The Great Pyramid of Giza

menaip2

Khufu, son of Snefru and second ruler of the 4th dynasty moved the royal necropolis to Giza, north of modern-day Cairo. According to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Khufu aka Cheops enslaved his people to build his pyramid. But archaeologists have since disproved his account.

The Great Pyramid of Giza which also called as the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. This trusted that the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh, Khufu. It was constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years.

One hundred thousand people worked on it for three months of each year. This was the time of the Nile's annual flood which made it impossible to farm the land and most of the population was unemployed. He provided good food and clothing for his workers and was kindly remembered in folk tales for many centuries. There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was unfinished. The so-called Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber are higher up within the pyramid structure.

A total of over 2,300,000 blocks of limestone and granite were used in its construction with the average block weighing 2.5 tons and none weighing less than 2 tons. The large blocks used in the ceiling of the King's Chamber weigh as much as 9 tons.

From the main entrance of the Pyramid there is a long narrow corridor with low roof that descends for more than 100m, which takes to a chamber, located about 24m below ground level, which is an unfinished burial chamber with very little fresh air inside, and is inaccessible today. Almost 20m from that descending corridor there is another corridor connected to it, which takes up into the heart of the Pyramid. This ascending corridor ends up at one the great parts of the Great Pyramid, the “Grand Gallery”. It is a large, long, rectangular hall, which is 49m long, and 15m high, with a long tunnel, at the bottom, that takes you the 2nd chamber, which is famously known as the “Queens Chamber”.

When ascend to the “Grand Gallery”, an entrance to the 3rd chamber, which was the real burial chamber of King Khufu, and this is where will find his stone sarcophagus, which was made out of one block of granite.

All that remains of the Mortuary temple of Khufu are the remnants of the floor which was paved with black basalt. The floor plan is much larger than the chapels associated with the Pyramid at Meidum and the Bent Pyramid. The temple is very different from Mortuary temples that preceded it or followed it

Where exactly the Khufu have been buried? No tomb has yet been found at Giza which could have been his. At one time the idea was circulated (it is in Edgar's Great Pyramid) that the tomb near to the Sphinx, called 'Campbell's Tomb', had been that of Khufu; but this tomb is now known to be of a very much later date. there was a problem connected with Khufu's place of burial was known in later Egyptian times, when the fact that the Great Pyramid was his work must have still been well known; and the question was then put into writing as to who knew the places of burial of Im-hetep, Seneferu and Khufu, as though it were an oft-repeated query.