire a l Ancien Empire Une experimentation au ouadi el Jarf PDF Ancient Egyptian Architecture 4 73 95 Archived PDF from the original on 27 June 2021 Smith Craig B June 1999 Project Management B C Civil Engineering Magazine Vol 69 no 6 Archived from the original on 8 June 2007 a b Petrie 1883 I E S Edwards 1986 1947 The Pyramids of Egypt p 285 Cole 1925 a b Petrie 1883 p 38 Lehner 1997 p 218 Verner 2003 p 70 Petrie 1940 p 30 Rossi 2007 p page needed Dash Glen 2012 New Angles on the Great Pyramid PDF Aeragram 13 2 10 19 Archived PDF from the original on 2 April 2016 Dash Glen 2014 Did Egyptians Use the Sun to Align the Pyramids PDF Aeragram 15 24 28 Archived PDF from the original on 2 April 2016 How the Pyramid Builders May Have Found Their True North Part II Extending the Line a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Spence Kate 2000 Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids Nature 408 6810 320 324 Bibcode 2000Natur 408 320S doi 10 1038 35042510 PMID 11099032 S2CID 4327498 Dash Glen 2015 Simultaneous Transit and Pyramid Alignments Were the Egyptians Errors in Their Stars or in Themselves PDF Glen Dash Foundation for Archaeological Research Archived from the original PDF on 27 March 2020 Building the Great Pyramid BBC 3 February 2006 Archived from the original on 5 February 2009 Retrieved 5 April 2009 Romer 2007 pp 327 329 337 Romer 2007 pp 164 165 British Museum Limestone block from the pyramid of Khufu britishmuseum org Archived from the original on 27 July 2014 Retrieved 30 June 2014 The History of Mathematics A Brief Course by Roger L Cooke 2nd Edition John Wiley amp Sons 2011 ISBN 9781118030240 pp 235 236 The Pyramid Builder s Handbook by Derek Hitchins Lulu 2010 ISBN 9781445751658 pp 83 84 Lehner 1997 pp 212 213 Petrie 1883 p vii Goyon Georges 1978 Les Rangs d Assises de la Grande Pyramide Dash Glen The Curious Case of the Great Pyramid s Alternating Course Heights An Unsolved Mystery PDF Aeragram 19 1 20 Archived PDF from the original on 24 November 2019 Lucas Alfred Ancient Egyptian Mortars Bonani Georges Haas Herbert Hawass Zahi Lehner Mark Nakhla Shawki Nolan John Wenke Robert Wolfli Willy 1995 Radiocarbon Dates of Old and Middle Kingdom Monuments in Egypt Radiocarbon 43 3 1297 1320 doi 10 1017 S0033822200038558 S2CID 58893491 Clarke amp Engelbach 1991 pp 78 79 Stocks 2003 pp 182 183 Dipayan Jana Evidence from detailed petrographic examinations of casing stones from the great pyramid of khufu a natural limestone from tura and a man made Geopolymeric limestone Petrie 1883 pp 43 44 Combined High Resolution Laser Scanning and Photogrammetrical Documentation of the Pyramids at Giza 2005 J P Lepre 1990 The Egyptian Pyramids A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference p 66 Monnier Franck 25 June 2022 The so called concave faces of the Great Pyramid Facts and cognitive bias Interdisciplinary Egyptology 1 1 1 19 Janosi Peter 1992 Das Pyramidion der Pyramide G III a Bemerkungen zu den Pyramidenspitzen des Alten Reiches Lehner Mark 2005 Labor and the Pyramids The Heit el Ghurab Workers Town at Giza International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economies 5 465 Dash Glen The Man Who Put the Mast Atop the Great Pyramid David Gill FRS 1843 1914 The Making of a Royal Astronomer PDF Preprint of article in Journal for the History of Astronomy 2018 Archived PDF from the original on 28 November 2021 Haase 2004b p 15 The Hieroglyphic Inscription Above the Great Pyramid s Entrance a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link ScanPyramids First conclusive findings with muography on Khufu Pyramid PDF Archived PDF from the original on 19 October 2016 ScanPyramids 2019 English Video Report 16 November 2019 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Tyldesley 2007 pp 38 40 a b Tyldesley 2007 p 38 Battutah 2002 p 18 Cooperson 2010 pp 170 175 Dormion 2004 p 284 Edgar amp Edgar 1910 p 141 Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 30 Perring 1839 p 3 Plate IX Vyse 1840b p 290 Perring 1839 Vyse 1840a pp 223 224 Petrie 1883 p 60 Edgar amp Edgar 1910 p 147 Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965 