Monday, July 05, 2010

The Great Pyramids of Giza

(April 2010)
Keeping with the Egypt theme from my previous post. On the last day of our team's visit to Cairo, we visited the Great Pyramids of Giza and took a very informative tour. I learned a great deal about the pyramids from our guide and I would like to share the facts I learned regarding the pyramids in this post.

The Great Pyramids of Giza
The three pyramids represent the father King Khofu and his son and grandson Khafre and Menkaure. The pyramid of Khofu is the largest Egyptian pyramid and is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence.

-The three pyramids are set to resemble the stars in in the belt of the constellation Orion.

-The word 'pyramid' means, house of the eternal God.

-The pyramids were primarily built by farmers. For four months of the year, farm land was flooded, so the king at the time would hire farmers while their land was flooded to construct the pyramids. The farmers would bring their families with them for the four months that they worked on the pyramids.

-The pyramid of King Khofu has 2.5 million bricks weighing from 15,000 tons (30,000 pounds) at the base of the pyramid to 2,000 tons (4,000 pounds) at the top. 

-The bricks were cut from limestone. Farmers would cut the limestone, engrave a serial number on each brick so that the pieces fit like a jigsaw puzzle, then after cutting the limestone and placing a serial number on them, would float them down the Nile River. The Nile used to flow close to the desert up until 100 years ago. 

-Speaking of the desert, the word "Sahara" means desert in Arabic.

-The pyramids were built with ramps inside to haul the bricks.

-Up until 4 years ago, the expansion of the the city (Cairo) to the pyramids began to cease.

-I pride myself on being  a lifetime learner and this visit to the pyramids assisted in this endeavor. I had a great time at the pyramids and it is always cool to be able to combine a unique once in a lifetime experience with the acquisition of knowledge.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've never been... Sounds great, thanks for sharing...D