The Great Pyramid Of Giza

Posted On November 20, 2009 




The Great Pyramid of Giza is popularly known as the Pyramid of King Khufu’ and Pyramid of Cheops. It is known to be the largest and the oldest of all the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis which is now El Giza, Egypt. Among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World this one is the only one which is till date surviving. The Great Pyramid of Giza is believed to be constructed as a tomb for the Egyptian Pharoah Khufu. The great pyramid had the honor of being the tallest man-made structure in the whole world for nearly 3,800 years. The construction was completed in 2540 BC and required near about 20 years to complete the construction.

Initially the great pyramid has a smooth outer surface due the cover of the casing stones, what we see today is the undercover structure. You can even see the covering casing stones near the base of the pyramid. The construction theories of the Great pyramids were always under the scientific scanners. Inside the pyramid there are nearly three chambers. The lowest chamber is in the lower side of the pyramid and was left unfinished. The other two chambers namely the Queen’s chamber and King’s chamber are located quite higher in the pyramid.

Great Pyramid of Giza

The number of the limestone blocks required to c0nstruct the great Pyramid was nearly about 2.3 million. The nearby quarry used to provide the majority of the lime stones blocks to the Egyptians. The casing stone which is commonly known as Tufa limestone was transported with the help of nearby following river. In the Kings’ chamber you will come across the largest granite stones which were used in the construction of the pyramid. The weight of the largest granite stone was around 25 to 80 tones. These stones were brought from Aswan which was located at a distance of nearly 500 miles

Even though the other pyramids were smaller the constructions of the pyramid continued till the end of middle kingdom. The authors like Briar and Hobbs stated that the pyramids were robbed by the New Kingdom when the construction of the royal tomb was going on in the desert valley which is now commonly known as the Valley of the Kings. Another author stated that the great pyramid was opened and emptied by the Middle Kingdom around 820 AD after that the Arab Caliph Abdullah Al Manum was looking after the pyramid.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Today if a tourist wants to enter the the Great Pyramid of Giza he is supposed to go inside the tunnel which was forcefully dug around 820 AD by the Caliph Al-Ma’mum and his men. The tunnel is around 30 meters long. While walked a little further it gets connected with the descending passage which was earlier found to be blocked by numerous big granite stones. As the workmen were not able to remove the stones they discovered the ascending passage and this way they reached to the grand gallery, and later they got to the chambers and found them very much empty. The original entrance is easily seen today which is located just a little above the forcefully dug entry.

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