p 148 sfn error no target CITEREFMaragioglioRinaldi1965 help a b Dormion 2004 p 286 Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 114 115 a b Haase 2004b Dormion 2004 pp 119 124 Dormion 2004 p 259 Dormion 2004 p 154 a b Lower Northern Shaft The Upuaut Project Archived from the original on 29 July 2010 Retrieved 11 October 2010 Great Pyramid Lost Egyptian artefact found in Aberdeen cigar box BBC News 16 December 2020 Will the Great Pyramid s Secret Doors Be Opened Fox News 12 December 2011 Archived from the original on 12 February 2012 Gupton Nancy 4 April 2003 Ancient Egyptian Chambers Explored National Geographic Archived from the original on 3 August 2008 Retrieved 11 August 2008 Third Door Found in Great Pyramid National Geographic 23 September 2002 Archived from the original on 27 July 2008 Retrieved 11 August 2008 Lorenzi Rossella 7 June 2011 Mystery of pyramid hieroglyphs It all adds up NBC News Retrieved 1 July 2021 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint url status link First images from Great Pyramid s chamber of secrets New Scientist Reed Business Information 25 May 2011 Archived from the original on 6 January 2013 Retrieved 25 December 2012 Smith Craig B 2018 How the Great Pyramid Was Built Smithsonian Institution ISBN 9781588346261 Kingsland 1932 p 71 Lehner Mark 1998 Niches Slots Grooves and Stains Internal Frameworks in the Khufu Pyramid STATIONEN Beitrage zur Kulturgeschichte Agyptens 101 114 Lehner 1997 p 113 Physicists at Nagoya University discover a huge void in Giza s Great Pyramid by cosmic ray imaging Nagoya University 22 November 2017 Retrieved 5 August 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Research of Egyptian Pyramids with Cosmic ray Imaging Features 29 July 2022 Mysterious Void Discovered in Egypt s Great Pyramid 2 November 2017 Archived from the original on 27 July 2018 Retrieved 2 November 2017 Morishima Kunihiro Kuno Mitsuaki Nishio Akira Kitagawa Nobuko et al 2 November 2017 Discovery of a big void in Khufu s Pyramid by observation of cosmic ray muons Nature 552 7685 386 390 arXiv 1711 01576 Bibcode 2017Natur 552 386M doi 10 1038 nature24647 PMID 29160306 S2CID 4459597 Scientists discover hidden chamber in Egypt s Great Pyramid ABC News Archived from the original on 2 November 2017 Retrieved 2 November 2017 Critics Nothing special about big void found in Khufu Pyramid The Asahi Shimbun Archived from the original on 8 November 2017 Retrieved 8 November 2017 The Hidden Chamber at Giza to be re scanned and pinpointed Retrieved 15 January 2020 Hoare Callum 10 October 2020 Egypt breakthrough Great Pyramid tipped for major discovery in new hidden chamber scan The Express Retrieved 1 July 2021 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link a b Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 48 Kanawati 2005 Decoration of Burial Chambers Sarcophagi and Coffins in the Old Kingdom Lehner 1994 Notes and Photographs on the West Schoch Sphinx Hypothesis Petrie 1883 p 84 Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 50 Stocks 2003 Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 52 Dormion 2004 p 296 Jackson amp Stamp 2002 pp 79 104 a b Gantenbrink The Upuaut Project Archived from the original on August 2020 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint unfit URL link a b Maragioglio amp Rinaldi 1965a p 24 Vyse 1840b p 180 Vyse 1840a p 155 203pp How Ancient Egyptians Organized their Labor Force PDF pp 11 13 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link Perring 1839 Plates V VII Arnold 2005 pp 51 52 Arnold Strudwick amp Strudwick 2002 p 126 Callender 1990 Queen Hetepheres I p 26 Digital Giza The Satellite Pyramid of Khufu giza fas harvard edu Retrieved 24 March 2021 A team from the Grand Egyptian Museum succeeded in the first trial run conducted to test the vehicles that will be used in the transferring the first Khufu Solar Boat from its current location a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link In pictures Egypt pharaoh s solar boat moved to Giza museum BBC News 7 August 2021 Retrieved 7 August 2021 Khufu s Second