The Great Pyramid of Giza

"We're talking about a society where they didn't have cameras,  You didn't see great images. And so here are these stupendous, gigantic things thrusted up to the sky, polished white limestone, blazing in the sunshine. and there's Khufu, the biggest thing on the planet actually in the way of a building until the turn of the century -- our century. And you see, for the first time in your life, not a few hundred, but thousands...of workers and people and industries of all kinds."           - Mark Lehner

One of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World
Since the earliest of times the "Great Pyramid" of Giza (Arab. Al Jizah ) along with its 2 other main pyramids have been considered one of the wonders of the world. The Great Pyramid is still among the world's largest structures, standing almost as tall as a 50 story skyscraper. The 3 main pyramids were built as tombs for 3 Egyptian Pharaohs who were considered to be gods on earth. The first and largest pyramid, known as the Great Pyramid was a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), who ruled the 4th dynasty around 2575 BC, which would have been centuries before Abraham, the first Hebrew. But the real marvel of this Great Pyramid was its massive size.

Click here to see a 3D image of the great Pyramid.

Size and Description
The true pyramid exists only in Egypt, though the term has also been applied to similar structures in other countries. The Great Pyramid stands 480 feet tall with a base of 750 feet in each direction forming a square at the bottom. The pyramid contains around 2,300,000 individual blocks of stones each weighing over 2.5 tons on the average, with some weighing over 16 tons and the granite roof slabs of Khufu's burial chamber weigh over 50 tons. The stones form a giant staircase with each step being waist high. The foundation below the pyramid is solid rock. Today the city of Cairo is extended out very close to the pyramids but in ancient times it stood out in the desert. Originally the stones were incased in brilliant white polished limestone which gave it a glittering appearance so much so that one Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus who lived during the 1st century BC said:

"The Pyramids...by the immensity of the work and the skill of their construction strike those who see them with wonder and awe."

A Masterpiece of Engineering
Khufu is perhaps the greatest single building ever erected by mankind. Its sides rise at an angle of 51°52' and are accurately oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass. The Great Pyramid is a masterpiece of technical skill and engineering ability.   The geometric precision of its layout and the accuracy of its stonecutting are truly amazing, especially when you consider the colossal proportions of its massive size and the weight of the blocks used in it. The internal walls as well as the outer-casing stones that still remain in place, some of which weigh as much as 16 tons, show finer joints than any other masonry constructed in possibly the whole world. The casing stones which were custom cut and set, one to another, with so much accuracy that you can't get a knife blade in between the joints is truly amazing.

Who Built the Pyramids and How Was It Built?
The question of who built the pyramids, and how, has long been debated by Egyptologists and historians and there is really no completely satisfactory answer. According to the earliest known historian of the Egyptian Pyramid Age, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th cent. BC), the Great Pyramid took 20 years to construct and demanded the labor of 100,000 men, yet it is hard to believe that any of these enormous monuments could have been built in one pharaoh's lifetime. Even the ancient Herodotus was still 2200 years after the actual building of the pyramids.

What Archaeologists Have Found
Archaeologists have been trying to solve the puzzle of where the possibly 100,000 laborers who built the pyramids lived. Once they find the workers' living area, they can learn more about the workforce, their daily lives, and perhaps where they came from. Thus the settlement of the camps have been discovered, Bakeries have been found to feed the workers, as well as cemetaries, tools, hieroglyphical inscriptions, names of the craftsmen, overseers, inspectors, 25 unique new titles, and more. They even found 600 skeletons of Egyptians, some of which had emergency medical treatment having been injured while working on the pyramid. There is also evidence that these workers worked all year round, seeing that, according to their beliefs, they were assured a certain place in the afterlife. Their hard labor for their king and Pharaoh would also benefit the future and prosperity of Egypt as a whole.

According to MARK LEHNER, Archaeologist, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and Harvard Semitic Museum,

"Everything I saw (at Giza) told me, day by day, year by year, that they were very human and the marks of humanity are everywhere on them....my respect increases for those people and that society, that they could do it...it's a very impressive job, extraordinary for the people who lived then and there, but it could be done. They are human monuments."