Boat Institute of Egyptology Tokyo Waseda University Archived from the original on 11 November 2012 Retrieved 26 December 2012 Wall of the Crow The Lost City AERA Ancient Egypt Research Associates 14 October 2009 Archived from the original on 3 May 2019 Retrieved 13 August 2019 The Lost City of the Pyramids The Lost City AERA Ancient Egypt Research Associates Archived from the original on 13 November 2010 Retrieved 21 October 2010 Dating the Lost City The Lost City AERA Ancient Egypt Research Associates Archived from the original on 14 November 2010 Retrieved 21 October 2010 Ruins of Bustling Port Unearthed at Egypt s Giza Pyramids Livescience com 28 January 2014 Archived from the original on 3 October 2014 Retrieved 21 August 2014 Hawass Zahi 1999 Giza workmen s community In Kathryn A Bard ed 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chambre de Cheops Analyse architecturale ISBN 978 2213622293 Edgar John Edgar Morton 1910 The Great Pyramid Passages and Chambers Vol 1 Edwards I E S 1986 1962 The Pyramids of Egypt Max Parrish El Daly Okasha 2005 Egyptology The Missing Millennium Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings Psychology Press ISBN 978 1 84472 063 7 Retrieved 27 March 2021 Greaves John 1752 1646 Pyramidographia or a Description of the pyramids in Egypt Retrieved 7 April 2021 Haase Michael 2004a Eine Statte fur die Ewigkeit Der Pyramidenkomplex des Cheops aus baulicher architektonischer und kulturgeschichtlicher Sicht ISBN 3805331053 Haase Michael 2004b Der Serviceschacht der Cheops Pyramide Bemerkungen zur Konstruktion des Verbindungsschachtes zwischen Grosser Galerie und absteigendem Korridor Sokar 9 12 17 ISSN 1438 7956 Hassan Selim 1960 The Great Pyramid of Khufu and its Mortuary Chapel With Names and Titles of Vols I X of the Excavations at Giza Ministry of Culture and National Orientation Antiquities Department of Egypt Hawass Zahi Senussi Ashraf 2008 Old Kingdom Pottery from Giza Supreme Council of Antiquities ISBN 978 977 305 986 6 Ibn al Nadim 1970 The Fihrist of al Nadim a tenth century survey of muslim culture Bayard Dodge trans New York City Columbia University Press Jackson K Stamp J 2002 Pyramid Beyond Imagination Inside the Great Pyramid of Giza BBC Worldwide Ltd ISBN 978 0 563 48803 3 Kingsland William 1932 The Great pyramid in fact and in theory London Rider ISBN 978 0 7873 0497 3 Lawton Ian Ogilvie Herald Chris 2000 Giza The Truth the People Politics and History Behind the World s Most Famous Archaeological Site Virgin ISBN 978 0 7535 0412 3 Retrieved 27 March 2021 Lehner Mark 1997 The Complete Pyramids London Thames and Hudson ISBN 0 500 05084 8 Lehner Mark Hawass Zahi 2017 Giza and the Pyramids The Definitive History University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 42569 6 Maragioglio Vito Rinaldi Celeste 1965a L Architettura delle Piramidi Menfite 4 Le Grande Piramide di Cheope Text English Italian Tipografia Canessa Maragioglio Vito Rinaldi Celeste 1965b L Architettura delle Piramidi Menfite 4 Le Grande Piramide di Cheope Plates Tipografia Canessa Maspero Gaston 1903 Sayce A H ed History of Egypt Chaldea Syria Babylonia and Assyria Vol 2 Translated by McClure M L The Grolier Society Perring John Shae 1839 The pyramids of Gizeh from actual survey and admeasurement The great pyramid Vol 1 doi 10 11588 DIGLIT 3557 Petrie William Matthew Flinders 1883 The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh Field amp Tuer ISBN 0 7103 0709 8 Petrie William Matthew Flinders 1892 Ten Years Digging in Egypt 1881 1891 London Religious Tract Society Petrie William Matthew Flinders 1940 Wisdom of the Egyptians British school of archaeology in Egypt and B Quaritch Limited Pliny the Elder 1855 The Natural History Translated by Bostock John Riley H T London Taylor and Francis Retrieved 25 February 2021 Riggs Christina 2017 Egypt Lost Civilizations London Reaktion Books ISBN 978 1 78023 774 9 Romer John 2007 The Great Pyramid Ancient Egypt Revisited Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 87166 2 Rossi Corinna 2007 Architecture and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 69053 9 Schironi Francesca 2009 From Alexandria to Babylon Near Eastern Languages and Hellenistic Erudition in the Oxyrhynchus Glossary P Oxy 1802 4812 Berlin Walter de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 021540 3 Shaw Ian 2003 The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 815034 2 Shaw Ian Bloxam Elizabeth eds 2021 The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology Oxford UK Oxford University Press ISBN 9780199271870 Smith Philip 1873 A History of the Ancient World Vol 1 4 ed London John Murray Stocks Denys Allen 2003 Experiments in Egyptian archaeology stoneworking technology in ancient Egypt Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 30664 5 Tallet Pierre 2017 Les Papyrus de la Mer Rouge I Le Journal de Merer ISBN 978 2724707069 Tompkins Peter 1971 Secrets of the Great Pyramid New York City Harper amp Row Tyldesley Joyce 2007 Egypt How a lost civilization was rediscovered BBC Books ISBN 978 0 563 52257 7 Verner Miroslav 2001 The Pyramids The Mystery Culture and Science of Egypt s Great Monuments Grove Press ISBN 0 8021 1703 1 Verner Miroslav 2003 The Pyramids Their Archaeology and History Atlantic Books ISBN 1 84354 171 8 Vyse H 1840a Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 With an Account of a Voyage into Upper Egypt and an Appendix Vol I London J Fraser Retrieved 15 September 2014 Vyse H 1840b Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 With an Account of a Voyage into Upper Egypt and an Appendix Vol II London J Fraser Retrieved 26 February 2021 Further readingClayton Peter A 1994 Chronicle of the Pharaohs Thames amp Hudson ISBN 0 500 05074 0 Cooper Roscoe Cooper Vicki Teague Croll Carolyn Patch Diana Craig Tehon Atha 1997 The Great Pyramid An Interactive Book London British Museum Press Der Manuelian Peter 2017 Digital Giza Visualizing the Pyramids Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Hawass Zahi A 2006 Mountains of the Pharaohs The Untold Story of the Pyramid Builders Cairo American University in Cairo Press Hawass Zahi 2015 Magic of the Pyramids My adventures in Archeology Harmakis Edizioni ISBN 978 88 98301 33 1 Retrieved 27 March 2021 Levy Janey 2005 The Great Pyramid of Giza Measuring Length Area Volume and Angles Rosen Publishing Group ISBN 1 4042 6059 5 Lepre J P 1990 The Egyptian Pyramids A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference McFarland amp Company ISBN 0 89950 461 2 Lightbody David I 2008 Egyptian Tomb Architecture The Archaeological Facts of Pharaonic Circular Symbolism British Archaeological Reports International Series S1852 ISBN 978 1 4073 0339 0 Nell Erin Ruggles Clive 2014 The Orientations of the Giza Pyramids and Associated Structures Journal for the History of Astronomy 45 3 304 360 arXiv 1302 5622 Bibcode 2014JHA 45 304N doi 10 1177 0021828614533065 S2CID 119224474 Oakes Lorana Lucia Gahlin 2002 Ancient Egypt An Illustrated Reference to the Myths Religions Pyramids and Temples of the Land of the Pharaohs Hermes House ISBN 1 84309 429 0 Rossi Corinna Accomazzo Laura 2005 The Pyramids and the Sphinx English ed Cairo American University in Cairo Press Scarre Chris 1999 The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World Thames amp Hudson London ISBN 978 0 500 05096 5 Siliotti Alberto 1997 Guide to the pyramids of Egypt preface by Zahi Hawass Barnes amp Noble Books ISBN 0 7607 0763 4 External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Great Pyramid of Giza Pyramids at Curlie Building the Khufu Pyramid The Giza Plateau Mapping Project Oriental Institute Geographic data related to Great Pyramid of Giza at OpenStreetMapRecordsPreceded byRed Pyramid World s tallest structurec 2600 BC 1300 AD146 6 m Succeeded byLincoln Cathedral 1 Note The spire of Lincoln Cathedral versus other medieval cathedral spires is an item of debate amongst experts See List of tallest buildings and structures History and Lincoln Cathedral for more information Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Great Pyramid of Giza amp oldid 1132297409, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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