They hauled these blocks with oxen and gangs of men with various group names like: "boat Gang," Vigourous Gang," "North Gang," Friends of Khufu Gang," "Powerful Gang," etc. We know this because these names are still marked on some of the blocks. None of these names indicate that they were slaves but rather were devoted laborors for Khufu, who they believed to be god on earth. There is also evidence that these laborors also owed a labor tax, yet they rotated from in and out of the labor force. So it seems that the builders were Egyptians as stated by ZAHI HAWASS, Director General of Giza:

"There is support (that) the builders of the pyramids were Egyptians. They are not the Jews as has been said, they are not people from a lost civilization. They are not out of space. They are Egyptian and their skeletons are here, and were examined by scholars, doctors and the race of all the people we found are completely supporting that they are Egyptians."

The Tools
It is interesting that the wheel wasn't invented for a few centuries later yet with primitive tools the Egyptians had to quarry and cut to size the massive blocks of rock. Only 2 alloys were known to the Egyptians during this time, gold and copper. Since gold was too soft they used copper tools, such as a saw, chisel, and drill, (sharpened by the many metalworkers) with strong handles of wood, and others. Here are some of the tools that have been discovered:

Copper Chisels. Since gold was the only other available metal they chose the stronger copper for their tool-making. They pounded with granite dolerite rock balls and wooden mallets into granite to split the bedrock.

Copper Saws. These were used to cut the soft stone blocks. They also sawed into large wooden posts that were used to lever the blocks into place.

Adze with a Copper Blade. They used this as a plane and to smooth the objects and shape them to the correct finish.

Copper Drills. These were spun by twine attached to a cross-piece that was moved back and forth like a bow. They were also used to make furniture and other tools.

Where Did They Get The Stones?
HAWASS states that:

"All the stones have been taken from the plateau, except the casing stones that came from Tura, and the granite in the burial chamber that came from Aswan."

They quarried the blocks (mostly limestone) and dressed them to size. The fine white limestone came from Tura, about 8 miles away on the other side of the Nile. The granite came from quarries at Aswan, around 600 miles upstream. In some of these sites there are clear marks left in the rock. They used the copper chisels, hardened and tempered by heat and quenching, to cut their way down into the limestone, gradually separating block after block from the rock face. Limestone is a sedimentary rock that will split along its layers, while granite, being an igneous rock had to be heated by fire with a sudden pouring of cold water which would cause the imperfections to split off leaving the best quality granite underneath.

Levelling the Site. They had no levels like we have today and knowing that water finds its own level they would run a channel around the hill filled with water, and then dug many more channels back and forth and then filling them with rocks and sand. 

How Was it Raised?
The most plausible answer is that the Egyptians, who lacked tackle and pulleys for lifting heavy weights, employed a sloping embankment of brick, earth, and sand, which was increased in height and in length as the pyramid rose and up which the stone blocks were hauled by means of sledges, rollers, and levers. They could have used one ramp or 4 (one for each corner).

Facing North, South, East, and West.
They were very particular about the direction the pyramid would be facing. The Egyptian astonomers had incredible skill lining up the sides of the pyramids on a particular star which causes the sides to face almost exactly north, south, east, and west. Since the Egyptians were known for their ability in mathematics, they were familiar with triangles and that a triangle with sides of 3, 4, and 5 units would autimatically yield a right angle and using squares similar to what builders and masons use today making sure that the corners were perfectly square. The work of the surveyors was so brilliant that the sides of the Great Pyramid are not more than 7 inches different in length out of 750 feet. A masterpiece in engineering. The study of the burial chamber and how the Pharaoh was entombed will have to come later.

There is little doubt that many of the characters mentioned in the Bible had seen the Great Pyramid at Giza at some time or another.

Written by Rusty Russell (Bible History Online)

Webmaster: rusty@bible-history.com

http://www.bible-history.com